The Sea

       

I think I should like to live by the sea. It would have to be in England or Scotland, for that is where the faeries and their magic reside. I want to own a boat, live in a small fishing village, and take my boat on wild adventures across the globe. Sometimes I shall venture out with others, reveling in the joy of friendship and toasting the moon and stars with rum and friendship. Each day will bring a new adventure, a new port, and another story to tell the children of the future, about the daring Captain Pickford and her clever crew. We'll be pirates, but we'll be content to be poor, and we won't need to steal.

Other times, though, most times, I shall be alone. I shall lay on the deck, hair damp with the sea air and splayed out all around me and count the stars. I shall be myth and legend, navigating the seas with naught but a compass, spyglass, and a map. My occupation shall be that of a collector, buying and selling the richest treasures and fighting villains tooth and nail for the right to claim priceless objects as my own. For years hence, the world's children shall know my name and dream of following their dreams as I once did. They'll have sword fights, battle the Kraken manifesting itself in their dog, and beg their mummies and daddies for the merest glimpse of the waters that shall be my second home.

I want adventures. I want to travel. I want to run like Aladdin from an angry vendor in Morocco after I mispronounce a word and accidentally refer to his mother as a camel. Captain Pickford shall be the scourge of tomb robbers and other ne'er do-wells. For, aside from being the greatest captain to ever set sail, I shall be the greatest upholder of justice to be seen in this world. Sometimes this will make me friends, Others, enemies. But through it all I will laugh. I am already a happy person, but I will be even happier at sea. I will be that strange figure with the sun-bleached hair and the old boots in the back, off to the side pew of the church, praying prayers for safety and of thanksgiving. And I will be so, so blessed.

And then someday I will meet him. A charming, wonderful, God-fearing, sailor of a man who I'll be able to trust with everything. My adventures will more often than not feature a second ship following close by. We will joke that I'm no longer a captain, but an admiral, as he claims nothing as his own, claiming to be a borrower of the resources of the world. The two of us will go on more adventures than ever before. No days are dull. Then, we shall embark on the most adrenaline-inducing, heart-pumping, life-changing adventure of our lives: we will marry. It will be a hushed, quietly murmured proposal while hiding from the bandits from whom we have recently reclaimed an item from and I will reply with a "yes, so long as we live." We will live and I'll buy some white dress from the nearest shop and we will marry in some small, sun-drenched chapel in Spain, an elderly priest marrying us and blessing us. And we will be so happy. And so in love.

       For awhile, our life will not change. We will continue traveling and setting the world ablaze. And then I will find out a child is on its way. We'll be thrilled but sad, knowing our travels will not be able to continue in the manner which they once did. We will go back to that small town, or perhaps back to America, get some sort of real job by the sea, possibly even tending a lighthouse, and we will learn how to live again on land, though the sea will call, as we wait for him or her to be born. When our duo becomes a trio, we will be barely able to contain our joy. I will be that mother my children will love to remember, going barefoot and to the ocean at every occasion possible, exposing him or her to culture and life and travel as soon as possible, dancing with their father in the kitchen, being an authoress and scientist, helping with homework, and teaching the child prayers from a young age. I will be his or her greatest comforter, champion, and teacher, and I will love that baby to the bitterest of ends.

Eventually, more children will follow as they always do for Catholics, and we will settle down. Our jobs will be quite steady, we will make friends with the neighbors and our travels will be less frequent. Soon, the boats are used mainly for lake vacations instead of across oceans. We will be happy, content, church going people with just a dash of our own special blend of insanity. I will be happy to stay in one place, and I will give my children the stability and tender care they need and will be a loving, wonderful wife for the one I promised my life to.

        Still, though, I will yearn for the sea, even if I never choose to act upon this wish. It is usually small things that will remind me of the life I lived and remind me that new adventures are yet to come, even in this adventure I will be living. I will push these thoughts aside and go about my day. I will be content. In the end, I will be lying there one night, windows open on a warm summer's night, my young children down the hall and the wonderful man I met and married abroad next to me, unable to sleep. Some trivial worry or another will plague my brain and, unwilling to let it rest, I will turn it over and over in my head, doing nothing to aid my sleepless state. I will be about to get up and get something to help me sleep when I will smell its unique smell. The sea. It will comfort me, as it always has, I will turn over my pillow to the cool side, and imagine the waves rocking me to sleep. Dimly, I will remind myself to tell my husband in the morning that it really is time to visit our friends in the Mediterranean. And then, with the promise of new adventure on my mind, I will sleep.

-Pick