The Sea

As I sit looking out at the ocean today, thinking about my upcoming 70th birthday, I can't help but think of the poem, Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In the last several verses, Ulysses turns to his seafaring crew and says something like this, " We are growing old men, but I think we have one more good sail in us." And then to quote, "I will sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die." In ending the poem, he says that it is his intention, "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." The author is suggesting, I think, that we go on, no matter our age, to continue to fight the good fight until the end. I like this advice and will continue on as long as my body and spirit are able and willing. And as I see a few shells on the beach, I am also reminded of Anne Morrow Lindbergh who wrote, Gifts from the Sea where she, in each individual chapter, meditates on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude and contentment. She uses specific shells as metaphors of life beginning with the channeled whelk as a confining, duty-bound place that she is free from for a short time while at the beach. A respite from the every day obligations in the city where she lives. The moonshell represents solitude for her, a place and time we all crave in our very noisy Then comes the double-sunrise that is two shells joined together as one, but each maintaining its own identity and uniqueness.(marriage?) The oyster bed shell is a metaphor for moving on in life, getting out of our comfort zones to stretch ourselves and perhaps share our unique gifts with the world. In all of this, AML is searching for a simpler life, inner integrity and fuller relationships.
The ocean presents its own feelings of melancholy and solitude for me too, and like Ted Kennedy who always looked to the sea for comfort after each of his life tragedies, I too find a wonder and peacefulness in the sea.