Song of the sea

This morning I headed to the shore to sit for a while. It took me some time to decide on the right spot. I started off near a carpark on a stone seat overlooking Point Danger. It felt a little too exposed and somehow, contrived. For some reason, I didn’t want to sit on a bench. I decided I’d rather make a seat out of something which might not have been a seat before.

I ambled down some slippery wooden steps, then pranced and wobbled my way through a mix of sharp, cratered and smooth rocks to the moist sand. Looking back up to the eroded hillside cliffs, my eyes hunted for a good rock to sit on. Most looked a little severe and uncomfortable. There were are few flattish slabs, but all tilted in a way that would mean side-bending my spine if I wanted to watch the waves.

I started to wonder whether my romantic idea of meditating on a rock was a little silly… but I also really wanted to unburden myself from the black head-sock covering my face. I knew that right beneath the cliff would the quietest spot, both in terms of walkers and my own thoughts about what the masked walkers might think of me. I started to look lower - in the nooks between the bigger, more obvious ‘maybe-a-seat’ rocks. These rocks were smaller and most didn’t look remotely seat-like.

Something stood out. An imperfect C-shaped curve with a funny little saddle bump in the middle. It would be a snug fit and the features were strong but it was also fairly symmetrical and level. After a short conversation with my sit-bones, we decided this cradle-rock was worth a try. Landing gradually, I wriggled into place. It was a little small for me, but sturdy, ergonomic and private.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the thermos of hot Rooibos tea. Wrapped up in a thin woolen turtleneck, a cashmere jumper, my grey hoodie (hood-up), black trackies, navy blue beanie and gloves, my cold sit-bones thanked me for thinking of this earlier, sensing the cold rock beneath. I unscrewed the lid-cup from the thermos and clicked the valve open.

My insides began to flood with warm anticipation as I poured the tea and revelled in my comfort. I hadn’t even taken a sip yet, but as the steam carried the fragrance to my nostrils and then into my lungs, I felt a simple bliss. I wondered whether Nero felt the same way upon hearing the clicker, knowing a handful of food would be on its way. I certainly hope so.

The tea was too hot to drink. It needed to sit for a while. I’d found my spot, but now searched again for an adequate tea-bench rock. Nothing was flat and level enough, so I found a smooth triangular rock to prop up between some others and make a palm-sized table top. I set to rest my little lid-cup full of tea, cradled one gloved palm in the other, and listened to the loud silence of the ocean.

The sea roared a cold, noteless hum. How hadn’t I noticed it earlier? It was as loud as a generator, but at the same time, the sound was self-pacifying and smooth. There was no one pitch - no one vibration which I could identify. It was an endless collection of wavelengths within one frequency band. The deepest pitches were the 3-4 foot waves in the distance, dumping on the sandbar. The lightest pitches were the bubbles fizzling into the sand.

There was a harmony - but not in the orthodox musical sense - rather, in the sense that precisely because of its natural chaos, no sound could be considered off-key. The white noise allowed my mind to rest in disorder, taking a break from its job as micromanaging self-organiser. I watched the waves crossing, slapping and twisting around one another in something of a maelstrom.

My heartbeat rocked my body rhythmically as I sat. I swayed steadily with my breath, inviting the world in and offering myself out. The two rhythms overlayed one another, like the lines of swell crossing over and doubling up on the point. In the flurry out there, all was pulsing, all waving, all rhythm - just so much of it at once that my narrow mind would never learn to sing along.

But my heart could, and it did. And so I closed my eyes to fall in, and forget myself in the song of the sea.