The seaweed knows no songs
But it knows the water
The beach curves against the sun
In a long arch
With gentle waves that kiss the shore and push
sand further up its back
The waves, here, are the gentle cousins
To the waves that stretch between the rough rock at the other end
The tension, timed, in its cyclical movement
Slow in
Slow out
Across the day, sometimes twice, maybe three times
And when the wave returns
It carries a gift from its belly
“It’s for you”, it says, “but first, we must sing together”
Between the rough rock at the other end
There is soft sand
The rock, here, embraces the wave
The sand
The body
Just enough, not too much
To begin the song
Footsteps fade
Wade into the cold, salty water
It’s early and it feels thick like molasses
But at least there is no rain, no wind, some sun, lots of sun
It’s summer
Keep wading, not too far
But past where the tension
Breaks
Where the swell
Releases
Where the thickness of the wave
Is at its fullest
Wet above the knees
No socks
But shoes
They keep the feet just a little bit warmer
Protect them from the rocks
That may be hiding within the opaque water
It’s here, that we sing together
It goes like this:
There’s a pull at the back of the leg
It feels like it lasts forever
Then the feeling of silence
A pause
A brief moment
Then, there is a
Deep breath from the ocean
Letting go all the air from its lungs
Filled with more strength than from the breath before
A return
This return brings weight to it
A thickness, more molasses
The feet reposition
Step back a little
Regain balance
Bend down
Hand in
Palm open
Fingers stretched wide
Hand swaying side to side
Slowly
Waiting
Swaying
Getting colder
Finally, a smooth gift the size of a palm, maybe two
Meets the hand, fingers still stretched wide
Each one wrapping
Slowly
Around
What the wave brought
One by one
Into a bag, slowly filled
Repeat
Getting heavy
Some pesos per kilo
Some minutes by hour
It drifts
In and out with the tide
It blooms
It spores
It seeds
It grows
It breaks, day in and day out by the winds that shake the water, that shake the rock
It floats, effortlessly
Waiting for a deep breath from the ocean
To pull it away
To release it
To let it go
To the hands of someone who collects it, day in and day out
It comes to them, almost as if it knows where it wants to go
Pulled in
By the force of that breath
Pushed out
Guidance, to the shore
Where their hands know to wait
For the song
This short story recounts the embodied practice of seaweed harvesting on Chiloé Island in southern Chile. These words do not detail the entire material flow of seaweed (luga) from ocean to beach to hand to middleman to factory to product but focus on one moment in this process - when the seaweed meets the hand. This moment is the subtle song that is sung by the body as it sways with the tide. This moment is the tide itself as it ebbs and flows, pushes and pulls. This moment is a guide for how much longer one needs to stay in the cold water to fill the last sack of the day... It is within these ordinary moments that the complexity of our interdependence, our softness, and our relationship to place and the body are revealed.
THE SEAWEED KNOWS NO SONGS is part of an on-going project that visualizes the lived experience of fisher people that live and work with(in) a watery landscape. Original audio and ideo was collected during recent field work with permission of the individuals.
Brittany Giunchigliani is a landscape designer based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her research interests focus on embodiment of, and in, the landscape as a feminist approach to Landscape Architecture and design. She holds a Master in Landscape Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the Norman T. Newton Prize for design expression, the Penny White Project Fund Award, the Unsung Hero Award, and the Sinclair Kennedy Traveling Fellowship to conduct research in southern Chile and northwestern Spain.