Seaweed
Seaweed
Art
Photography & words by Naomi Hill
The first time I encounter seaweed is in the hand of my best friend’s mother. She offers me a piece. I taste it while my friend watches carefully for signs of rejection. Laver is salty and smells strange. I don’t know if I like it or not. This is while I’m still a firm believer in lakes and clarity. I spend my childhood summers on Georgian Bay, the northeastern arm of Lake Huron. The water is clear and calm. We examine schools of minnows and pink, disgruntled crayfish. I can see the lake floor.
Origin:
1. (also origins) The point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived.
2. A fixed point from which coordinates are measured.
Perception:
1. Awareness of something through the senses.
2. The way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted.
The summer that I turn 12 my family drives across Canada until we reach the East Coast. The wind is cold, and we shiver into the Atlantic. One hundred silken leaves wind around my calves, a garden moving with the current against my skin. I yank my legs away. My sisters swim farther out. For the rest of our trip I watch from the shore. Once, we come across a small lake full of the soft, waving stems. At home my mother has planted long, ordered rows of vegetables next to our house. It’s my job to pull the weeds
Delicate:
1. Very fine in texture or structure; of intricate workmanship or quality.
2. Easily broken or damaged; fragile.
The ascophyllum nodosum has dried to a perfect black matte; featherlight iron. I balance the warm, smooth sculpture on my open palm. This is when I’ve moved to Nova Scotia with my husband and our two children. Everything I hold is fragile. My son is unwell. I carry the seaweed home and place it in the open mouth of a small white plaster horse hanging on the blue wall. It’s odd to hang seaweed on a wall, in the mouth of a plaster horse, unless you’re in love with the tangled shape of it. Love conquers odd. My son grows strong.
Translucent:
1. Transmitting and diffusing light so that objects beyond cannot be seen clearly.
2. Free from disguise or falseness.
Along the horizon, a ship glides out of view. Cruise or cargo? A child crouches over a tidal pool and takes inventory. I walk toward the sea, food from the hand of my friend’s mother and a garden moving with the current against my skin.
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