With the sound of the sea hard on my heels

[sovay]

I dreamed last night of a sad, shy man with an elephant's head—less Ganesha than Joseph Merrick literalized—and an off-duty waiter who argued with me that I couldn't claim to like or dislike Chinese poetry until I'd read it in the original. When I fell back asleep, I dreamed about watching a version of "The Little Mermaid" set in a hydrothermal field, black smokers and whale falls and Pompeii worms, all mysteriously animated by Disney. Then I dreamed I had a fever, which was also the case when I woke up; I have had a very unpleasant cold since Tuesday, but I have nothing interesting to say about it. Have some photographs from Monday in Maine instead.



We did not have the worst directions in the history of Google, but we couldn't help noticing that following their slightly contradictory advice on exiting the Maine Turnpike took us to downtown Portland rather than Cape Elizabeth. Fortunately, the view from Commercial Street was lovely.




This was intended to be a photograph of fleurdelis28 in profile, but she moved. I had this problem with waves, too.


The stairs that lead up from the parking lot at Two Lights to the sea.




And the sea the stairs lead to.




I am beginning to suspect that I need a better camera for these trips than my mother's borrowed digital antiquity, but I tried to catch, anyway, what I love about the clustering of mussels and barnacles and seaweed: the sea takes over whatever it can touch.




fleurdelis28 and the Kittery Formation. She looks very much like the gulls that watched us from the rocks as we climbed, white and black and sentinel-eyed.








Somewhere in my head, all coastlines look like this.




And if you want to know why I imprinted like a ton of bricks on the Flying Dutchman . . .




I love the clouds that build up over the water. No one's painted them properly in at least a hundred years.


The stairs that lead down into the sea.




My mother looked over my shoulder as I was uploading this picture. "And that's," she said, "what Andersen's mermaids turn into."

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

<3 I love your concluding line.

And the waves-in-stone patterns on the stairs into the sea, and the mossy gentleness of the stairs to the sky.

And is there a name for those black sentinels, those things that look like railroad ties upended, standing in the water like transformed waders?

[sovay]

And the waves-in-stone patterns on the stairs into the sea, and the mossy gentleness of the stairs to the sky.

I suspect that fisherangels climb them both. Not Jacob's, but Jonah's ladder.

And is there a name for those black sentinels, those things that look like railroad ties upended, standing in the water like transformed waders?

I think they were the piers of a dock that is no longer there, but they looked to me first like the masts of drowned ships.

[genarti]

Oh, these are lovely.

To me, too, the seashore is always rocky.

[sovay]

Oh, these are lovely.

Thank you! In the interests of full disclosure, the late clouds with the jet contrail was taken by fleurdelis28; she had the camera, because I was out on the sea-stair rocks.

To me, too, the seashore is always rocky.

Did you grow up near the sea?

[genarti]

Not at all; I grew up in southern Ohio and then in Vermont, both land-locked as far as oceans go. And my childhood vacations were primarily to upstate New York. Lots of lakes, but no oceans.

But I did oceanography camp one summer in Maine one year, and that's the ocean ecosystem I know best. I suspect the real reason, though, is that I'm a mountain girl at heart; I love seeing the bones of the land. All green and growing, covered in moss and trees and age, but with granite just below. Sandy beaches look too soft to me, artificially picture-pretty, even though those ecosystems are fascinating in their own ways. Rocky coasts are where sea meets land and entangles.

[sovay]

But I did oceanography camp one summer in Maine one year

Okay; that is very cool.

Rocky coasts are where sea meets land and entangles.

Yes. And Two Lights is full of their bones.

(I do not know if your icon is referencing the song by Carbon Leaf, but even if it's not, I approve.)

[genarti]

Okay; that is very cool.

I loved it! This was back when I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist, before I realized that that entailed a lot more plankton counts and chemical analyses instead of just being a career where I could talk to dolphins all day. I've learned that I adore science on a layman level, but I don't have the right kind of brain to do it on the day-to-day level of scientists.

But I still loved those two weeks of oceanography, just as the following summer I loved spending two weeks in the Shendandoah woods helping to survey trees and small mammals and such. I'm quite content to be a dabbler.

(And the icon is, in fact, referencing the song. You get bonus points for knowing it! I do like Carbon Leaf.)

[sovay]

But I still loved those two weeks of oceanography, just as the following summer I loved spending two weeks in the Shendandoah woods helping to survey trees and small mammals and such. I'm quite content to be a dabbler.

Hey, all hail the original sense of amateur. You did awesome things with your summers.

You get bonus points for knowing it! I do like Carbon Leaf.

Yay!

[seajules]

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I have only seen the Atlantic from Chesapeake Bay south; your posts on it give me a new face.

[sovay]

I have only seen the Atlantic from Chesapeake Bay south; your posts on it give me a new face.

This is the one I grew up with. You should come out and meet it sometime.

[seajules]

We shall have to do a sea exchange at some point, where I come to meet yours and you come to meet mine, and then we choose a third to meet for the first time together.

[sovay]

We shall have to do a sea exchange at some point, where I come to meet yours and you come to meet mine, and then we choose a third to meet for the first time together.

