Where the Ocean Ends, The mountains Becoming.

As a child, my father said, “If I’m terminally ill, take me to sea—I’ll jump in.” Since then, the ocean became death. I fled to the mountains, not from him, but from that fate—seeking not escape, but a love not yet lost, a life not yet ended.

When I was a child, my father once told me, “If one day I am diagnosed with a terminal illness, take me out to sea. I will jump into the water and end my life.”

Those words were like a rusty anchor, sinking deep into the depths of my heart. From that moment on, the ocean was no longer a symbol of vastness and freedom, but a metaphor for death, a prophecy of my father's impending disappearance.

So I feared the sea, feared that the endless blue would swallow up my last memories of my father.

So let me flee to the mountains—

to the place farthest from the sea, to the opposite side of the ocean's edge.

There, there are no tides, no storms, no moment when my father will leap into the water.

I am not fleeing from him, but trying to break free from that inescapable prophecy,

to wake up from the nightmare that “he will eventually leave me.”

At that moment, I began my journey with him,

turning my back on the ocean and heading toward the mountains,

and turning my back on death, trying to embrace that love that had not yet been severed.