Defining the Sea

Abstract

I remember California. I remember pink flowers and pastel city walls, quaint backyard gardens and mountains over the beach. I can recall ritzy hotels and expensive outdoor café’s on State Street, littered with men in Dockers and their beautiful, blonde wives. California was where I learned to avoid sunburns and rush hour traffic, a place of generous countryside arranged like a bouquet of redwoods and grapevines. Yet the memory most vivid in my mind is not of handsome landscapes or commercial aesthetics. It is one that speaks to me subliminally, so precious I carry it obscured from the daily going on’s, like a buried artifact sheltered by sea foam and grassy kelps. Above all my California recollections, I remember the ocean.