The Seaweed (or Kelp? I don’t know the difference)

The other day I made the decision to go to White Water Wall with some friends. Although it’s a short 2.5 hour drive, it can be seen as a bit of a commitment for only a night. I went.

I pitched my tent and enjoyed the crashing of the waves. The pitter patter of rain overnight and the rustling of gum leaves overhead. (I made sure I wasn’t in line of any of those branches…)

The morning came, and the local kookaburra started laughing as the sun came over the horizon.

I am a sucker for sunrises (and sunsets) – so I chucked on a jumper and the puffer and braced the gusts of wind. I headed through the bush and towards the cliff where there were a set of stairs and climbed over that little log and perched myself on the granite rock to watch the sunrise. The thing with sunrises is that you’re never going to know what it’s going to look like – it could be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – whatever that even means.

One thing that I can appreciate about the sunrises (and sunsets) is that not one will ever be the same. Kind of like humans – we are all so unique and individual. Each morning, the sun’s rays will shine the way it needs to, unapologetically being itself. So proud because this is the only moment it has.

This particular morning, there was a thick band of purplely-blue cloud that the peeking of the sun over the ocean was impossible to witness. (I thought it was going to be a ‘bad’ sunrise – one where you can’t see any sunshine). Then the sun started to rise a little more and those golden beams shot through the sky – in four distinct directions. The reason that there were four was because of the puffy clouds only allowing the light to escape in these directions.

The beautiful sun rays – hitting the clear blue ocean, kind of looking like star light in the sky. An ocean of starlight – I saw it.

But the title of this post is called The Seaweed (Or Kelp? I don’t know the difference) – and you haven’t come across either of these yet… So let’s talk about the seaweed.

As I was watching the seaweed (or kelp) in that beautiful ocean – not in the morning, it was a bit later on actually. The waves came gushing in and flowing fiercefully back out. I noticed that green slipperly stuff (it always freaked me out when it touched me in the water). When there was no water, it was so stagnant. It kind of looked sad. Then that water came flooding in creating chaos. Absolute chaos. The seaweed would look like one of those air mans at the car sales yard.

But my God, did it look alive.

This is what got me thinking about that seaweed (or kelp? I don’t know the difference) – sometimes we need ‘ordered’ chaos to shake up the stagnation. Because what happens when we become stagnant? Algae is pretty gross – but I don’t think algae grows in your body. Our bodies stagnation looks like aches and pains.

So when you’re feeling a bit stuck, a bit stagnant, think of the seaweed and the chaos it needed to shake it up. Now don’t go doing anything destructive, just break up that routine. Jump in some cold water, scream into a pillow, dance in the kitchen, stomp your feet.

Be like the seaweed, or kelp? I don’t know the difference, do you?