A calm that may never again be found

I often find myself by the sea in a place that seems forgotten. It is here that, despite it having lost much of the charm it once exuded, one does still find a semblance of the old and gentler world we have chosen to discard. It is also where it often is a joy to take the start of the new day in, free from the distraction of the urban world that now does not seem far away. Sitting by the old crumbling sea wall, the reflection of the changing hues of daybreak off the gentle undulations of the sea brings not just that moment of magic that precedes the rising of the sun, but also a sense of calm that is hard to find in a world now dominated by the cold of steel and concrete. Every moment of magic is one to celebrate as if it were the last – the winds that bring with it the change that until now this world escaped seem not far away. It is a matter of time before it does arrive bringing a world with it in which the calm that I now seek may be a calm that will never again be found.

The celebration of the new day in a world that for now seems forgotten.

The magical calm that the surface of the sea takes on at the start of the new day.

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The song of a forgotten shore

I have, of late, stolen moments alone, moments in which I am able to wander at the break of day along a forgotten shore. In the calm of the morning, it is the song that is sung in the greeting that the sea gives the shore that I hear, a tune that takes me to a time I might otherwise have forgotten. As I listen, the lightening of the sky reveals the shore which except for the signs of human interventions of a not so recent past, is one that is untamed. The shore is one that wears textures painted by the meeting of water with a litter of sand, wood and stone. It exudes a beauty that only few can see, a beauty that finds no place in the manicured world we now embrace. I sometimes spot a figure dancing through the wash. In the face of the figure it is my face that I often see, my face not of today, but of a yesterday of three decades past. As I take the walk the figure takes, I find myself walking back to once familiar shores, shores that although distant, are close by through a familiarity of sight. I am grateful to still be able today to take these walks yesterday, taking each as if it were a last. The next may be a walk into tomorrow. And with tomorrow, the forgotten shore and the distant shores that I am reminded of, will be ones that will certainly be forgotten.

The forgotten shore.