That smell.
That salty, fishy, sweet smell.
The smell that makes me think of home—but not my house Minnesota or California. A home I have never lived in but where my heart resides and somehow, I know it well.
The smell that takes me back to dolphin songs in the morning and crab catching at night.
It's the smell of the salty sea-gull air. The purest smell of the sea.
Not the smell of rusted docks, washed up lobster or beached fly-infested sea-weed.
The smell of the ever-moving tides, washed up shells and coral infested with life—just that.
The smell of the ocean and just that. There is no smell better in my opinion.
They say that if you live by the sea and can walk on the beach once a day, there's no need for a pedicure. The sand exfoliates your feet.
Though that's all well and good, it's not why I love it.
They say the salt-water opens your pores and cleans your face.
That's not why I love it either.
It is the only world where humans do not dominate. It is a world that man not only doesn't fully understand, but a world he never could. Though we may have polluted it and caused harm to its wildlife, we have only damaged the surface, while underneath, nature thrives beyond our wildest imaginations. We cannot stop it, and we cannot change it—it's the closest thing to a pure form of a world that we have.
That is why I love it.
It's the closest thing to unending, immortal, and invisible that we have.
It's the closest thing to magic.
It's the closest thing to God.
My love for the ocean runs through every fathom of its depths and through every twist and turn of my veins.
It runs through every gill of every creature of every reef.
It lulls us to sleep. To take us to another world we could never fully understand—our dreams.
I would be perfectly happy to sit here, in my Honda Civic, looking over the vast blue and green waters before me for the rest of my life.
If I could major in hanging on every lip of a wave, every crash of the surf, I would.
But I can't.
So I became a journalist.
A journalist can write and learn about anything, every day.
We can bask in the wonders of this world, as well as share our adventures and experiences with others. We write of swimming with dolphins, traveling the world, and sharing discoveries of new depths in both sea and sky, of both plants and planets.
We are adventurers, recorders, and storytellers. We indulge in the beauties around us and never blink, out of fear that a moment may slip by.
The ocean has challenged my sense of wonder and has seeped into every area of my life. It inspires me to search, to keep going when the world gets tough and to keep writing when my mind draws a blank or is flooded with "too much" knowledge. It keeps me close to God when I feel so far away.
It's a love story really, the sea and I.
It's a love story, the King and I.
That smell.
That smell takes me home—to the ocean. To the sea. To heaven. And back to my pen.
