about cyprus

It is a longing. This place. When I am away from it I remember it like a lover. A

lover that is gone. When I am there, my skin wakes up and my wholeness is alive.

The heat and the softness of the light on my skin filter the sensations around me.

Seeing the sea every day connects me to a place I know and, at the same time, never

look at enough. When the sea is in front of me everyday, and I can swim and gaze

and touch into its warm waters … there are pools and glades inside me that come

alive with new energy. Mostly I am sad to leave this place … and I always dream of

returning.

It is a longing.

And so to create something in this place is to bow down to the beloved and be with

the body of every day slipping into its secrets. Cloth of my skin matching the floor of

the studio as I lay down on its surface and heat up from the days and days of sun

that it holds and releases as I come close to its surface.

Whenever I am part of this place, I am shy, at the beginning. How much to reveal?

And soon enough I realize that seduction is personal and our ways with heat and

coming close are discovered anew each and every time we engage them. I am

renewed by this place as I rediscover my senses and their thresholds. I am more

alive here; engaged in the activities of being with my body and being with a place.

There is no ignoring Cyprus.

Everyday I am greeted by the sea and long to look out from being submerged. She

is the same and different and my body’s gaze meets her with joy and expansion. I go

out to her immediately and bathe in her amazing waters. As the salty waters lift me

and float me I swim out to the horizon and the red buoy every single day. It is an act

of love to swim out to a floating bit of red every day. I want to keep swimming out

past this floating bit of red and keep going towards the horizon, this never ending

meeting of sea and sky; but I am that wise. The sea will swallow me whole if I am

left without land; if I allow her to take me into the hugeness of her salty body.

And so I swim out to the red buoy and back to you. You join me everyday in the sea.

You are floating and treading water and staying closer to shore. You are elated to be

in water; floating and free of the weight you carry daily. You are from here but like

me you were born somewhere else. You and I are finding our way back to the sea.

This heat allows us to get close to ourselves and touch into one another by seeing

ourselves reflecting back. We are more porous here and breath becomes us.

I see you floating and smiling while this sea buoys your body. I swim back to you

treading water. The vision of your face wet and full of morning sunlight will be

forever part of this longing I speak of.

Lin Snelling