The light here comes at you like a mirage. For while, living here had the texture of a dream, surely it wasn’t real, the it being the light, the white Victorian houses stretching for miles along the promenade and the sea being just right there; not a car drive or a train ride away, just out the front door and walk down to it. Some smells still catch me unaware, more so the last couple of weeks as winter tentatively gives way to spring. A fool’s spring they call it and I’m happy to be a fool for this, for the damp earth near the brook running down the hillside, carving stone in its wake, one morning there was steam rising from the water and the surrounding plants, then snowdrops followed by daffodils and crocuses now and walking home after parent’s evening last week I grabbed Estella’s hand. Suddenly, a scent I didn’t know, heavy and thick on the air, too much almost, certainly if were to be synthesised and bottled it would be cloying, sickening, but there in the newly dark crisping evening, it was arresting. We walked backwards to find its source. The streetlights here are scant, the light pollution gone, and I miss it, I miss the cloud of light all night long and berate myself for loving the manmade more than the natural as if it’s a meaningful distinction now. It’s hard here to see into other people’s gardens in the dark. I put my phone torch on and found yellow flowers: mimosa. Difficult, I think, to grow in Scotland, but here, so south I’m nearly tipping into the sea, happily flowering in February.
Reminds me of the southern Oregon coast in the US. The steeply slanting beach warned us of sneaker waves that would threaten out of nowhere. Dangerously glorious. Spent a beautiful summer there. Never turn your back on the ocean.
Reminds me of the southern Oregon coast in the US. The steeply slanting beach warned us of sneaker waves that would threaten out of nowhere. Dangerously glorious. Spent a beautiful summer there. Never turn your back on the ocean.