Painting by Vivian Pantoja

I travelled away to some isolated places that overwhelmed me with their beauty and loneliness. These places reflected my state of being at the moment, so I remember hearing the troubled ocean almost 2 years ago in a wide night, and I have discovered the highest waves I could ever imagine. The waves were desperately climbing to my feet, trying to breakthrough, and I was there, stunned, with my first face-to-face rencontre with the Ocean, that was dominating furiously this tiny island.

I felt angry and I cried. I didn’t know why I cried. Was I overwhelmed by the fury of the ocean? Was I desperately missing the man? Was I happy we got safe to Canaries? The answers came eventually.

Two days later I lost my uncle in a car accident. Then, six months later I lost the man I loved. 

It may sound strange, but when people hurt us, we look for nature’s comfort. When nature kicks us we turn back to people. There is a kind of solidarity that we learn from the basics, finding some shelter or protection in the enemy of our enemy.

And when we’re healed, we go back to those who hurt us once. Only to forgive them.

Waters have their own healing powers.

I fell in love for the Bosphorus seven months after the trip to the isolated Canaries islands, when my heart was bleeding and was seeking for the healing medicine. My first view of Bosphorus was a wavy, soapy and wide strip of water.

It was a sunset evening; the wind was blowing my short red hair. It was the time when my eyes lost their sparkle. My hair was short. I was skinny. My cheekbones angled. But while crossing the strait many times a day, I was gathering my wishes and hopes into a big imaginary glass bottle. I released that imaginary bottle into the soapy waters. I was hoping that bottles would reach someday the creator and make me happy again.

I had to learn, staying between the confluence of two rivers one summer later, that your hopes and dreams are not the creator’s work to fulfill. Things are to be done by hard work. And some luck. And a lot of stars would watch your way through pain and desires, fighting lust, trying you. You’d sort what you need from what you most probably don’t, would try settle or move on, you’ll travel physically or emotionally, would let yourself love again and be hurt again, would learn to take it easier and be grateful for every single moment you had.

Waters are limitless, and they have their magic of healing.

Pain makes you grow, stretching your waters into infinite lust for living.

Those salt water gods said I stayed the same, yet I knew, I knew. I was so different now.

—

Cristina Hiraeth is an author based in Thessaloniki. 

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