I think that sounds like a very excellent idea.

[zdenka]

Beautiful pictures. I can almost smell the salt. Argh, I want to go to the ocean right now.

[sovay]

Argh, I want to go to the ocean right now.

I'm sorry!

[zdenka]

Well, maybe I can make an expedition to the Aquarium one of these days. It's not quite the ocean, but it is on the Harbor.

[eredien]

Are you coming to the whale watch?

[zdenka]

*flails* There's a sorta awkward situation where another friend has scheduled her baby shower/beach party for the same day, and so I've been dithering and haven't replied to either, because I don't like to turn down either invitation. Sorry for the lameness.

Somehow, the idea of going out to look for whales doesn't really interest me, but being on the ocean and hanging out with friends does. *dithers some more* I should go read the event description again. You needed to know by tomorrow, right?

[eredien]

Oops, I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

It would be good to know if you are definitely going by today, because then I can see if we have enough definite yeses to get discount group tickets or not.

If you want to think some more and then be willing to pay full price tickets if you decide to come at the last minute I think that would be do-able too, just not as cheap.

[sovay]

It would be good to know if you are definitely going by today, because then I can see if we have enough definite yeses to get discount group tickets or not.

Being someone with absolutely no money at all, I am very much in favor of discount group tickets.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

the hydrothermal Little Mermaid sounds intriguing.

the pier pylons remind me of the temple columns that rise and fall in the Bay of Naples due to the thermic conditions (and all that desciptive geology stuff about volcanoes and water making land rise and subside)

[sovay]

the hydrothermal Little Mermaid sounds intriguing.

Please, feel free to steal!

the pier pylons remind me of the temple columns that rise and fall in the Bay of Naples due to the thermic conditions

I have been to Naples twice, but I don't think I have ever seen those. I will have to. Thank you.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I was in Naples for 2 years, I lived in Arco Felice, near where the Sybil of Cuma was, I drove over the roman road to get to work (well, to get to the A2), plus by Sophia Lorens childhood home... earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, it was all in passing there...

[eredien]

You should also come to the whale watch. And go see the new Miyazaki movie, "Ponyo," which is about the ocean.

[sovay]

You should also come to the whale watch.

You should have gotten my RSVP—I'd love to.

And go see the new Miyazaki movie, "Ponyo," which is about the ocean.

Cool!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Snap!

[sovay]

Snap!

Beautiful!

[alankria.livejournal.com]

NOMS.

I need to mail you some of my photos from Peaks Island, ME. Big vein of quartz through rocks, a beach covered in blue mussel-shells...

[sovay]

I need to mail you some of my photos from Peaks Island, ME. Big vein of quartz through rocks, a beach covered in blue mussel-shells...

Please!

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

So beautiful. The shore reminds me so much of where we go on Lake Superior--great slabs of rock, crashing waves. My idea, too, of all coastlines.

I can see where much of your writing comes from :)

[sovay]

The shore reminds me so much of where we go on Lake Superior--great slabs of rock, crashing waves.

Neat. I've never spent much time with lakes. There's a reservoir behind my parents' house, but that's about it.

I can see where much of your writing comes from

Yeah . . .

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Lake Superior is a massive lake and one of the deepest in the world. There are more shipwrecks on Superior than in the oceans. It's wild. It really looks amazingly like your photos, except the slabs of rock are more russet and you won't find all your wonderful salt-crusted sea creatures there--what you find are multi-colored, polished rocks, beaches filled with jewels. And the smell of oceans is different from lakes. Well ... there'd be a lot of differences when you look closely :)

[sovay]

There are more shipwrecks on Superior than in the oceans.

Whoa.

what you find are multi-colored, polished rocks, beaches filled with jewels.

Do you have photographs?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Lovely, lovely photographs. Thank you for sharing them.

I am beginning to suspect that I need a better camera for these trips than my mother's borrowed digital antiquity, but I tried to catch, anyway, what I love about the clustering of mussels and barnacles and seaweed: the sea takes over whatever it can touch.

I don't know if you've caught what you love in quite the way you see it, in quite the way you'd wish to catch it, but you've certainly caught something lovely here. You're doing an excellent job with that borrowed digital antiquity.

I love the effect of the wharf pilings* standing in the water, like the bones of a previous age. (Which, I suppose, is pretty much what they are.)

*I hope that's the right word, or at least an acceptable one, to call them by, here in the northeast.

[sovay]

Lovely, lovely photographs. Thank you for sharing them.

You're welcome.

I hope that's the right word, or at least an acceptable one, to call them by, here in the northeast.

Dunno. My technical vocabulary of harborsides is not what it should be.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I hope that's the right word, or at least an acceptable one, to call them by, here in the northeast.

I THINK that's right: at least, that's what I always thought Pilings referred to.

[wakanomori.livejournal.com]

Lovely pics indeed, and I especially liked the stairs leading out of the car park. Who could resist them? It's as though they just grew out of the graciousness of the land there.

[sovay]

Who could resist them? It's as though they just grew out of the graciousness of the land there.

That's a beautiful way of putting it.