The Chase

When I was a teenager I went on a trip to the seaside. Lucky me lived far enough away from the sea to get proper snow in winter, but close enough to take a short car ride to the coast. Once there, I remember standing on the pier at Saltburn, and looking out across the vastness that is the ocean. If you look into the distance all you see is blue. It gets paler as it snakes outwards, until you can't tell which is sea and which is sky. When I stood there and looked out I had that feeling you get when you see a rainbow.

You know what I mean! You look at a rainbow, and you want to see where it ends. Not just for the silly pot of gold tale, more because...it's gotta end somewhere, right? Look I don't know that much about science but I know that a rainbow isn't a thing you can touch, it's something you perceive, it can't be chased, it can't be caught. Despite this, even now I'll look at a rainbow and want to see where it ends. One day, when I was much younger, I saw the end of a rainbow. It was going right into my next-door-neighbour's back garden. I raced down the stairs of my childhood home and announced to my family that I was going out there to find it! Rushing to the kitchen, I looked out the window and was horrified. The end of the rainbow had moved. It wasn't in the next-door-neighbour's garden anymore, it was arching down a few roads away. Needless to say, I gave up easily, I didn't bother chasing it any further.

Well, that was kinda what it was like looking out to the sea. I wanted to see the end, but I knew the horizon would only get further away. In any case, even where the sea did end, it wasn't the edge of the earth. It was only the end of one journey. And if I were to look behind me, I'd only see that horizon I was chasing again.

No, what I was more concerned with was what I would see on the other end. What was through the looking glass? I asked my Mum this very question, "If I could swim...and I swam out right now, until I came to the shore on the other side...where would I come out?" Mum said, "Norway, I think." That was it, then. I looked out again and I knew Norway was there. I could stare and stare and all I would see in the distance is nothing, but I had an answer. I could almost sense the other people on the shore on the other side. It was there.

I don't know why it meant a lot. I guess I liked being connected to the rest of the world in some way. I hadn't ever been to Norway, yet I was sharing the sea with its inhabitants.

That feeling of chasing the end of a rainbow returns time and time again. When you wonder which country would be directly underneath the spot you are standing in if you were to dig a tunnel straight through the earth. When you walk into thick fog and it's not thick at all, but you can see the thick fog right there in the distance, but when you get there it's moved further away again. When you are walking along the shoreline and the sea is just stretching out, tickling the toes of somebody else, wherever it is they are in the world.

I won't ever stop chasing the horizon, because it doesn't matter if I don't ever get there. As long as I was looking for it, I'll find the answer. It's there.