What Do You See When You Look At The Ocean?
Discover more from Comics and Beyond by Betsy Streeter
What Do You See When You Look At The Ocean?
Plus, Ocean Adventure is FREE for Kindle right now!
Oh, hello! Sloth and Manatee and Friends is a journey - part nature special, part variety show, for your inbox. Comics, stories, sometimes space, often talking animals, and always friends. And of course a Sloth and a Manatee. We are so glad you are here! Please enjoy, and bring along a friend or your favorite action figure or stufftie.
Sloth and Manatee’s second book, Sloth and Manatee: Ocean Adventure is currently FREE for Amazon Kindle! Isn’t that splendid? Goes through Sunday September 17th! Get you a free copy or one for a friend, or both, and come travel around under the ocean and meet and talk to creatures of all shapes and sizes.
And of course, there’s a sign-able paperback version too. You can even tell me what you’d like me to write in it, like a note to let somebody know you’re thinking of them, or how much you like octopi or manta rays.
Last week on the Moon, the Tardigrades had just made a Big Noise to let Sloth know they had reached their destination, a leaf Sloth gave them. That was a long trip! Let’s see what happens next:
In honor of this glorious free e-book occasion, here’s a book I’m reading: An Immense World, by Ed Yong. It’s about how all the creatures of the Earth inhabit our planet a bit differently, because their many different senses create their own unique realities. Vast and varied worlds coexisting on our planet all at once. That really expands my perspective on what is real. It is fascinating and lovely and even the footnotes are wonderful to read.
So let’s have a flashback! In Ocean Adventure, Sloth and Manatee reach an undersea cave. Down there, the inhabitants live without light, and so they do things very differently from their two mammal visitors. Sloth and Manatee talk about this with an Olm, an eyeless salamander friend:
Drawing and writing Sloth and Manatee sure embiggens my idea of what life is, and what friendship is.
Sloth and Manatee and Friends is a free and public newsletter. Paid subscribers support this project and ensure that it’s available for everyone to come along, yes yes! Please consider subscribing, or becoming a paid subscriber, and sharing this adventure with someone you like, and Thank You! It means so much. All the creatures in the ocean thank you, too.
Speaking of Perception
Platypus (platypi?) use their bill for mechanoreception (pressure and movement) and electroreception (electrical impulses from muscle contractions) to find stuff to eat. The receptors are all over the top and bottom of their bill and so they sweep their head back and forth to pick up all that info in the water. What must the water “look” like to the platypus?
So, here’s a question: What Do You See When You Look at The Ocean?
Is it a shimmering surface? Crashing waves? A whale tail? A sunset? A very long distance to the other side? Is it a big blue shape on a map?
Is it animals, or plants? Whales, or plankton? Does it sound really loud or totally silent? What color is it? Is it bright or dark? Is it grey or aquamarine?
Do you hear boats, or a foghorn, or sea birds? Do you have salty wind in your face? Does it wash something ashore on the beach? What is it?
Is it warm or cold? Is it stormy, or peaceful, or something in-between? Do you think of looking at the ocean with a particular person or dog or at some event or on a certain day? Is there stinky kelp about?
And finally, what is it about the ocean that causes us to sort of stop and stand there and think and contemplate? Maybe it’s some combination of the sound, and the feeling of the sand, and the waves, and just the completed-ness of it that brings us into that sort of mental place. Whatever it is, it sure seems universal. Thank you, ocean!
May you hear the sound of ocean waves, may you smell something that brings back a good memory, won’t you be my neighbor?
-Betsy
What Do You See When You Look At The Ocean?
I see lush jungle kelp forests and then rise up, up to the surface where a pirate ship nestles against an island of wilderness and a stowaway plops over the side and swims through the seaweed for the tree line.