Drifting still on reading, writing, drawing the sea

Abstract

There seems to be no single word with which to properly refer to the surface of the sea as seen from below. Under surface could work, perhaps, were it not that this term takes as its orienting principle a position above water–one from which the surface remains a surface, and the below remains below. Gazed up at, this ropey ceiling that rolls and churns, that sweeps down and swells up, is not an under but an above; and if it is a surface, then it is a surface of depth– the uppermost layer of a body of water whose skin seems to move as its own separate beast: thick, viscous, full-bodied; part sea, part tumultuous sky. Perhaps this surface– this above-below, below-above of the sea–is simply an inside out, a double take, the seams of the sea made visible. [extract]