Sea

I, too, have eyes—beautiful eyes!*

I am the daughter of a photographer. As a child, I never wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps because he lacked the patience to teach. Back then, I couldn’t see the world behind his eyes.

A black and white photograph of a person holding a mirror that reflects one of their eyes, creating an artistic visual effect.

He was the son of an ambitious nation, born shortly before a devastating world war. When he was fourteen, the curious boy caught the wink of an optical lens in the trash. He fashioned his first camera and fell under the spell of the visual world—an encounter that would change his life forever.

Thirteen years later, then a young ballet dancer, he was drafted into service for a second world war. He decided he did not want to face the enemy with a weapon in his hand, but with a camera. He offered his services to the Wehrmacht as a photographer. From then on, he traveled to the theaters of war aboard a U-boat.

Whenever he surfaced from the breathtaking darkness of the deep waters into the liberating air of a coast, his third eye caught the cruel light illuminating horror and destruction. From the hostile cold of Scandinavia to the vibrant heat of Italy and the dry sun of Tripoli, he captured his impressions on rolls of celluloid.

An antique camera with a leather case, positioned next to a black and white photograph of a smiling man wearing a camera around his neck.

While his camera recorded the terrible reality of battles on the front lines, the observer within him rejected those horrific images, choosing to remember only the beautiful pictures of adventures in foreign lands. From developing in the darkroom, the photographer knew darkness well. In the submarine, he had grown accustomed to the suffocating obscurity of the deep. When the war ended, the returning veteran set up his first studio in an underground bunker.

A ruined Germany licked its wounds. At forty, driven by curiosity, he photographed the windows of newly built homes like glittering eyes, the radiant eyes of newlyweds, and—with loving eyes—his wife and daughter. On photographic paper, he reproduced the world of his inner canvas, bearing witness to a new beginning and the rising and falling tides of his homeland.

Distant lands continued to lure the adventurer. Traveling the world, the curious Cyclops used his third eye to explore exotic vegetation, foreign cultures, and the people of distant shores. Later, having retired to a remote island, the old explorer upgraded his equipment, though his own failing eyes began to betray him. The lens of his camera became his way of navigating his surroundings.

When the light in his gaze finally went out, one half-blind eye remained open in a final stare. As I kissed him one last time, I realized that through his loving vision, he had taught me a love for life. In his photos, I see his perspective. Now that his lids are closed, I can finally see the world behind them.

* From ETA Hoffmann, The Sandman (1817)

…and sometimes, my inner monologue is like the sea. In its calm blue, mysteries hide much like in the human psyche. They are difficult to wrest away. Sometimes they emerge on their own from the relentless ebb and flow. The sea is different every day. It is masculine and feminine. There are days when she looks like silver playing with the sun. When whipped by the wind, he grows angry, green as a cat’s eyes. I lose myself in the freedom of its infinite horizon. In the soothing murmur of its waves, I find a whole spectrum of ideas and thoughts, as deep as the sea itself. It speaks to me. Or is it I who speak to myself, stirred by it?

This morning, while walking my dog along the seashore, I found a tuna stranded among the rocks. I will never know what happened to it. I had often watched the large fishing boats hauling giant tuna from their deep bellies, lifted out of the fish farm enclosures. They transfer them to trucks that take them to the auction. Perhaps this one managed to escape its prison and died of hunger because, once free, it did not know how to feed itself. It was used to a daily diet of sardines, for which it sometimes fought with the other captive fish and the seagulls. Maybe it envied the seagulls their freedom of flight and decided to escape. Perhaps it injured itself during its getaway, which ultimately cost it its life. Or perhaps its time had simply come.

When this town cast a spell on me and I decided to stay, I had the impression it would be forever. This morning, I saw myself in the tuna’s place. We have both reached the end of the journey. It has died. I feel resurrected. Living by the sea is a present. And dying will be one, too.