My Affair

My affair with this lady started when I was barely five. The first time I met her, I immediately fell in love. She was an older woman, but she would play with me and my friends. Sometimes she chased us and sometimes we chased her. It was a great time. As I grew up and became a teenager, she was still fascinating and glorious. When I became a man, she could still steal my breath away. Watching the sun go down with her was amazing. The sky would be glorious and as the sun went down, she would murmur in my ear and I would just relax, relax into a bliss that has never been bettered.

I grew up in California, 30 miles from my lady, the Pacific. I've visited with her from four of the five states she borders. I've visited her from Baja California in Mexico. I've visited her from Japan, Guam and Australia, and yes, even visited her cousin, the South China Sea, along the eastern edge of Vietnam. Everywhere I've been she is blue, Blue, BLUE - unless she's been aggravated.

When she has been aggravated, you need to be very careful around her. In her fury she turns green and gray and stirs her waves up until they can take down tall buildings, stop locomotives and drown bullets. Sometimes, even being her friend doesn't help.

Every opportunity I've had to visit with her, she's made my life run smoother. She is able to settle my soul as well as my nervous stomach.

She's quirky and spunky, she laughs and she teases. She will sometimes play a tough, practical joke on you just to see how well you know her. One of her riptides will grab you and try to take you out to sea, but if you know the right way to swim, she'll deposit you back on shore as smoothly as gliding on silk.

She's the Big Sister of Oceans on our planet. The Queen, and she knows it.

Living smack dab in the middle of the United States, there are times when her pull is so strong I Have to go visit her, truly.

I've visited her little sister, the Atlantic, but she doesn't seem to like me as much. I can't rule out jealousy, but you'd think these two ladies would be above that. Every time I've visited she's been a flat looking green - almost menacing. There was one exception when she reminded me of her sister. As a bachelor I went with a group of friends to the Bahamas. Boy did she put on a show there. Long, clean white beaches. Palm trees coming down to almost dip their toes. Clear blue water you could see so deeply into, unclouded, all the way to the bottom. Her fish were frolicking, many colored and happy. Swimming this way and that, skittering, all seperated, then coming back and taking their places in line. Going back to school.

What hurts me now is that BP is trying to poison her. Pumping thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf to be pushed up along our Eastern Seaboard, killing coral, fish, mollusks, birds and animals. And the oil is leaving ugly tar balls behind as sort of a cruel calling card.

Maybe she could see the future and was flat green and gray when I visited her because she knew what was coming. If I'd known what was coming, I'd have been flat green and mean gray myself.

I hope, I pray, that some person comes along with an idea that can stop what we've done to her. I am sure that she has many followers that are as attached to her as I am to her big sister, the Pacific.

These two great ladies deserve way better treatment then what we have given them.

If they were human women, hundreds of thousands of people and corporations would be arrested and put in jail for abuse. Life in prison would be too good for them.

It's my own personal opinion that we should be able to pass our children and grandchildren down to our Oceans. They are, without a doubt, two of the grandest beauties on our planet.

Oh, just to let you know, when we were married, before we were married, I told my soon to be wife of my affair. She smiled and told me it was OK.

Sometimes I think my wife and my Lady, the Pacific, communicate with each other in that special language great women share.