Love Underwater.

Quiet.

Still.

Direct.

Instinctive.

The first place you turn to clear your head or calm your mind or clean your wounds.

Love is pelicans flying in formation overhead seen through squinting eyes;

It’s the warm glow of sun seen through kelp and a thick layer of ocean.

It’s baby sand dollars spotted in the still morning tide when you should be at work.

It’s a pile of musty seaweed covered in a thick blanket of beach flies and the tiny, perfect shells left for those who rest their focus between the rocks.

It’s stubbing your toe in the tide pools and looking down to find a gently swaying anemone.

Like the tides, it’s both destructive and healing:

high tide: swollen and soupy and chaotic;

low tide exposed and quiet and still.

It will swallow you whole or gently lap at your feet.

Love is the cool spray of the sea on hot skin.

Love is the sound of the barking seals through the fog, calling you home.