A landlocked children’s author understood the violent indifference of the sea

“The sea can swallow ships, and it can spit out whales like watermelon seeds. It will take what it wants, and it will keep what it has taken, and you may not take away from it what it does not wish to give.”
— Natalie Babbitt

Living in Newfoundland, and just a short drive from the coastline, I’ve had a lifelong appreciation for the sea. It has its own magic and lore, and so often, there is also tragedy — a reminder of the ocean’s relentless power. That pain is present in the folk songs we sing, the tales we tell.

It’s one of the reasons why this quote, from the American author Natalie Babbitt, resonates. Known best I would say for her novel Tuck Everlasting, she wrote these words in the novel that followed, The Eyes of the Amaryllis. It’s the story of the widow of one of the crew killed in a hurricane.

Babbitt did not grow up in a maritime culture, though. She was born in Ohio in 1932, and grew up there, and lived in New England as an adult, much of it in Connecticut. In other words, a pretty landlocked existence.

Yet, somewhere along the way, she picked up a respect for the vast, indifferent ocean.

Natalie Babbitt died in 2016. She was 84.