Casa de Terrible: Sea Muse

SEA CALLED

I am one of the sea-called ones. Why I do not know.
I grew up in landlocked Ohio and I can not remember
ever being taught to love the sea but always it was
there, this fascination, this longing, this need.

So we come each winter to this little town on the
Pacific Ocean. Bucerias is the town's name which
translates as place of the divers. Fifty years ago
this was a fishing village. And still you can see
them sometimes in the evening and morning on the
beach. Men lean against their small boats mending
their nets with a huge needle. The beach in Bucerias
slopes very gently. You still see the divers who gave
the village its name. They anchor an inner tube to
the bottom with a rock and dive down to harvest
shellfish from the ocean floor. Often people fish
from the shore using weighted lines wrapped around a
can or occasionally with butterfly nets. (No I do not
mean someone was wading around trying to scoop up fish
out of the Pacific.) Butterfly nets have two large
wings looking something like a sideways eight. These
nets are weighted. The fishers cast the nets. The
fishers haul in the nets to see what gifts the sea
will share.

Tradition is, the earth is our mother. This may be
so. But if the earth is our mother, teaching us,
supporting us, giving us what we need to live then the
sea is our grandmother. The sea gives to us without
our asking or deserving. The sea plays with us and
sings to us, this wonderful grandmother the beautiful,
beautiful sea.

The gifts from the sea are all around us here. The
streets are cobblestone. The stones that were
smoothed and rounded by the sea are set in sea sand.
On occasion people who are building go to the sea even
yet. Take a cart or wheel barrow to the edge of the
surf and load up with rounded smooth stones for your
wall. A screen will do to sift the shells out of the
sand so you can use the sand to make your concrete.
The shells will decorate your wall.

The waves are gentle in Bucerias, long rolling
breakers one after another, not too high or too
strong, except when the moon is full or a Pacific
storm rages outside the bay. When the surf is high
the golden sand is streaked with black. Black
volcanic sand picked up from the bottom of the bay
paints pictures at the waters edge. If you look
closely you see tiny bits of gold gleaming in the
black sand. When the tide is high the sea casts up
many of its treasures. There are shells of every
shape and size, bits of sea glass frosted by the
movement of the sand, coral, driftwood, and living
creatures who took a wrong turning swimming onto the
beach instead of away from it. To these I give a
little aid, scooping them up and tossing them gently
back, "Go back, little sister" I whisper (I have been
known to take a wrong turning myself.)