Solace

A personal project that I’ve taken as a way of finding peace within myself, and finding myself in the world around me.

I find myself often feeling small, distant, and off-center from my surroundings—as if a cutout figure.

So I returned to the Oregon Coast, where I grew up. I sought water. The sense of belonging, or the sense of alienation. It’s no longer my home, but I’ve always lived by the ocean.

Theres a primal calling to water, and Herman Melville said it best within a few passages of Moby Dick:

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”

The Oregon Coast is my ship, and its fog-crested shores my calling.