Siren Song
Apr. 20th, 2005 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morslaOn the train to work, a wave of memories washed in and swept me back in time. I glanced at a map on the wall, reading the names of the bayside stations, and remembered about the beach...
When I was little, we would spend our holidays on the beach at Phillip Island. We owned a house down there, and I ran across the rockpools more often than I walked on the sand. I used to pick up tangled knots of fishing line, and tease out the threads - using them to make things from driftwood and shells. I knew the beach like the inside of my eyelids... every holiday I'd blink, and it would be there again. The sand levels rose and fell against the rocks, and the occupants of each pool would change with the tide, but some parts of that landscape never changed. Walking down the trail towards the beach felt like coming home.
I've never been comfortable in or on deep water - I sink like a stone in freshwater, as I have no buoyancy. Even in the ocean, I have trouble staying afloat. I lived in the intertidal zone, somewhere between sand dune and sandbar.
Some beaches have stronger memories attached to them, good or bad. Near Red Rocks, I watched as thousands of paper nautilus' drifted ashore after a storm. At Seal Cove I climbed a solitary tower that had calved off from the cliff face, and I looked at a beach that was empty to the horizon. One night, I walked barefoot from Brighton to St Kilda until my feet were bloody, trying to get away from myself.
I think I need to get back to the beach. The fire at Wilson's Promontory is finally dying down - some areas of the park reopened yesterday, although everything south of Tidal River is still closed while they deal with spot fires. The park has mountains and beaches, and I can hear them calling...
When I was little, we would spend our holidays on the beach at Phillip Island. We owned a house down there, and I ran across the rockpools more often than I walked on the sand. I used to pick up tangled knots of fishing line, and tease out the threads - using them to make things from driftwood and shells. I knew the beach like the inside of my eyelids... every holiday I'd blink, and it would be there again. The sand levels rose and fell against the rocks, and the occupants of each pool would change with the tide, but some parts of that landscape never changed. Walking down the trail towards the beach felt like coming home.
I've never been comfortable in or on deep water - I sink like a stone in freshwater, as I have no buoyancy. Even in the ocean, I have trouble staying afloat. I lived in the intertidal zone, somewhere between sand dune and sandbar.
Some beaches have stronger memories attached to them, good or bad. Near Red Rocks, I watched as thousands of paper nautilus' drifted ashore after a storm. At Seal Cove I climbed a solitary tower that had calved off from the cliff face, and I looked at a beach that was empty to the horizon. One night, I walked barefoot from Brighton to St Kilda until my feet were bloody, trying to get away from myself.
I think I need to get back to the beach. The fire at Wilson's Promontory is finally dying down - some areas of the park reopened yesterday, although everything south of Tidal River is still closed while they deal with spot fires. The park has mountains and beaches, and I can hear them calling...
Turning my feelings away from our so ignorant world:
All the beatiful moments shared, deliberatlely push'd aside -
...a distance there is...
All the beatiful moments shared, deliberatlely push'd aside -
...a distance there is...
