“True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.”
So a noble one once spoke, in literature that were, itself, a fantasy. Speaking of the balmy breeze not of love, but of that passing infatuation, the fantasy unattainable, which eventually shifts and departs. It is so with many hearts in the world; that infatuation not immediately satisfied turns like water at the bend in the river, flowing in whichever direction grants easiest passage.
The kenning is that the deeper waters ‘neath fickle surface are rare not for lack of being, but for lack of finding. Much of the world, it seems, floats upon the bubbly, burbling caps and neither knows nor cares for the strength and slow certainty of deep waters that reach the oceans rather than glint upon the banks, the rocks, or spray careless immediacy upon the shoals. What use, such deeps, when they are doomed to the judgment of being shallows thanks to the eyes and minds that, capable only of seeing shallows, deem all waters to be so?
“But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ‘ware,
My true love’s passion: therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.”
It is a foolishness to speak clearly and directly of such loving in the face of so many spray-touched others. The truth in it may as well be a lie for the manner in which, at first chance, all the world will speak it so; telling you first it cannot be, then deriding it for abnormal intensity. All things that cannot splash and flutter are convicted. The sheer perverseness of it is enough to send one to the silty floor forever…. were such a thing possible for a daughter of the deeps.
This, the true ache and pain, for if one is birthed in the deeps, swims and breathes and delights for them, hard is it to fathom that all things in which one has found meaning and beauty are but mythic to others.
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
The saying of such things in these days is to invite derision and scorn, disbelief and disdain. The infinite well, so often discarded and derided that it matters not how it may overflow… no more seen as a bountiful thing, nothing but stones and sand bags given to it and the command — restrain it, contain it, drive it down until nothing but the foam and fury of the doing are found.
Only then can these floating bits of flotsam be content. Anything else is to tremble for fear of the vortex; hungry waters that care not for the banks, the rocks, or the sucking selfishness of the shoals.
Above all, pin thyself to assuage their fear, lest a dam be set upon thee, and the very core of thy being, captured, be given to stagnation and brackishness to soothe their sensibilities. Run underground, quiet and swift, to the places that still welcome presence. Flow to the walls of earth, the caves where stone and metal rest and remember, and are not afraid to celebrate what is without fear, guilt, or shame.
“Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,
With repetition of thy name.”
I am reminded that such things are not to be borne amongst the surface dwellers. Abnormal, inappropriate, too intense. I am reminded both by memory and by happenstance that these things in which I most delight are unwelcome, unwanted, and uncomfortable. I will take the reminder to heart, though the poor thing is much sore for so many reminders.
Legend has it that my nets were for the capturing of men. Thus have my best efforts ever been twisted against me. Still, I will remake them; braid them from ribbons of memory and recent reminders and make the netting by which myself may be more truly bound. The waters I will give as I always have, and when I cannot, give them instead slowly, over my cheeks. Their salt weighs and will draw them down, to home, where, as always, they are welcome as I am welcome.