“Sea-Shock!”

I am a dreamer, writer, crafter, and artist. My influence in many of my works incorporates the ocean. I was born and raised in Southern California, and was living every extra hour at the beautiful beaches. The sun brightly burning high above, heating bodies drenched in tanning oils, caused coconut scents to permeate the salty air.

Walking along the sandy beaches, I would often stare off at the slightly curved horizon, and in awe, try to grasp the size of something unfathomable to my tiny mind. Sure, anyone can look at a plastic globe and see the edges, where water ends and land begins. But to stare from that sandy edge of water, and look out on an entirely different world that has no visual end. To personally witness a seemingly infinite depth filled with undiscovered life, an entirely different perspective develops. Individually, we are so very small compared to the bigger universal picture. Collectively, we have the capacity to improve or destroy whatever we touch.

Around seventeen, I ended up down at the beach on a Saturday summer morning. I had gone down with the intent to play some sand volleyball. It was early, the sun had not come up yet. Musky dampness from thick rolling fogs layered everything causing rocks to softly shine and the sand to stiffen; making it slightly easier to jog and workout than the drier sands of the afternoon.

A few volleyball friends were coming to join me, but had not arrived to the courts yet, I was about an hour early. This would give me time for a little warm-up jog and a nice stretch before hitting the ball around.

I took off heading north. Not long into my run, I slowed down. A nauseating stench had shifted the thick air, and death was reeking ahead. In my own inexplicable curiosity, I continued to move forward, walking now, towards the dark mass I saw curled up several yards ahead.

On the beach was a giant, partially decomposing fish. Its fate landed it wrapped up in some sort of seine-like plastic casting net and had met its final breaths in a struggle to break free. I didn’t know whether its last breaths were on that shore or not, but I knew they had been labored, and at the hands of humans.

I continued my jog, thinking about that fish. Wrong, place wrong time? What did he feel in those last moments? Why did the ominous “they” cut the net and just drop it in the ocean, not pulling it back in their boat? This and many more questions spiraled through my head until I returned to the sandy courts. My friends had arrived, and the thoughts echoing, were replaced by bumps, sets, and spikes under a now rising sun. It wasn’t until many years later, a documentary I watched with my husband, sent me flashing back to that empty staring, cloudy-eyed fish that was never extricated.

The documentary was horrifying! Different cultures killing porpoises because they are perceived as “pests” to the underground blue-fin tuna industry. Hidden videos showing orcas and seals caught in dredging nets, unwarrantedly killed as a result, and negligently tossed back out to sea. Fishermen hiding and lying about their type and count of catch on board for greater revenue. Hundreds of rows of sharks putrefying on concrete, only caught for their dorsal fin. I had heard some individuals believe it medicinal, or even an aphrodisiac. Then I witnessed on that documentary, the fins are most commonly used in shark-fin soup, while the rest of the shark is discarded.

We viewed in sorrowful silence. No words could reflect what we were contributing to by our own actions and choices! We were supporting these behaviors and condoning large corporate savagery with every purchase from a local store or restaurant! We looked at the guilt now written on each other’s faces.

I declared to my husband, in total shock, after watching this excerpt, “We could have an uninhabitable ocean by twenty-fifty! Someone needs to do something!” In hindsight, I was a “someone”! But what could I do? I had a bracelet that I often wore in support of a company helping remove ocean trash, I decided to contact them with my idea I was developing, but never did. I was afraid it would have no merit or support.

Growing up on the beach, it was tremendous fun as a child to look for shells and sea-glass. My brain concocted this concept to talk with this bracelet company, and determine if they collected or could obtain sea-glass. I would acquire the pieces of sea-glass from them, and make jewelry out of the pieces shipped to me. These pieces in turn would be sold online and part of the profits would return to the company to continue cleaning the oceans.

Cleaning the oceans is great and making jewelry to bring awareness is a neat idea, but who are we cleaning the oceans for if our fishing industry will have destroyed the ecosystem? I wanted to do more. I could still make the jewelry, but if I could just do, and figure out something more.

I decided to work on a book of poetry that will be sold to help benefit those trying to stop the massacre. I believe creating a specialty shop, where the book, sea-glass jewelry, and other pertinent items can be sold, will bring an open eye to each individual. A chance to learn different options and ways we can live to embrace and save our oceans and all its beautiful wonder. Let the ocean, speak for herself.

The plans and ideas are there, to know who to go to in order to execute these ideas, well, I have truly been at a complete loss. Since I could not figure out a direction for the art pieces, I decided to focus on beginning my book of poetry, something that I could more easily do with my limited knowledge. Two poems have both been published by Quora,

“So-Sea-A-Logical Awakening” (https://vocal.media/poets/so-sea-a-logical-awakening) and

“Adjusting My Sails”, (https://vocal.media/poets/adjusting-my-sails).

These poems have not only impacted my family, but they have, along with the documentary, helped us in eating-habit- decision-making. We as a family, no longer choose to purchase and support large corporate fishing. If we eat any fish now, it’s because one of us has caught it from a regulated lake or river.

Our family now shares with other individuals we know, what we have learned and discovered. Some take us seriously and are interested in learning more, others shrug our warnings as no big deal or conspiracy. I wish those individuals were jogging with me on the beach that morning.

To some, poetry, changing eating patterns as a family, or dreaming about a sea-glass art/jewelry specialty store, may seem small, somewhat minuscule, or even like “cotton candy dreams”. My family and I see it as opportunity. We cannot change the world all at once, at least the majority of us cannot. But, with one dream, poem, or change for the better in food choices, we can reach out to one person at a time and bring awareness.

May my family’s hopes and beliefs, one day make this world a better place for us and our oceanic friends. A world we can continue to be proud of in the remaining amount of our lives, and the lives of generations to come. Please join us in saving our oceans! You will also be helping to save humanity.