I Have Always Been a Wild Creature

She’s not just a sea creature—she’s a damn mood.

The first time I ever watched My Octopus Teacher, I didn’t just cry—I ached. 

Because I saw myself in her.

That octopus was curious, intuitive, sensual. 

She moved with grace and intelligence, fluid and free, never trying to be anything other than what she was. 

And Craig Foster never tried to own her. He didn’t try to cage her. 

He simply loved her. Reverently. Respectfully. From the shore, from the shadows, from his own quiet heart.

And that undid me.

Because that’s all I’ve ever really wanted: 

To be loved without being tamed.

I’ve always been a wild creature. 

My first real love saw that in me. I was 17, and our relationship was open, honest, passionate. He never asked me to shrink or settle. He loved me fiercely—without ever needing to capture me.

But over the years, other men came along with offers of aquariums.

Safety. Security. Comfort. Control. 

And for a while, those containers felt soothing. Stable. 

But never spacious. Never alive.

Even the fanciest aquariums—bigger, clearer, filled with promises—were still not the ocean.

Octopuses have always fascinated me. Not just for their brilliance, but for their sensuality. 

They don’t just taste with a tongue—they taste with their skin. 

They don’t see color with their eyes—they feel color through their bodies. 

They are creatures of full-body sensing. Of deep presence. Of radical embodiment.

Maybe that’s why I make love the way I do.

Not in the sense of mimicking an octopus’s mating ritual— 

but in the way I let my entire body become an organ of perception. 

The way I feel through my skin. 

The way I shape-shift, fluid and responsive, letting my body move however it wants to move—however it needs to move.

Making love, for me, isn’t a set choreography. It’s not a performance. 

It’s a sensing. A shifting. A becoming. 

I don’t want to be held in place. I want to be met in motion.

And that, too, has shaped the kind of love I’ve sought. 

Not the kind that holds me still, 

but the kind that lets me expand.

I’m lucky that my husband never tried to tame me. 

He didn’t offer me a container. He offered me a shoreline.

A deep breath. A quiet yes. 

And he lets me return to the sea, again and again, trusting that I’ll come back—because love without cages always calls us home.