I’m really getting around these days.
Last week’s thoughts were of a sun-hazed amble in languid park, and now I am inspired by a mingle with the everlasting, otherwise known as a walk on our beloved North Beach.
It’s been too long since Bella and I have had a proper meandering potter and dabble on that familiar stretch of weather-sculpted strand and undulating sea … fathomless depths and miles of roaring, rumbling, sighing, shifting, swishing sea.
Never-ending, never changing, never the same.
Those dark, roiling acres are a living palette, endlessly mixing and reworking tone and shade, just now blending glistening olive greens with coldest navy blues, parsed by the brilliant white foam that turns them into discernible, individual waves as they make for the shore, before dissipating, exhausted, across the finish line.
The spume is left spluttering and spent as the waters are sucked back into the endless cycle of tide and toil.
No one here but me Bella, terrier queen of these saltwater shores.
I love the way she shifts her ears and tilts her head to catch a new sound.
I watch the sea and ponder, while she prefers to maul a seashell and she yelps at me to throw it for her to fetch.
She catches up on the shell, braking instantly on her tiny sea-and-sand-plastered paws behind it, and flails at it now in a blur of frenzied clawing.
As my toes are coldly caressed by the last drag of wave washing over them, I tilt my head one way, then another, and another again, and each variant alters the symphony of the sea slightly yet completely.
It’s funny how where you look also changes the soundscape; you hear the individual song of the wave you single out for inspection, just like when you focus on one player in a band or orchestra you can hear their individual notes even as they contribute to the overall piece.
I am trying hopelessly yet happily to describe colour, sight and sound, but really I am word painting a feeling.
That’s what the beach is like for me when I spend any time there. A feeling.
I succumb to the strange catastrophe of being icily aware of my mortality and yet forever part of this universe, even after my earthly shell will have been discarded.
I am both the sea and the tiniest gleaming rivulet sparking at Bella’s paw now as she too dabbles with infinity. Infinity in the elemental mix of water, sand, wind and sun. And the eerie, piercing ka, ka, ka of the seagulls all around us as they soar and swoop.
If she only knew. Or cared to consider.
Right now Bella just wants me to grab a shell and fling it away for her to chase down.
If I don’t throw it quickly enough, she is off herself, making her own sport as she charges from shell to shell, immediately discarding one and engaging with another, scooping one from under a piece of seaweed with a delicate swish of her sand-tousled paw before the sea can claim it, and burying it and excavating it for a frenzied moment, before she tires of it and moves on.
She darts between the dregs of waves dying across the glazed seashore.
There is a sense of freedom and abandon I get looking out to sea that I do not get anywhere else.
Mountains and valleys are all very magnificent and majestic … of course they are … but they feel like someone else’s magic, like a scene that has already been laid down.
I feel finite in those marvellous places. Smaller than merely small.
But staring out over the shimmering horizon now and beyond to where the sky begins, I feel I am creating my own majesty, my own magic, and my own marvellous …
I often set out on these walks with earthly thoughts and worries. Worries I really mean to tackle and work through. Thoughts of teenage tantrums, troubles, and temptations. Anything that might be getting me down. Or up. Or merit proper consideration
But try as I might, these thoughts seem to dissipate and collapse on the shores of a less earthly contemplation.
We are here, we are now … we will be gone, we will return.
And just to finally consider that here I am thinking these thoughts as if they were somehow new, when Shakepeare was penning his timeless Sonnet 60 all those centuries ago:
Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
-
- If you enjoyed what you have just read, try another one! Try them all! Seriously, follow my blog and you won’t miss out again. Thanks for reading.
EndaStories 
What a beautiful poem x #GlobalBlogging
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you
LikeLike
very beautiful!
@mixitup
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you
LikeLike
Beautiful . The beach to me just holds promise and potential. I see why so many beautifully written works lie at the beach. (Unless you’re with the kids of course,nowt dramatic and creative about sand in the eye )
LikeLike
Thanks Kelly … only seeing this comment now. For some reason, it had been consigned to the Spam bin! Now if you had to eat Spam on the beach we might really have a problem!!
