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Sea in between

Sea in between

September 2024

The sea is often imagined as a barrier—what lies between places, what defines an island as separate. But in my native Galicia, in northern Spain, historical land registry documents describe coastal property boundaries with an evocative phrase: _“bordering England to the North, sea in between.”_ This peculiar legal language reveals a different relationship to the sea: one that sees it not only as a dividing line but also as a bridge, collapsing distance and suggesting proximity. As if the sea were merely a pond between familiar shores.