Wave

wave
Definition of wave
verb

• move one’s hand to and fro in greeting or as a signal
• move (one’s hand or arm, or something held in one’s hand) to and fro
• [with object] convey (a greeting or other message) by waving one’s hand or something held in it
• with object and adverbial of direction] instruct (someone) to move in a particular direction by moving one’s hand
• [no object] move to and fro with a swaying motion while remaining fixed to one point
• [with object] style (hair) so that it curls slightly
• [no object] (of hair) grow with a slight curl

noun

• a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore
• a ridge of water between two depressions in open water
• a shape regarded as resembling a breaking wave
• (the waves) literary the sea.
• a sudden occurrence of or increase in a phenomenon, feeling, or emotion
• a gesture or signal made by moving one’s hand to and fro
• a slightly curling lock of hair
• [in singular] a tendency to curl in a person’s hair
• Physics a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance which may be propagated without net movement of the particles, such as in the passage of undulating motion, heat, or sound.
• a single curve in the course of a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance
• a periodic variation of an electromagnetic field in the propagation of light or other radiation through a medium or vacuum

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/wave


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A reading of the following passage can be found here:



While she sleeps, she falls. Falling isn't tragic when the fall precedes standing up.

...she lays in the ocean, alone, her hazel eyes closed, her back supported by the waves. Not too close to shore, for sure she's never been, the waves rock her forward and back and forward and back and forward away from familiar.

This is how she moves.

This is how she's supported.

The tossing would be familiar, but this rocking is more gentle than familiar. The curling water licks behind her knees, cooling the surface of her skin and the veins and bones beneath. With her arms to the side, waving forward and back and forward and back she makes momentary angels whose wings imprint in water only for a second before being replaced by sea foam.

And then her salt meets salt water.

She's always been one to cry alone when crying was unavoidable. In the water-- whether it was a pool or a shower-- the tears weren't visible and even at 300 pounds she wanted to be, and in many ways was, invisible.

Crying in the ocean, though, Wildflower didn't feel the sting of the salt and she knew she wasn't alone. There were all the momentary angels she'd made as she bobbed forward and back and forward and back over the crests of curling water. There were are all the creatures swimming deeper than her. There was the sand that had once been stone and shells-- soft, giving beds of tan which, under microscope, contained far more colors than tan. The stone and the shells had protected before they crumbled-- before they cradled.

Cradling and rocking, forward and back and forward and back.

So she kept on crying and the ocean rose beneath her, tipping her up and nudging her toward the shoreline until, after months had passed, she arrived, and stood up. When she opened her hazel eyes, stars blinked back from the salt-purified sky. She saw no one there, heard no one there. And though her sea legs begged her to sit down, she remembered the list she'd kept of the impossible things she'd one day like to do before breakfast, because, like Alice, she knew there was a wonderland. With the Little Dipper big enough and close enough that at any moment she expected it to dig deep into the sand and toss the granules into the sky until they also became stars, she recited the list to the constellations...

Impossible things:

• breathe without the weight of the past
• fold the ocean inside
• ask only questions which answer themselves or for which no answer can be found
• turn the maddening sounds into music
• color everything
• remove me from me

And because she'd rocked back and forth, she thought she'd do the same with the list. So she started with the sixth thing, after which she'd rock back to the first.

It didn't matter that breakfast had long since passed, and with it the promise of morning. Nighttime was as good a time as any.

She looked around, still neither seeing nor hearing anyone, and walked wearily toward the lifeguard's stand-- a compact, tall, roofed, white structure in which, when more people were swimming, she knew the lifeguard sat, protectively watching the swimmers. And she wondered, for a moment, how that lifeguard had not seen her rocking forward and back and forward and back amongst the waves until she remembered, even at 300 pounds, she was invisible. Still, even though she knew she was invisible, she always checked for who was watching or who could possibly start to watch. Because everything good and everything bad always started from watching and if she could head off the on-lookers there, if she could truly be invisible, there wouldn't be any more bad. She knew that meant there'd also no longer be any good and that realization stood her tall, beside the lifeguard stand, taking off her layers.

The Little Dipper still watched, as did the sand that once had been stone or shells.  First she removed her salty clothing, before she removed her salty hair.  She thought of how as a newborn hair is sparse, and how, as people age, it also goes away.  She thought of losing her hair during chemo and wondered if the loss of hair was meant to remind her of how she'd grown up--how she'd aged--during the process.  So, one strand at a time, she removed her hair until there wasn't any to be found on her head or body.  Next, she began peeling off her skin, starting from the tips of her toes, up her legs and torso, over her head, and finally, as though removing a shirt, she pulled the remainder off her arms, and she stood holding the sheet of her skin in the muscles and tendons and bones of her hand. 

Wildflower laid the sheet of skin on the soft, giving bed of sand and she laid down on top, watching the moon move gradually.  She dug her feet into the sand, embedding granules into her muscles, and realizing now would be the time to fold the ocean in.

And so, though she'd decided a different item from the list would be next, she stood, leaving her skin sheet on the beach and she walked into the waves and swam, letting the waves rock her forward and back and forward and back and the burn was incredible as she let the ocean fold in and yet, she'd accomplished another impossible thing even though it was well after breakfast. 

But nighttime, she remembered, was as good a time as any.

And she rocked, forward and back and forward and back and forward...

...and when she woke, and sat up and touched her face and rubbed her eyes, salty sweat dampened the back of her hand and she knew her journey wasn't over.