I’m developed an instant, compulsive, recent obsession with the beach.
I’ve always loved it, always. This was part of the reason why we moved here. But it’s taken on, in the last week, some deep, need of a meaning for me. I keep contriving ways to take those steps out onto the coast.
Sitting down in the shower this morning, all the sash windows open to the bathroom, letting tepid water pound the back of my neck and shoulder blades. I sat there for about half an hour… forty five minutes… looking at the sea foam green ceramic floor tiles, and the way the dark cast iron feet of the bath contrasted against it. I wondered if anyone else tranced out in a Spring daydream? Concocting all the ways to get that five minute walk to the sea.
The air has suddenly turned fresh and crisp - summer is nearly here, the winter has gone. For a long time, I wondered if this would be the year eternal winter stayed, like the curse of Narnia, the beach forever cast in gothic mist. Air dried bed sheets smell of rose petals and sea breeze. There is no wind. Yesterday, we were encased in still warmth.
I can’t even post the part of the beach that is my favourite. An idyllic, mystical cove, practically Jurassic in its mountainous cliffs. There was hardly a soul. Me and the girls had the world to ourselves.
Today we woke to freckles across our noses and pink forearms, be a soft ripple at the linen curtains. And the sun, still here, seeing off the months before.
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