Chaos

I was born during the worst storm of the decade. The sky was black, and rain came down in sheets, making the entire house on the edge of the cliff shake. But amidst the howling wind and sound of waves crashing furiously against the rocky cliff you could hear screams, both my mother’s screams of labor then the screams of new life entering the world.

Maybe the storm was an omen. Telling me as soon as I entered the world that things would not be all sunshine and rainbows.

My childhood was filled with little pockets of happiness. Baking blueberry pie with my grandma, listening to papa tell stories about the sea, and sitting on the edge of the cliff watching and eventually painting the waves crash against the rocks and the pieces return to their place in the ocean.

Ever since I could hold a crayon there I was, sitting with my little feet dangling above the 50ft drop trying to capture the beauty I was seeing.

I found that painting these waves let me keep them whole, no matter how hard they tried to break apart they were kept together by acrylic and oil. I loved capturing the chaos of foam and water, finding different angles and trying to see the rhythm of the waves from a new perspective. It looked to me like they were alive, each wave pulsing with its own energy.

My grandma liked to say that I came from the sea and that one day it would be my fate to return to the waves I liked to draw so much.

For about a year after I was born there were four of us, papa, mom, my grandma, and myself. I like to think that we were a happy family then, I imagine the three of them sitting around the dinner table laughing and playing with the new baby, my mom dancing in the kitchen to Bon Jovi while cooking dinner, all together the picture-perfect family.

Whether we were or weren’t the picture-perfect family I would never know. Shortly before my first birthday my mom decided to join the waves at the bottom of the cliff.

I think she left a note, but papa never let me see it.

When the pockets of happiness would close the storms would roll in. Outside the rain came down and the sea screamed. Inside the little cottage on the cliff a different storm raged.

Papa always said that any fisherman worth his salt could hold his scotch better than anyone on land.

I never knew if he was better or worse at holding his scotch, but I did know that after he finished a bottle, I had to be quiet or the storm would get worse. Grandma got good at telling me when it was time to hide. She said we were playing a game, like hide and seek but I wasn’t allowed to come out of hiding until papa was asleep.

Even from my hiding spot under the bathroom sink I could hear the storm. I could hear papa’s fist hitting grandma. I could hear the sounds of her muffled cries as she tried to lead him away from my hiding spot. The next day I could see the aftermath of the storm. I hopscotched my way around the broken glass strewn about the floor to go out to the cliff to forget.

After grandma left, I had to learn when it was time to hide on my own.

Papa never told me where grandma went. Whenever I asked, he would tell me that she didn’t want to be around me anymore. So, she was gone, and I was alone in the storm.

It was the morning after a particularly bad storm. Below the waves continued to crash like they were still upset about something from the night before. It was the perfect time to paint. My brush capturing the chaos and holding it hostage in eight different acrylic paints. I could feel that this painting was special. Never had I gotten the waves just right in the moments after a storm. The relief that seemed to befall the ocean, but you could still see that that rage had left its mark.

After my final brushstroke I felt another storm rolling in, the wind picking up.

Before I knew what had happened, I was falling.

Falling

Falling

I braced myself for the impact, for the embrace of death when I hit the ocean below.

But it never came, instead it felt as if I was being cradled by the arms of many.

“oh no” I hear in a whisper around me “we cannot destroy something that has loved us so beautifully”

The waves cradled me in their arms, wrapping around me like a child swaddled in a blanket. They wiped away my tears and washed my face with cold refreshing foam.

“but you don’t understand” I cried to the waves “I didn’t fall- I jumped”

Then everything went dark.

When I woke up, I was on the beach. The cottage on the cliff above me showing no signs of life inside.

I couldn’t remember how I got on there. I remembered falling, bracing for a death that would never come. I had a faint memory of being held.

I sat on the beach watching the waves until night came and went and dawn had broken. I thought about what lead up to that moment on the cliff, before the falling.

I thought about the pain left over from the storms, the hole that was formed by those who left me. I remember hearing my mom and grandma call to me from the bottom of the cliff. They wanted me to join them, to come to a place where the storms would stop, and it was only sunshine.

But now the feeling of wanting to join them was gone. I no longer looked at the waves longing to be a part of the chaos.

I climbed back up to the top of the cliff, ready to face whatever storm was awaiting me at the top. As I reached the summit, I noticed there were no storm clouds. There was only sunshine, the smell of blueberry pie, and Bon Jovi calling to me from behind the door leading into the cottage.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.