Sometimes I think about the fact that I’ve been taking wave pictures, primarily here on Block Island, for more than 10 years. I go out a lot and on any given day I’ll take somewhere between 400 and 1000 pictures. I go out when ever I am able. That’s a lot of wave pictures.
I ask myself whether I will get sick of them, or whether it would be more fun to take pictures in Hawaii for example, or in the Bahamas. I’m certainly up for that, but I want to tell you what it’s like, time after time. Here, in this place. I go out and it's hot or cold or in between. The waves are enormous with an impact so deep and powerful I feel it in the ground and against my whole body. Or not. They are blowing back. Or not. They are coming in orderly rolls, or thrashing around like soapy water in a washing machine. Their color is grey or black or green or blue or purple or silver or red or golden. The wind is blasting with sand or it’s lightly brushing my skin and bringing the scent of roses. Their crests are like soft cotton or they are carrying diamonds.
I would say that even after all the years, there are times when I get to see waves like I’ve never, ever seen them before. But that’s not the most important thing… I mean, that’s pretty interesting but that’s not the reason I love them.
I know there have been a lot of changes lately. A lot of us have lost things that we dearly love. I have come to feel that when that happens, when we lose something big, we actually have to disintegrate inside for a little while. It’s as if we have to reshape our lives, make our lives over again. I think that grieving is physical. It’s a time for resting, and for going down as deep as you can and knowing what you love. You know, it’s like that butterfly thing… the caterpillar actually liquefies inside. All its organs turn into mush in order to reorganize.
I think that loss is part of what makes us beautiful and wonderful, makes us true human beings. It takes time, but I think that life is built for that, we are built for that, and healing forces come. Sometimes it helps me to be transparent, I mean, to just let the energies of life keep moving in me, as unobstructedly as possible. Like water. Like waves in the water.
There is nothing better for me than to see the ocean crashing around, or more to feel it - to let that power and energy get a hold of my body. It comes to me, it blows right into me and through me. It gives me something I need.
These are some good waves taken at the end of October, just after a storm passed by.