LikeLike
Offended to find myself amongst the rubbish!!! Spam….oh my no…
LikeLike
Ah, I feel the same way about the sea too. I live in a landlocked state in the US but anytime I go anywhere near the sea I feel at home. Hopefully some day I’ll be able to see the other side of the Atlantic from your point of view!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sure I grew up in a landlocked county in the middle of Ireland, maybe that’s what makes the sea so attractive for us, and why we chose to live near it. Maybe one day you will go the whole hog and take in the wild majestic Atlantic. It’s very, very cold, mind!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Enda, you really do write the blog posts I feel I should! I love your takes on life and comparisons and insights. Great to finish off with a bit of Shaky Bill at the end too.
LikeLike
Yes, I feel the same. This is how I write in my head, but the words don’t flow so easily onto my posts, Enda has a most enviable talent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks John … he was on to something, alright, the same Shaky Bill, wasn’t he? Thanks so much for your lovely words
LikeLike
I can so relate to this, if there is one place I can truly be in the now, it’s at the beach looking out at the sea. I would love it to wash away my cares or supply me with the answers I seek, but it’s far to mighty for my daily trivialities. I really don’t mind though, it’s the proof I need that just being mindful is the way to deal with this world. Now all I need is to move to a cottage by the sea. Another perfect post Enda.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much Anne … see, like Tom Hanks, I have been on to your website and I know your name! The creepiness stops here, though! One of the things I like about the sea is yes, it is that huge and mighty force, but it is also made up of billions of droplets, who all play their part. Like you and me. And it’s lovely to look at and listen to. Thanks for stopping by
LikeLiked by 1 person
I, too, love the calmness that I get from the seashore #creamteam@_karendennis
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love your linky tag, Karen, the #creamteam — that I want to join!!! A walk on the beach followed by a cream tea — perfect!
LikeLike
Beautiful! 3globalblogging xo
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Lisa😀🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully written. Thanks for linking up to #ThatFridayLinky
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have a beach day planned for Monday . . . anticipation . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am not a huge lover of the beach. While I appreciate sand and water, I think I became a bit immune due to growing up in Hawai’i. Shocking, I know. I love the mountains and dessert areas I travel in now, they feel so different. #GlobalBlogging
LikeLiked by 1 person
Funny to think of a Hawaiian person not liking the beach … shows the power of cliche. Mind you, you and Lola seem like subversive characters so maybe it isn’t such a surprise after all😀🏖
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are definitely not in the norm of our peers 😆
LikeLike
This just inspires me to go to the beach your words are truly magical and you are one of the best writers in the blogosphere Today Brilliant as always Thank you for linking to #Thatfridaylinky please come back next week
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much Nige — your words are very kind, and also hugely encouraging. It’s funny how your comment just popped into my computer as I am sitting here trying to come up with my latest post, and not feeling very confident about anyone wanting to read it. Your positive words make it seem worthwhile after all!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My pleasure I genuinely love your writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You probably have no idea how much I appreciate your saying that Nige. Like everyone who blogs, I am at the mercy of the reader … yesterday not one person viewed this latest post and, despite myself, I was hugely deflated. I admire your own ability to write, and write regularly and so well about so many things. And you have the stats and awards to prove it! Good on you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you that’s very kind of you to say. I know that feeling only too well, for me it drove me on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Im not a fan of the sand, but love the sea! There is something so serene and calming about the sea! Thank you for sharing this with us at #TriumphantTales. I hope to see you back next week!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much
LikeLike
I’m rolling back in with the #DreamTeam
LikeLiked by 1 person
Roll on Heather!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so poetically written. I could see myself sitting on the shore whilst reading this! #globalblogging
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Jacqui. I appreciate that
LikeLike
Utterly beautiful and I wish I could write as well as you do. Empathise on this one as I love the seashore and always feel reflective about life and death when I am there. In fact when my mother was dying and I was so struggling to come to terms I found myself at Grange over Sands and walking with my daughter. Somehow the combo of mum and daughter just like another one 30 years before gave me comfort and the never-ending horizon made me think it would be OK and mum was just headed to another shore slightly out of view. #TriumpantTales
LikeLiked by 1 person
And you say you don’t write so we’ll!!!sure fooled me. I can identify with so much of what you describe. Thanks for your lovely complement and for sharing your thoughts
LikeLike
Back from #blogcrush still craving the seaside!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello mate nice ppost
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Deacon
LikeLike