NOVEL WEB CB: Chapter Nine: Beginning
Clear Blue
by Elamimax
Beginning
I'm proud of you
I would tell you about my first time swimming. Really swimming. Gliding through the water like it was what I had always been made to do, not cutting through it like a knife or struggling through it like a hairless monkey, but being a part of it. Moving not through struggle but sheerly because I wanted to.
I would tell you about the woman who swam next to me, the most beautiful woman in the world through the sheer force of her personality and kindness, her smile, her eyes, her hair, the way she talked about nothing and the way she thought about everything, that quiet intensity of someone who was not unfamiliar with hunting her own food, or just the way she looked in a summer dress.
I would tell you about my tail, which, as sentences go, is one of the strangest ones I’ve ever thought, let alone put to paper. Gorgeous and long, all glittering scales reflecting the sun, a thousand thousand shades of blue. How strong it felt and how supple, how it made movement infinitely more complex than it had ever been and yet somehow the simplest thing in the world.
I would tell you about the ocean, and what it meant to me. It had always, even back in the days before coming here, been a symbol. A symbol of freedom and fear. Something larger than myself, something that I could not be a part of. And while I still respected its strength – not doing so is a dangerous and lethal game to play – it was no longer an alien landscape. It was an extension of home. A place where you could fly alongside creatures so small they weren’t visible to the naked eye and float besides those older and larger than anyone could ever hope to be, both perfect in their own way.
I would tell you about the way the world looked, when given that kind of freedom, in that kind of world, with that kind of tail, next to that kind of person. How it looked full of hope and possibility, away from what had to be or what should be and an infinite possibility of what might and what is. That the ocean floor can look like the most comfortable place in the world while a storm rages overhead. That the surface of the water on a calm day looks like a mirror if you look at it from the right angle.
I would tell you about myself. I’m not who I used to be, and I think it’s supposed to be that way. I’m me, now, more than I ever was, and that is, of course, thanks to where I am and how I got here. There’s a beauty in my old pain and fear, and both of those are still present in my, well, present. It tells a story that is both clear and true. I have found happiness in authenticity, yes, so much more than I would have ever thought possible, but that is not all there is to it.
I would tell you about how things could be. For myself, of course. In a world unconstrained by expectations, and with a slight push from fate, I could, can, am much more than I was. The thought that I never would have been without a space to be in pains me, because there is a version of me out there that never was but tried to be. But for others, too.
I would tell you about a painting, and how that painting is an idea. Clear Blue, by the Unknown Artist does not, I think, exist, except in our imagination. It was a wake-up call for me. A realization that hoping for marginally better futures is a slow and insidious killer. At least for me. That sometimes, we have to visualize a painting of what the world could well and truly be, and that we might need to spend some days living there to know what and who and why we truly are.
I would tell you that there is a future, not marginally different but peaceful, where clan and kin is strong, and so much stronger than a model of a family dreamt up by possessive old men aeons ago. A world where food is not sustenance to be fought for every day but an expression of love shared in a community, and communities are open and breathing and ever changing. A future where children are free to be themselves and safe from possession and greed and cruelty.
I would tell you about my dream, and how waking up for me meant discarding notions of what I thought the world was and embracing a life that made that dream real. How waking up was not a matter of being asleep or not, but an active choice, to be, to remain, no matter what, myself.
I would tell you about Aria. About who she is. As real as I am, Aria is the woman I love. The one who held my hand when I was too weak to stand, who held my food when I was scared to eat, and held me when I felt too broken to be. Aria is kind, and she is beautiful. She is everything I want in life, as much as it is who and what I want to be. I want to be that beautiful, dancing under the light of the lamps, not caring about whether or not the life that I have chosen to embrace with every fiber of my being might be cringe. I want to be that kind, giving food and shelter to strangers. I want to be that happy, trying new foods and listening to old stories. I want to be that real. With Aria’s help, I am, or at the very least I’m becoming that.
I would tell you about the pain that got me to where I am, how my life was unsustainable and how, without hyperbole, I was more dead than alive trying to exist while trapped somewhere my life was not so much valued as it was weighed and measured in numbers on spreadsheets. How being in a body that wasn’t mine was just one of the many consequences of systems and ideas that are so anathema to my, to our very existence, and that I needed so much more than to just get the right one through a dream.
