Brine in My Blood.

Author’s Opening Note

Here is something most people do not realize about their own body. Your blood is salty. Not poetic salty. Not metaphorical salty. Chemically salty. The sodium moving through your veins is what allows your nerves to fire, your muscles to tighten, your heart to keep rhythm instead of stuttering off beat like a trumpet player who forgot the tune. Even your tears carry salt. Even the sweat that rolls down your neck in Louisiana heat leaves that faint white trace on your shirt when it dries.

You are walking around with a quiet ocean inside you.

That realization sat heavy on me.

We argue about salt at the dinner table like it is just something to sprinkle on fries. Meanwhile it is the reason your body does not short circuit. Without it, signals would not travel. Thoughts would not connect. Your pulse would lose its tempo.

And that made me ask something that would not leave me alone.

If salt stabilizes the ocean and regulates the body, what stabilizes the soul

I grew up in a place where air sticks to your skin and brass bands play like they are arguing with heaven. In New Orleans we know you do not cook without seasoning. You might get away with that somewhere else. Not here. Somebody grandmother will taste your food and give you a look that says try again baby.

Flavor matters.

Depth matters.

Balance matters.

Yet we try to live bland lives. We want calm without character. Growth without friction. Strength without erosion. We want to stay sweet water forever. Pure. Untouched. Uncomplicated.

But sweet water freezes fast.

This reflection did not come easy. I cried writing parts of it. I had to pause. Walk away. Come back. Because when you start thinking about the ocean inside you and the seasoning required to keep it moving, you start remembering all the winters that almost froze you and all the summers that almost boiled you alive.

And you realize something humbling.

The salt is not optional.

So sit with me. Breathe with me. Laugh a little if you need to because if we cannot laugh at ourselves sometimes we will drown in our own seriousness.

Let us talk about oceans.

Let us talk about climate.

Let us talk about tears.

And let us talk about the brine in our blood that keeps us from falling apart.

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Brine in My Blood

How the Sea Seasons a Man and Teaches Him Not to Freeze.

By Kāteb Shunnar

I used to sit by the Mississippi River when I needed answers. Not because the river talks back. It does not. It just keeps moving like it has somewhere important to be. Barges sliding past slow and steady. Muddy water carrying stories from places I will never see.

And every single drop of that river is headed somewhere salty.

The Gulf is not sweet. It is seasoned.

And that salt did not just fall into it by accident. It came from rock breaking down over time. Rain scraping against stone. Rivers carrying minerals grain by grain like ancestors passing down hard earned wisdom. Deep under the sea floor heat vents push elements upward from places nobody photographs.

Salt is born from erosion and fire.

Let that sit.

We complain about being worn down. We resent the heat under our feet. We curse the pressure that scrapes at our ego. But what if all of that is producing something necessary in us

Scientists say salt increases the density of seawater. Makes it heavier.

Here is the twist.

That added weight allows life to float.

Density creates buoyancy.

When I am spiritually grounded, I feel heavier in the right way. Not depressed. Not burdened. Anchored. My convictions have substance. My compassion has backbone. I do not drift with every opinion that passes through the room. I do not erupt every time somebody challenges me.

Now let me be honest.

Without that seasoning, I can be dramatic.

Cut me off in traffic and I am ready to write a thesis on disrespect. Forget to text me back and suddenly I am questioning loyalty like I am starring in my own soap opera. That is sweet water behavior.

But when my spirit is seasoned, I do not freeze up or boil over so easily. Salt regulates extremes.

Pure water freezes at zero degrees. Saltwater can endure colder temperatures before turning solid.

Translation.

With depth inside you, you can survive colder seasons without becoming cold.

I have lived winters where disappointment tried to harden me. Where silence felt like rejection. Where betrayal knocked louder than brass bands on Sunday afternoon. Without something deeper steadying me, I would have frozen solid.

And frozen people are hard to reach.

Salt also drives something scientists call thermohaline circulation. Sounds complicated. It is not. When water in polar regions becomes very salty and cold, it sinks. That sinking pulls warmer water from elsewhere, creating a global current that redistributes heat around the planet.

Now listen closely.

The heavy seasons in your life can become the engine for movement in someone else’s world.

When something in you sinks, that does not always mean failure. Sometimes it means you are about to move something bigger than yourself.

But only if you are seasoned.

Saltwater absorbs carbon dioxide. It takes in what would otherwise disrupt the climate.

A mature soul does the same thing.

It can absorb frustration without poisoning the room.

It can hold grief without spreading despair like humidity in August.

It can take criticism without combusting.

You become an operating system.

And I do not mean that lightly.

S A L T

Stability

Absorption

Life

Temperature

Stability because seasoning gives you weight.

Absorption because depth allows you to take in what others cannot.

Life because balance sustains ecosystems.

Temperature because maturity regulates reaction.

I wrote that acronym on a napkin one night when I could not sleep. Sweat still drying on my back from a long day. Tears not far behind it.

Because I realized something uncomfortable.

There were times I was either freezing people out or burning bridges.

No middle ground.

That is what happens when you lack internal seasoning.

Now let me tell you something that came to me like folklore one humid evening.

There was once an old oyster woman down in the marsh. People called her Aunt Vale. She could taste the tide and tell you whether the season would be kind. One year the oysters started growing thin shells. Fish swam slower. Something felt off.

Young folks blamed the weather. Older folks blamed politics. Everybody had a speech.

Aunt Vale dipped her fingers into the water and tasted it.

