Now and then, when I grow nostalgic about my ocean childhood - the wauling of gulls and the smell of salt, somebody solicitous will bundle me into a car and drive me to the nearest briny horizon.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The sea was at the bottom of my road, and I seemed to spend my childhood in it or on it, hearing, tasting, smelling it. Now, still, I need to be near water as often as possible.
I find the presence of the sea quite inspiring, and sometimes I do just get out and walk around and take in the sea breeze to try and clear my mind.
I think that going to the beach as a child, being in the water and smelling that salt air and hearing the seagulls, it had a real calming effect. But also, it was a mysterious thing - I remember wondering what was under those dark New England seas.
I have always had the sea as my playground.
Every time you dive, you hope you'll see something new - some new species. Sometimes the ocean gives you a gift, sometimes it doesn't.
When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring - and where the sea might deposit you - until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure.
I wanted my children to have the same exposure to the water I had. My strongest memories of Northeast Harbor are going in a small Whaler with my dad, looking for osprey.
My childhood landscape was not land but the end of the land - the cold, salt, running hills of the Atlantic. I sometimes think my vision of the sea is the clearest thing I own.
I've always dreaded the sea - in fact, I get terribly seasick.
I've always lived by the ocean, and I always will. There's nothing like taking a walk and being able to smell the ocean breeze.