Sea Foam

Lately, life has been frothy. Bubbly. Light, buoyant, supple. Very much like whipped cream, sea foam, the head of a well-brewed beer or the topping on a really good cup of cappuccino. Not unpleasant. Not at all. Not lacking in a sense of stability or constancy. Simply filled with air. Ventilated. Lots of tiny holes in the fabric of my thoughts, ideas, fantasies and even actions.

Holes, of course, imply emptiness. Space. And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s just a kind of spaciness that I’m feeling in everything these days. Not any big black hole of barrenness or meaninglessness. None of that struggling singer/songwriter self-indulgent stuff. It’s not at all a feeling of futility; but rather a sense of possibility: openness to what might be.

Holes also ask questions and open the door to wonder, conjecture and speculation. When there’s an empty space, it means almost anything could fill it. It means anything is possible. If nature truly abhors a vacuum (an aphorism I’ve always questioned, knowing that most of the universe is a vacuum), certainly my current personal nature has not been eager to fill these tiny holes too quickly. I like the way they feel. When anything is possible, I feel significantly invigorated.

Maybe it’s simply summertime and a shared sense – built in from years and years of 9-month school – that this is the empty time. The time when vacations happen and schedules dissolve. The period when timetables and calendars change their meaning. The season when people expect you to goof off and not be at something productive all the time.

Or, perhaps, it’s simply where I am in life right now with two astoundingly productive and imaginative daughters who are launching out into the world, wide open to whatever it is and whatever might be. Or perhaps, it’s that feathery delight I feel with my careers which fill a daily chalice of deep satisfaction and at the same time require preciously few unalterable agendas.

Who knows?

OK, if the human spirit can be defined as “the animating, sensitive or vital principle of any individual;” and the word from which we get “spirit,” is the Latin spiritus, which literally means “breath;” then, perhaps the foamier and sudsier we get – the more filled with air we become - the more animated, sensitive and vital we turn out to be. Maybe.

In any event, I’d rather be filled with sea foam than concrete. I’d rather be permeated with the lightness and flexibility (not to mention sweetness) of whipped cream rather than the weight and rigidity of steel rebar. I’d rather live with infinite possibility than with a nailed-down, unbending understanding of the way life works.

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite is the goddess of pleasure, love, joy, beauty and sexual rapture. The story is that she was born in sea foam formed from the castrated genitals of the sky god, Uranus. The word, Aphrodite, literally means “foam born.” So, born of sea foam, she was then borne by the sea to the assembly of the gods and thereby to the enhancement of humankind.

I know, I know, it’s just a myth. But perhaps those ancient olive and anchovy munchers were on to something. Think about it. Pleasure, love, joy, beauty and sex ain’t gonna arrive on a pallet in the back of an 18-wheeler. Those little wonders don’t need a forklift to move them around. No, those remarkably delightful attributes which make life worth the ride are a gift of the gods. A gift of the spirit. Of breath. They arrive very much like whipped cream, sea foam, the head of a well-brewed beer or the topping on a really good cup of cappuccino.

Thank you, gods.