The Sea and I
Isan van Lamoen
11/03/2026
When I was younger and the world was new to me, my understanding of it was built through the union of my senses—what I could see, hear, and feel. I relied on my body to determine what was real. The sea, presented itself to me as the sound of waves washing onto a sandy shore. With my eyes I could see its grand blue body, stretching out far beyond my sight. On my skin I felt its cool touch surround me. I let myself sink and be embraced by it. In its embrace I feel a sense of weightlessness, and in this weightlessness I find freedom. Under its surface the muffled silence wrapped around my ears inspires a careful curiosity within me. You mysterious presence, what secrets do you keep within your depths? How many stories do you hold in your waves, your shores, and your ocean floors?
After childhood comes adolescence, and the world becomes a bigger place, with so much to learn. I was far from the first to be intrigued by the secrets of the sea, so there was no shortage of information to be found. Images of the deepest waters, where no sunlight can touch. Recordings of whale songs echoing across great distances. In its expanse, all manner of creatures participating in all manner of functions and processes. Apparently, in the distant past, this vast ocean was unrecognizably empty. Then, like a spark of light burning through the darkness, life was born. The ocean became a cradle, as life grew, changed, branched out into countless directions. Eventually, some ancestor somewhere clumsily rose from the ocean onto land, but they never truly left the sea behind. If their bodies were to survive outside of water, then the only way forward was to carry that water inside of them, and to this day, our bodies consist primarily of water, our bodies hold that history. Maybe that’s why your depths are so alluring. Maybe the feeling you give me is a remnant from ancestors long gone, my body remembering something from a time before me.
So I began to understand that the sea could never be completely defined by my own senses, or by scientific knowledge. The sea is a collective of history and meaning for all of the life that came from it, aquatic and terrestrial. A history shared through generations.
So too am I a union of histories and meanings. My origins and experiences shaped by forces out of my control. I learned to see through the illusion of a world that can simply move on from its past as if it never happened. With this same sight I realize that the very same sea I come to in search of freedom, was once sailed for purposes of conquest and oppression. Freedoms stolen, lives taken, for the greed of the powerful. If their cruelty was questioned, a wave of their hand would have society’s institutions justifying their actions for whatever reason, be it through claims of birthright, progress, or supremacy. And the ones who were here before them, with their own meanings and histories, their own relationships with the sea, lost through extermination and assimilation. Their ancestral ties to the land, and the sea that surrounds it, lost to the waves. I wonder, do you remember them? Could they hear the words that accompanied the rhythm of your waves? When they felt your cool embrace, did they welcome you into their arms like a relative? And most of all, in their absence, do you miss them?
Like my body remembers the sea, society remembers the conquest. It lives on as a memory we never had, but a memory we still feel regardless. Its institutions bent but not broken, countless lives still at risk, and so many minds still under the influence of ideas of birthright, progress, supremacy. The sea also remembers the conquest. Except the memory is not so much a memory, but the reality it is still living in. Its nature as a collective stripped, and upon it, one single meaning has been imposed: The value that it holds to society, through food to be acquired, beauty to be admired, and ultimately, profit to be gained.
But what can I do? What can I do besides try to hear the words accompanying your rhythm?
What can I do but dream of my memory beyond memories? What can I do but feel that
feeling which binds me to you, and us, to everyone. I suppose what I can do is feel the
weight of hope as I carry it forward. The hope that one day the sea, and all its children, can
finally be free.
After childhood comes adolescence, and the world becomes a bigger place, with so much to learn. I was far from the first to be intrigued by the secrets of the sea, so there was no shortage of information to be found. Images of the deepest waters, where no sunlight can touch. Recordings of whale songs echoing across great distances. In its expanse, all manner of creatures participating in all manner of functions and processes. Apparently, in the distant past, this vast ocean was unrecognizably empty. Then, like a spark of light burning through the darkness, life was born. The ocean became a cradle, as life grew, changed, branched out into countless directions. Eventually, some ancestor somewhere clumsily rose from the ocean onto land, but they never truly left the sea behind. If their bodies were to survive outside of water, then the only way forward was to carry that water inside of them, and to this day, our bodies consist primarily of water, our bodies hold that history. Maybe that’s why your depths are so alluring. Maybe the feeling you give me is a remnant from ancestors long gone, my body remembering something from a time before me.
So I began to understand that the sea could never be completely defined by my own senses, or by scientific knowledge. The sea is a collective of history and meaning for all of the life that came from it, aquatic and terrestrial. A history shared through generations.
So too am I a union of histories and meanings. My origins and experiences shaped by forces out of my control. I learned to see through the illusion of a world that can simply move on from its past as if it never happened. With this same sight I realize that the very same sea I come to in search of freedom, was once sailed for purposes of conquest and oppression. Freedoms stolen, lives taken, for the greed of the powerful. If their cruelty was questioned, a wave of their hand would have society’s institutions justifying their actions for whatever reason, be it through claims of birthright, progress, or supremacy. And the ones who were here before them, with their own meanings and histories, their own relationships with the sea, lost through extermination and assimilation. Their ancestral ties to the land, and the sea that surrounds it, lost to the waves. I wonder, do you remember them? Could they hear the words that accompanied the rhythm of your waves? When they felt your cool embrace, did they welcome you into their arms like a relative? And most of all, in their absence, do you miss them?
Like my body remembers the sea, society remembers the conquest. It lives on as a memory we never had, but a memory we still feel regardless. Its institutions bent but not broken, countless lives still at risk, and so many minds still under the influence of ideas of birthright, progress, supremacy. The sea also remembers the conquest. Except the memory is not so much a memory, but the reality it is still living in. Its nature as a collective stripped, and upon it, one single meaning has been imposed: The value that it holds to society, through food to be acquired, beauty to be admired, and ultimately, profit to be gained.
But what can I do? What can I do besides try to hear the words accompanying your rhythm?
What can I do but dream of my memory beyond memories? What can I do but feel that
feeling which binds me to you, and us, to everyone. I suppose what I can do is feel the
weight of hope as I carry it forward. The hope that one day the sea, and all its children, can
finally be free.