Yesterday morning I woke up before dawn and took a sort of dip into the Mediterranean. The waves of night were had fury in them. Though not large compared to the destructive waves of the the deeper sea or the ocean, they pulled and sucked at the stones, the air and themselves with a persistent intention. The water kneaded itself into angry little curls, crashing and spraying several meters into the air. The sky and the sea were different shades of black and grey that blended at an invisible horizon creating the appearance of an endless darkness; the earth was flat and I was looking into nothing.
But there is no malice or anger in the sea. Its power simply overwhelms a tiny body, taking away any significance I give myself, making me want to crumble before such strength and incomprehensible size. I want it to swallow me whole, and in a stupor like a kind of vertigo I can only shake in the cold.
This was not what I expected of the azure coast. In the daylight, never had I seen bluer water and the sea stretched out calmly in my view until it met the horizon, the sun sparkling on the still surface all the way. Children bounced around naked on pebbly beaches. Setting out the morning I expected a semi-tranquil pool, somehow blue in the dark. I expected I could walk on the stones without great pain to my feet.
I took pictures. Karolina got all the way in and tossed around a bit. The waves moved up on the beach every minute we were there. Of the two weeks I spent in Southern France, this event was most important. It made an impression on me much stronger than any of the artistic man made works I had seen during that time. Men continue to try to capture the beauty and power of the forces of nature in their own creations, to imitate it, to mimic it, to invoke it. Men can do no justice to their inspirations. We have never succeeded.
