Finally, to flow like you do, Mother

Author: Ioane Silogava

The ocean has always called me, ever since I could open my ears to the world and let all her whispers go through my mind. I can hear her voice, as clear as day, calling me inwards, to the depths no one yet has been able to reach, except you, Mother. She’s even louder when I get near the shore. Her waves always splash at my ankles, making me shiver from the cold, yet all I can think of when I am at the shoreline, covered head to toe with the smell of brine and the sun whose rays reflect off the ground, is that the being beyond the sand and rocks isn’t much different from the one that steps right in them, whose feet have always felt the frost of the water beneath. Mother used to call me too, back when I was just the right size to reach her thighs. We would walk along this very same coast, below the cliffs, and let the wind flow through us and into the very ocean where it came from. Mother never talked much, but sometimes, I remember, she’d say to herself, while soaking her feet in the ocean, sitting in the gravel, with her shawl covering the ground, “She’s waiting for me”. I didn’t know what she meant then, but oh how life has made me figure it out now, my dearest, mymother. The fishermen found her shawl tangled between the rocks that went up the cliff. They said she must have slipped, fallen in during the storm, or got caught in the tide. For the longest time I believed that fate had taken her away from me, but I know now. She went willingly. Her last breath got stolen by the very ocean that called her, the same ocean that now calls me. Heavy-handed grip of the men with guns, the darkness, spreading like oil into our house’s walls, which were just waiting to blaze up into ash that’s what she ran away from, along with the now war-fused bunch, now deadly quiet, but them speaking no word has made a larger resonance than they’ve ever let out in their entire existence. She resisted, and rather than letting her life lose to the stabs of burners, she gave way for death to take her in a manner through which she’d stay one with the only thing she ever wanted to be, the ocean. 2 | I o a n e Silogava The war has stained everything and everyone around us. The sound of every single creak that walked by their ears brought shivers down their spines, already torn, bringing them down by gravity of the conscious. Still, they try sweeping the ashes from their doorsteps, hands quick, voices low, holding back with sheer will what’s already way behind them, in the past far gone. Their houses are cracked and broken, left soulless, and the only thing the wood recalls is the conversations that used to vibrate within and throughout, the conversations that now have been deafened by the stillness of rage, and the shriveling dread of the end looming over. The town has started rotting from the very inside, but I’ve seen those who stayed too long, those who weren’t able to leave behind the only lives they’ve lived, taken by violence, driven out, erased like they were nothing, like you, Mother. The streets are scarred with bullet holes and all you can hear is your own footsteps walking through the blazing pain of silence. All that was left were ghosts, of the ones who died here, of the ones who left, and the others, who were erased way before the war, and by the war, ended, now trudging through the smoked smell of gunpowder and in the footsteps of the soldiers down the sand, which became as much of a part of our land, as the cliffs that went down to the ocean, to you, Mother. The sun, fighting its best to get through the cracks, couldn’t reach through the smoke-stained windows, which stayed shuttered at noon by soot. Doors opened only halfway, afraid of what might slip in if they cracked open wider. Even the church bell– it seemed quieter than usual, probably deafened by the weight of air. The tides have never receded since it all started, for the storm was now constant. All these years later I understand her more than I ever have. I know what it is to feel pulled by something larger than yourself, something that has called you all your life. I know what it means to be caught in the grip of something like the ocean herself. After all, I am my mother’s child. The people in my town tried giving me a name. They whisper when they see me walking by and they know very well I can hear them, but they don’t see me human enough to care, and they may be right, but it doesn’t matter how inhuman I may appear, there still always has been that ounce of me, to whom 3 | I o a n e Silogava those words meant the world. “It isn’t natural, you must be one or the other” but I feel very happy being both, being neither, somewhere in the middle they haven’t been able to meet me at, ordering my soul to present as they desire for it, but I am neither a rose’s flower nor its thorns, I am the most earthly of all, I am the one with both. They don’t see the ocean as I do. They see her as something unpredictable, therefore something dangerous. Something to fear, and by the irresistible wish of man, to control. I am the tides that don’t obey their will. I don’t have a name, but I know I’m more than the things they say of me, but they are soon going to be gone anyways, for I know they are soon going to try to take me away too, but I won’t let them take me away from you, Mother. The ocean has always known me. She lets me stand at her edge, exactly as I am, exactly as we both are. I know why my mother came here now, because at this moment I too feel that same pull that took her away. See Mother? We are more alike than you ever thought. I know I didn’t know you for that long, but you’ve always been there as the ocean. We are so much alike, Mother. I reach to feel the stones scattered along the sand. I pick one, then another and I place them in my pockets. The stones feel cold. They are the same weight my mother carried down into the below. The saltwater touches my face. The air is sharp, and it goes right through my skin, but I don’t shiver. The people in town will say I was lost. After the fires of war have blazed them away, they’ll tell stories of how the war broke me, but they’ll be wrong. I am not lost, in fact this is the only time in my life I haven’t felt lost, I have finally found the place I am meant to be. I am not confused, and neither were you, Mother. The waves cradle me like you used to. My heart is slow, and I don’t feel like I must breathe any longer. For the first time, there’s no missing piece, a vase shattered by bullets, now bound by golden seams to be whole once again- I’m sure this is what you felt too, Mother. My body feels liquid, ink-fluid. I recognize the smell of my mother’s briny shawl whipping in the wind, now wrapping around me, bringing me down. 4 | I o a n e Silogava And as the cold settles into my lungs, as the weight of the stones pulls me down, I try my best to whisper to myself, to whisper in my head, in which no other thoughts can now appear, the words I never got to say: “Finally, to flow like you do, Mother.”