Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Ocean in the Jar

We went for a walk by the beach yesterday. I took out the jar I had stashed inside my bag and filled it with sea water. My husband, who should have gotten used to my idiosyncrasies by now, kept repeating, “What are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you doing things that mix me up all the time?”

“I am carrying the ocean in a jar,” I said.

“That’s only water. We have all the water in the world at home.” He was really puzzled. “Are you into science again? Is this an experiment?”

“No,” I said. “I just want to have a piece of the ocean with me.”

I didn’t try to explain further. It would take forever. Besides, he’d never understand that having a tiny drop of something is a consolation. It is like having the whole thing. If I can’t live near the ocean, the ocean will come to live near me.

All day yesterday, the jar stood on my desk. My husband kept glancing at it with strange looks, as he passed by. Then, he couldn’t help himself.

“That water will deteriorate. It is probably dirty anyway.”

“All composite things are impermanent,” I said.

I was quoting Suzuki, but he didn’t know that. If I told him, he’d have thought I was talking about a car manufacturer.

He shrugged, “Whatever! Make sure you get rid of that water soon. You don’t want something stinking in the house.”

I didn’t answer, but made a vague gesture with my head. He took it as agreement and walked away.

I looked into the water carefully without touching the jar. There were tiny specks but the water was clear just like tap water. I wanted to see something, anything: a ripple, a wave, a foam, the blue-green color of the ocean, the rush of the tide…

Nothing. Not a molecule seemed to move. There was no wind, no song of the ocean, no pebble tossed.

Just the knowledge that I had brought this jar of water home from the ocean. Just the knowing of it, just the dream. Just the unstrung strings of an illusion resembling hand-me down clothes or half-recalled love affairs. This piece of the whole had thinned out and was sitting wounded inside a jar.

Still, inside myself, I thanked the water in the jar for the dream, for the illusion, and for a few moments of fleeting happiness. I mused that the creation too had to be thanking the mortal man for experiencing that illusionary separateness.

I took the jar and dumped the water inside it into the pool. The water in the pool moved excitedly, rippling all the way to the opposite side.

The water in the jar wouldn’t stay inert anymore. Since our pool water emptied to a creek, it would join the ocean sooner or later, and the cycle of the ocean water in the jar would be made complete.