I would tell you about happiness and satisfaction, because, I think, every good story needs some of it. It doesn’t really matter what story you write, no matter how dark. Some part of it needs to speak to you in a way that makes you feel heard and seen. That I now know what food is supposed to taste like, not because the food was fresh or because the cook was better, because food is supposed to taste like satisfaction. Meals should be an experience. That I now know what the water against my fingers feels like, not an inconvenience to be wiped away lest it damage whatever I’m trying to write a message on, but a stimulation of the senses that, on a hot day in a cool breeze, makes the skin feel like it is being reborn.
I would tell you that you are good enough, because I don’t think you’ve been told that enough. You are doing your best, and I don’t think you realize that, either. That you’re beautiful and that you have value, so much more than you think. That there are people who love you and so many more who would, if only they could see you.
I would tell you about sex, but I don’t think I will. You’ll have to imagine that bit for yourself. But suffice it to say that your body should not be a list of tasks that need to be resolved, but the greatest toy and tool and vehicle for expression that you’ve ever owned, that it is and should be that which lives through love and ecstasy. And yes, that is about sex.
I would tell you about Azuro, a jewel of a town by the ocean, and how it is also an idea. The perfect home, connected through a thousand sails and fins and thoughts and letters and messages, to the rest of the world around it, always changing with every stranger that decides to stay. About how it is community, where everyone can sit by the fountain, how everyone’s children are welcome to dance by the evening light and safe in doing so. How those who are scared or ashamed are kept, are sheltered when they need sheltering, fed when they need feeding, and healed when they are hurt.
I would tell you about tomorrow. Not a nebulous future filled with impossible promises and dreams and a painting called Clear Blue that both is and isn’t a place, about ideas. I would tell you about tomorrow. About how tomorrow, when the sun comes up and you have your first meal, how you are loved. How this world was made for living in, no matter what some have done to it. How you were made for living and laughing and eating and swimming. How the greatest thing you could ever do, for yourself or for others, is to exist, truly and freely, as yourself. No matter how mercurial or undefined, there is a truth to you that only you know. Only you know the food that tastes so good it hurts. Only you know the songs that make you cry. Only you know whose voice makes you smile despite yourself.
I would tell you to embrace that. That tomorrow. Trite as it might be, the littlest things can mean the world and that you deserve to live in those moments, between the scary ones, between the fear and the anxiety. If a weed can uproot a cobblestone, you can push aside the bricks of the world enough for you to breathe, and you are not alone.
I would tell you so many things. You deserve to hear them, and you will. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow does creep in, a relentless, somehow-petty pace, and you deserve to be relentless and petty in return. Live because someone thinks you shouldn’t. Smile because the wheels of commerce abhor your happiness. Find joy in the little things that can not be sold. Live in the now. Then, the day after that, you can help someone else embrace theirs. Help them find their food and their laugh and their dance and their Azuro by the sea. To paint for someone else their Clear Blue. You deserve to, and so do they.
I would tell you about mermaids, because this is a story about mermaids. That they are mythical creatures, impossible, once dreamt up by sailors as a way to excuse the fact that they got very, very horny out on the ocean for so long and that beluga whales do kind of look like they have knees. That they are mythical creatures because we like to imagine a world where the impossible isn’t, a world where the things we fear cease to be terrifying and the unexplored becomes explorable, where we can swim in the sky and be, just a little bit, gorgeous. That mermaids are beautiful because they are mermaids and because they are free to be themselves, impossible and perfect.
Like you.
I would tell you all of this, but I think I am done telling you things. You’ve been a kind and gentle listener, and I have been very indulgent, and I am grateful you’ve come this far with me. I have been very lucky to have seen my Clear Blue, and the journey has been exhilarating and terrifying and beautiful and painful. It’s my wish that yours involves fewer mistakes and even more colors. But more than anything, if I can wish you anything, it’s that you find your own painting, your own moment, your own realization that it is perhaps time to wake up and see the world not through its incremental changes, but as today and tomorrow. As smiles. As honey. As dance. As lights. Promises and present. Love.
Would you tell me your story?