Flat, she said.

They laughed. Water is water.

She shook her head slow. No baby. The sea has lost its grit.

Turns out upstream, people had built barriers to keep the river neat and polite. No mud. No erosion. No inconvenience. But without the scraping of rock and the carrying of minerals, the Gulf was starving of seasoning.

They wanted calm.

They got weakness.

When the barriers were loosened and the river allowed to scrape and carry again, the shells thickened. The rhythm returned.

Aunt Vale just smiled like she knew all along.

Do not fear what scrapes you, she told them. It might be feeding something deeper than you understand.

That story never left me.

We want smooth lives. No friction. No breakdown. No heat. We pray for strength and then complain when life hands us weight to lift.

We want to be oceans without salt.

It does not work like that.

I have sweated through Louisiana summers where the air felt like it was hugging you too tight. Sweat stings your eyes. Leaves salt on your skin. That is pressure drawing seasoning out of you.

My tears taste the same.

I used to think crying meant weakness.

Now I know it means I am still alive enough to feel.

We are walking oceans wrapped in skin.

And some days we forget.

But your internal sea needs seasoning just as much as the Gulf does.

And without it, you freeze quicker.

You boil faster.

You stagnate.

And stagnant water breeds things you do not want growing in you.

See, where I’m from, water ain’t just water.

Down here in New Orleans, water got memory. It remembers storms. It remembers levees breaking. It remembers prayers whispered on porches when the sky turned that strange green-gray color and the wind started talking reckless.

Water down here ain’t polite.

It tests you.

And if you grew up anywhere near Lake Pontchartrain, you know that lake can look calm in the morning and act brand new by afternoon. Smooth like glass one minute, choppy like it got an attitude the next.

That’s life too.

Now let me say this the way my elders would’ve said it:

Baby, you can’t live in Louisiana and be scared of weather.

Same way you can’t live a full life and be scared of pressure.

See, we don’t do bland down here. You ever tasted gumbo without seasoning? That’s just hot regret in a bowl. Ain’t nobody lining up for that.

Flavor takes time.

You gotta let that roux get dark. Not burnt. Dark. You gotta stand there and stir it. Patient. Sweat on your forehead. Arm getting tired. But you don’t rush it. Because if you rush it, you ruin it.

That’s how character works.

Some of us been standing over a hot spiritual stove for years. Stirring. Waiting. Wondering why it’s taking so long.

But depth don’t come from convenience.

It comes from heat.

And let me tell you something else we understand in the Crescent City.

After Hurricane Katrina, folks thought this city was finished. Water everywhere. Homes gone. Landmarks wounded. Spirits tested.

But you know what didn’t leave?

The seasoning.

Second lines still rolled. Brass bands still blew. Grandmothers still cooked. Churches still sang.

Because when something is rooted in salt in tears cried, in prayers whispered, in history survived you can flood the streets, but you can’t drown the soul.

And I had to learn that about myself.

There were seasons I felt flooded. Expectations heavy. Relationships shifting like marshland. Dreams looking like they was drifting further out than shrimp boats in the Gulf.

I got quiet.

Not peaceful quiet.

Cold quiet.

That “I’m good” when you not good. That “it’s nothing” when it’s everything. That smile that don’t reach your eyes.

Down here we call that playing tough for no reason.

And one day I had to check myself.

Because salt don’t just preserve it reveals.

You ever cried so hard you felt lighter after? That’s internal salinity doing its job. Tears ain’t weakness. They regulation. They proof you still soft enough to feel and strong enough to release.

I used to think being solid meant being unmovable.

But the Mississippi don’t move because it’s weak.

It moves because it’s alive.

And when the Mississippi River rises, it ain’t apologizing. It’s responding to what’s upstream.

Sometimes what’s overflowing in you ain’t about the moment. It’s about buildup.

So now I ask myself different questions.

Am I freezing people out? Am I boiling over small stuff? Or am I balanced?

Because balance is holy work.

Salt lets the ocean absorb what would otherwise poison the air. That means it can hold weight without collapsing.

Can I hold weight without collapsing? Can I absorb tension without spreading it? Can I walk into a room and shift temperature instead of matching chaos?

That’s grown seasoning right there.

And let me say this with a little Louisiana grin:

Don’t pray for purpose if you allergic to pressure.

Don’t ask to be deep if you scared of storms.

Don’t say you want impact if you ain’t willing to be stirred.

We don’t microwave legacy down here.

We simmer it.

We let time talk to it. We let heat teach it. We let friction shape it.

Because smooth stones don’t build levees.

Density does.

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Author’s Closing Words

If you made it this far, I want you to hear me plain.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not drowning.

You are seasoning.

Every tear you tried to hide. Every night you stared at the ceiling asking “Why?” Every disappointment that scraped your pride. Every prayer you whispered when nobody clapped for you.

That’s brine.

And brine builds depth.

From the heart of New Orleans where we dance in second lines after funerals and cook like memory depends on it I’ve learned this:

Storms don’t define you. Floods don’t finish you. Pressure doesn’t erase you.

It reveals you.

So don’t rush your roux. Don’t curse your heat. Don’t fear your sinking seasons.

You are becoming dense enough to carry more. Soft enough to feel. Strong enough to endure. Grounded enough to stabilize others.

Stay seasoned. Stay flowing. Stay real.

And when life turns up the heat?

Smile a little and say,

“Baby, I’m built for this.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrL-glx1Z0o

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