Editor’s introduction:
A poem on depression may not seem like a likely submission for a volume on Ocean Literacy and traditional knowledge. Yet, the more we read into Masido’s framing of mental health as something seasonal, atmospheric, passed down, and oceanic - we began to understand why this submission was relevant, after all. In the work below, Masido contextualises herself within the rainy season in Kenya. Through her discussion of knowledge passed down to herself and others, and her particular framing of this knowledge as ‘inheritance’, we as the reader are exposed to an alternative understanding of how we influence the ocean, and the ocean influences us. This version of Ocean Literacy and intangible heritage is deeply personal to Masido, and sits within the realm of Blue Health, the Blue Humanities, and Dr. Wallace J. Nicholls’ ‘Blue Mind’. For this reason, we found this work to be an important addition to our collection, and hope the reader may take a moment to expand their understanding of Ocean Literacy, as well.
A poem on the Kilifi Ocean: depression
The knowledge of a dangerous sea is not written anywhere. It lives in warnings from mothers, in fishermen who study the horizon before dawn, in stories of those who did not come back. The ocean feeds us, frightens us and names us. It is part of our inheritance.
In Kenya, the rainy season usually begins around March and goes all the way ‘til May. It peaks in April; the ocean grows darker, fuller and impatient. The shoreline shifts. Sand disappears. Waves reach further than they should.
Most people from Nairobi or upcountry don’t know the phases of the ocean. They haven’t been taught to read the signs. There have been many drownings due to this. We coastal people know never to swim during the rainy season.
I was born in April, in the middle of the rainy season, and have always felt that heaviness as something familiar. The rain can fall for weeks, yet the ocean never loses its salt. Like my own cycles of depression, no amount of “heaven’s water”, that is self care, medication or good happenings in my life, have ever made it possible to truly shake depression. That has always felt personal.
Living with bipolar disorder has taught me about seasons inside the body. There are calm months. There are bright ones. There are mornings when children can swim in warm puddles left behind by the waning tide. And then, there are Aprils. The rain does not change the sea’s nature. It only reveals it more dramatically.
When I write about the Kilifi ocean in April, I am writing about what living is like for me. It’s about beauty that carries danger. An inheritance you did not choose. And it’s about learning to stand at the shoreline and respect what could pull you under, and still loving it anyway.
depression
i am the ocean in april
too much rain has come and gone
yet all of heaven’s water
since the very first dawn
has never once been enough
to rid me of this spice
that burns and stings and clings
