Reclaim the Ocean

Directionally, let me plunge into the space that is my own----liquid vast and soft as I release gravity and find a being I once knew here: Edwin. My goldfish. In real life, I bought him out of a carnival game when I was about 17, and he died on my 22nd birthday----the day I went skydiving for the first and only time.

I want to back up to the day I got him from that carnival. It was the Guilford Fair in Connecticut, and the game was nearly impossible to win: a center table full of glass bowls, each with a fish and a circular top so small, even a perfectly lobbed throw would send the ping-pong ball bouncing off one of the edges. I couldn't get the ball in, and it broke my heart because all I wanted was to take home one of the fish. Luckily, the game attendant was reasonable, and took my offer to simply buy one, never minding the game. I picked one out and named him Edwin, and he stayed with me all throughout college and even a little while after.

But even that’s not the important part. He wasn’t just a fish——he was my best friend. Every day I came home, he was alive with joy. He would meet me at the corner of the tank——a larger tank each year to grow with his size and spirit——fluttering his tail and blubbing his lips. He was the most heart-filled little animal I ever knew. I’d drop all my things and greet him at the corner, equally as thrilled: “Edwin!” I’d give him his flakes of food and touch my finger to the top of the water, feeling his kisses on my skin.

He didn’t get excited like that for anyone else, and it wasn’t because I’m particularly special or because I fed him. It was because I could see him. Some people use fish tanks to ornament their home, and others use them in carnivals as a way to make money, but I loved Edwin as a being. We made each other happy, in a human world sickly upside down.

And now, I’ll be honest here, to explain what can happen when people lose their way. The morning Edwin died, I found him floating on the surface of his water just as I was getting ready to go sky-diving with the boyfriend I had at the time. Losing my way wasn’t my fault. That first wrongful, against-my-will hospitalization——even against the Yale psychologist’s will, who after coming in and asking a few questions, said I was fine——weakened me. Many times, pimples mean nothing, but I had an unusually odd and reoccurring pimple that kept showing up afterwards, large and pus-filled right between my eyebrows. My third eye was clogged. I had been abused scared, eyes shut——afraid of my own feelings and intuition. And so, I kept a boyfriend I didn’t love, and stayed in contact with a terrible family, and by the end of Edwin’s life, I was so unlike myself, that I flushed his body down the toilet, as blindly as if my eyes had never been open at all.

All pipes run to the ocean . . . eventually, they say. And so too, does my healing. I can’t control metaphors that may be read through this or interpretations that can be drawn, and that’s okay. I haven’t really cared about that in a while. As a writer, that territory comes with the pen. The paintbrush too. The dance, the clothes . .  . everything. Plunged deep in a world beyond it all, I only find Edwin, along with all the other non-human animals. They teach me love, over and over again, because they have been just as abused by humans as I have. Does that mean this is now a victim story, rather than a hero? Maybe, but maybe think bigger. Perhaps, I’m exploring these waters in order to rediscover the wisdom nearly drowned out and forgotten. The animals and I, we swim together, staying true to our hearts, intuition, and brilliant third eyes:

I took a dive into the clear blue sky to find my soul I was reaching for.

I took a dive into the crystal clear waters to discover the heart I nearly forgot.

This is not depression nor cause for concern. These are the softer feelings——feminine some may say——the ones that need to and must be explored. There is no danger here. We all have our ground and healthy boundaries, so softness is not a weakness this time, and perhaps that’s why the ocean seems so much more clear.