Missing the sound of this? Photo: Daniel Norris//Unsplash
Being away from the ocean can be hard, especially if you rely on it for some sense of sanity. I grew up with it a stone’s throw from our house, spent most of my high school years covered in sand when I was supposed to be in Ms. Ciccone’s Spanish class or Mr. Begulki’s art class, and, much like home, never really realized how important it was until I left. The sounds of the ocean were always in the background, until they weren’t. But someone came up with a website that plays a few of those sounds.
I was in my early twenties when I packed a bag, jumped in a truck, and ended up living in Northern British Columbia working in the oil patch in the winters. Summers were spent wildfire fighting in the same area, and in the in-between seasons, I’d spend all the money I had managed to save up — never very much, since I was living in an oil patch town full of bars in my early twenties — on a plane ticket somewhere hot, a used surfboard, and as much beer as I could consume in a few short months. Then, with a month-long hangover, peeling skin, and salt water jammed so far up my sinuses I could taste it for a week, I’d head back up north to break my back doing work I hated more than anything on Earth. The cycle continued for a few years, and while I’m glad I don’t do it anymore, I look back at that time in my life fondly.
Then, when I moved to California to ride this little ship that floats in the stormy seas of the internet, I was able to live beside the ocean again. I could see it from the top of the hill above my house, surfed in it nearly every day, and spent most of my time thinking about something ocean related. It was then that I really realized how much I’d missed it — not so much how much I’d missed actually being in the ocean, but how much I missed knowing that I could be if I wanted to.
Then, after a five-year stint, I moved back to Canada, close to the town that I grew up in, but not quite. We live on a lake now, one that’s warm in the summer, full of fish, and clear as the day is long, and I love it. But it’s not the ocean. Not even close. The ocean is about an hour over winding gravel logging roads from me now, not all that far but far enough to make it feel like a mission to get there. I still surf a lot, but not as much as I’d like to.
I can hear the lake from our house, knocking the dock against its pilings and the frogs are starting to croak in the evening. It’s a wonderful sound; summer evenings have a particular tune that no musician will ever be able to recreate, and that tune is coming back into focus this time of year.
It’s not, however, the same sound as you hear, say, from a van on a beach. The rasp of the rocks getting sucked back as a wave recedes. The snapping crack of a breaking wave hitting a headland, the sound of a wave breaking that’s so heavy you can feel it in your chest. I imagine there are a lot of people who likely miss the sound of the ocean — especially now, when traveling isn’t encouraged. A friend of mine sent over a link to a website that plays a few of those sounds. It’s not the same as hearing it in person, but it might tide you over until we’re all able to get back to the time when we know we can be in the ocean if we want to.
