“Flash at the Crest” 24 x 24 oil/wood by Casey Chalem Anderson
I drove mindlessly down Route 27, also known as Main Street in some stretches, the two-lane highway that runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. You would never know the ocean was just a mile away. Town after hamlet, then a cluster of functional businesses: the gas company, a furniture store, the CVS that used to be a bowling alley. Then an open fallow field, ochre reeds pushing through the snow. A darkened restaurant, closed for the season. The beach communities are laid out along the highway one after another as you drive east, toward the edge of the continent, toward the end of everything.
I was lost in thought, listening to NPR, trying to make sense of the latest unsettling news on that particular day.
I noticed the fields and took in a breath, a reminder of the quiet beauty still there if you pay attention. Take it in, I reminded myself. Choose what you want to take in. But WNYC was hosting a media roundtable, prominent journalists bantering through the week in politics, making predictions. They make their money like this, I thought to myself. I had been on high alert for months, compelled to keep up. I rarely discussed it with friends, except for a dismissive eye roll, but I felt I had to know. Better informed than an ostrich with its head in the sand. Be prepared.
Living by the sea has been a tonic for me, a reminder of a beauty that softens me from within. It soothes me. I watch the ebb and flow of the tides, sometimes dramatic with a special full moon. I kept driving east to pick up the painting that had not yet sold at a Montauk gallery.
Left or right, and suddenly the car was inching up a hill on the left. The road I never chose. I always took the sure way, the way I know. This road stretched on, mile after mile of bare, taupe-colored trees.
Then, the shock of the ocean, a sudden hit of flat navy blue standing upright against the sky, sharp against it. Wider than my peripheral vision could ever take in.
I thought I had taken the wrong road, made the wrong choice. But instead, a connection opened, timeless, beyond headlines, beyond fear. In that vastness, I felt unrestrained and unburdened.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I am always thinking about how we can use the sea, the saltwater, and paintings of it to free ourselves, to feel less confined and more at ease. I know it works for me. Maybe it does or could for you, too.
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Warmly,
Casey
