This photo is already over one year old. A day out crabbing with my youngest son during the first summer of the pandemic. A lot has happened since then.
Lately for me that has included a whole host of crazy vivid dreams about the sea.
The first one, several nights ago, had me open water swimming in deep water somewhere outside of Seattle. I kept swimming in circles, and fell asleep afloat a few times, and every time I opened my eyes I spun around in the water searching the land around me trying to sort out where I was. And every time I looked around me the view changed, none of the houses were recognizable. I kept swimming about, drifting in close to shore to ask small groups of revelers celebrating something, anything, nothing, for directions.
“I just need to know which way is North!” I asked over and over again. But no one could or would tell me. I don’t know if they didn’t know or didn’t care, but I was frantic and frustrated and scared. I needed a reference point to find my way home, I needed a row of mountains or an arrow pointing North, or just a finger, but no one would answer me. And I couldn’t find any mountains. I woke up swimming. My whole life I’ve lived near the sea, with the water and mountains always serving as my way of orientating myself. In my dream I was utterly lost.
In the morning over a cup of coffee, my first thought was that my dream was reflecting back on my feelings lately of feeling lost, adrift, directionless, unsure of myself. But then I realized that my dream was not my mind asserting that I was lost and directionless, but rather reminding me that I needed to return to the sea. I always know where I am in the sea.
I had been out of the sea for over two weeks. My dream was my heart telling me to go back to find my way, not the other way around. Or maybe dreaming was enough.
The next night I dreamt of giant white jellyfish in the water and more washing up upon the shore. They slid silently along the beach upside down, like translucent wet gelatinous buckets with tentacles. One headed straight for me, gliding over the sand silently. I yelled and kicked at it with my bare feet. I don’t remember anymore.
The next day I stood by the sea with my husband, sunlight warming our shoulders and held a perfect moon jelly in my hands. It was bobbing about in a wash of bright green seaweed, only moved by waves, all life gone out of it. I traced the tiny white lines with my finger tip, the intricate patterns running over its underside like a map, the opaque white bell slippery but firm.
I felt joy and anticipation rise up inside me “The jellyfish are still out there!” I exclaimed to Josh.
I finally did get back to the sea after these dreams, last weekend.
After this very cold swim, my first ever skin swim in November, I dreamt again. This time of water contained, chlorinated, in a deep deep pool within a crazy fancy new house. Colorful mosaic tiles covered the walls, and a too narrow etched glass opening led me to the edge of a fantastic hot tub, perfectly round and very deep, a dozen meters or more, walled entirely in glass. It was a warm room with built in chairs around the edge, like a sauna with seating all around. I asked the owners of the house if I could get into the water, but they said no. The water was just to look at, no swimming aloud. I woke so very disappointed. I don’t know who the people were or why I was at their house. All that was clear was the water in the pool. my desire to sink in to the warm water and nearby a field of horses, grazing.
I don’t know what dreams are meant for–release, reflection, insight, distraction or something else entirely, maybe nothing. But I do know that if my crabbing day with my youngest was a dream, it was everything a dream was meant to be.
I remember clearly, like it was yesterday, going crabbing with my son upon the Salish Sea. I remember we smiled a lot and felt the salt on our faces and plucked a few beautiful Dungeness crab from the sea, and thanked them for letting us bring them home. I remember knowing exactly where we were, in the shadow of the Olympic mountains to our west, bobbing upon the waves, just above a world full of life and wonders we only catch tiny glimpses of. I remember we cooked the crab outside in a big pot on our camp stove and feasted on them with delight.
And I remember feeling like the luckiest mom in the world, in a boat with my boy, smiling back at me.
Mary Swims 