Krisanne Baker: Dear Deep Blue

                                                                                          January 11, 2022 Waldoboro, Maine

                                                                           Cloudy 36 degrees winds gusting to 60 mph

Dearest Deep Blue, 

I want to let you know how precious you are to me. I am so very fortunate to have known you intimately all of my life. Swimming through you with your salt mingling with my salty eyes has always felt like home. Did you know when I was a child that people used to call me ‘Fish’? Haha! People couldn’t get me out of the water then, and still can’t!

As things have gotten worse for you in this world, my love has grown stronger to the point that my introvert self has become a fierce protector of you – who would have thought it?! Krisanne as an activist? “She was once such a shy girl... “ But what’s happening to you brings it out in me. I can’t stand by and do nothing while your waters become acidified, over heated, drilled, mined, polluted, noise blasted, and overfished. It feels like a violation of the worst kind. And you have no voice to yell or protest. It is so frustrating that people don’t see you as a living breathing being with the same rights as them.

Without you, we humans are nothing. I guess people don’t really think about where they came from, or know how your magnificent microscopic citizenry creates the air that we breathe up here on land. I am forever beholden to you, and want to sing it at the top of my lungs! Although my art about your life is much quieter; the beauty and safety of your reefs for all the little ones, even the most fearsome sharks are doing their job protecting you.

I’ve been making paintings to celebrate your wonder; the magnificent phenomenon I experience every time you receive me; whether it’s your calming embrace while I simply float and rest upon you, or your enveloping sense of dance and sway against my body as I swim through you. I longingly watch the true symbiosis of life you embody. Your heroes, your inhabitants, are all so harmonious. I want to be part. I wish I didn’t have to come up for air so often. I guess you could still call me ‘Fish’. My greatest fantasy would be to live surrounded by you always. But for that I need to grow some gills. Maybe in the future, humans will evolve to breathe under your waves. Somewhere along the lines of evolution we had them; maybe we will again.

My hope is that humans learn to take care of you like you deserve. After all, we are made from you.

I will be with you soon, my dearest Deep Blue.
Thoughts and memories of you keep my heart full of love and hope. Until then, be well,
Krisanne