I have always said the ocean has part of my heart, it always will. Born by the ocean grew up by the ocean, the waters lapping the sandy beach watched as I learned to walk. The raging waves soothed my soul on days when I was a little turbulent myself. The tang of the salt air, the cries of the gulls.
My heart, half of my heart
belongs to the ocean
but the larger half belongs
up here.
Those are sounds and scents I will never let leave my heart. But is it possible to love something, and still be homesick when you live where your heart has decided is your home?
This is our home, it’s always felt like we were wrenching ourselves away when we left here to go back to the coast. Our hearts have decided this is where we shall live, and I am at peace with this, it’s what we want. But part of me is still standing on the West Coast, beside the waves as they crash through the driftwood.
How can I give my heart to two homes? Can a person live loving two places, this is home but the ocean still has half of my heart. The North Okanagan is where we have chosen to live, it’s our home, it’s our desire to live here, but the ocean has the other half of my heart, and I don’t want it to give it up.
I do not long for the rain, the crowds, the pollution, just the ocean, all by myself, the breeze laden with salt blowing my hair into tangles… the gulls keening overhead. My camera in my hand, the clouds moody, the sand damp with foam. It’s no wonder the ocean has half of my heart.
The other half, the larger half belongs up here, with the farmland, the mountains, the crystal clear streams, the rivers raging, the fields of golden ripening wheat. The eagles, the crows the wildlife that we see on a daily basis that have replaced the crowds.
And I don’t know if the ocean will ever give back it’s half of my heart, or if I want it to do so. Do you long to live in two places, is your heart in pieces? Or are you living where your heart has decided it should be? Listening to the waves in my heart…