Seascape

I drove here. I was once too afraid to drive anywhere and it’s still the thing I hate to do most, but I climbed in my van and I drove here. I achieved the sea, I unlocked the beach. I levelled up.  It’s not a day for the shore: folk are walking their dogs in anoraks, their collars turned up, perfunctory strolls being got through. I must be mad. I am mad. I love my madness and perhaps it’s the best thing to have, a willingness to charge headlong to get to the person I need to be.

 

The tide is in, but my teenager wants to shelter in the dunes, so we settle her there, guarding our towels and picnic and we walk over soft sand, ridged sand, damp sand. I’m laughing before we hit the water, because I know how cold it will feel, all splintered and terrifying and blue. Feet, then ankles, to knees and higher. My thighs scream immediately and go numb, but they’re still working because look, I’m moving forward. My twins have followed me in like ducklings. One reaches her waist and turns back with a decisive and hilarious No: the other sticks around until chest height and then just bobs about, exclaiming the cold and never quite making it under, but keeping me company and feeling brave. With the small of your back comes the first urge to quit. Endure that and you have a chance. It’s best to splash water on your arms and chest. These tiniest drops send your breath scurrying, but you do it again, then once more and you’re still not ready. How could you ever be?

There is someone else in the water, a good distance off. I’d seen her dark head from the beach, thinking at first it might be a seal, but as I get closer I see limbs and a ready smile. She wears a wetsuit. Yeah, that might be a good idea one of these days. You’re so brave she shouts at me. Just go for it.

There’s a point as you let yourself fall into the water when you can’t turn back. It’s this point you seek because gravity beats brain, and only when there’s no turning back can you give in.  The water round my shoulders makes my chest contract. Cold water shock but expected. I swim a few strokes then jump up, recover my breathing and go straight back in. I’m laughing because I’m here. I’m wearing a pink ribbon with Birthday Girl written on it and a turquoise swimsuit and a ring of rainbow daisies round my neck. There’s no form to the sea, no side to aim for, so I swim for a while, then change direction, feeling safe swimming towards shore and daunted swimming straight out into the abyss. I need to feel a little afraid. This is what I wanted on this birthday, dismissing every other idea. No, I don’t want a spa day, or a shopping trip, or afternoon tea. I don’t want to dress up. I want salt water and to love my utterly imperfect perfect body and to freeze. I want to be overwhelmed by something more powerful than me and to feel stronger in the wake of that dance.

I dive and my mind is pierced by ice shards; three times for luck. There’s a man in a tiny sailboat 50 metres out, wrapped in waterproofs, his face unreadable, studiously ignoring me. Men need toys: women just want connection. I’m glad to be in and not on top of. I try to hold this shrouded morning, to wrap it in a bow, but it’s here for this moment only and that, after all, is the point.

I’m not cold anymore but am feeling a deep warmth. I’ve swum in enough freezing water to know that it’s time to leave. That deep glow is dangerous and there’s driving to do before I reach the scalding jet of a shower. On my way back to shore I pick up a tiny white shell from the seabed, then turn and swim out again because there’s no one to stop me and I don’t know when I’ll be back and bugger it, this is the best thing ever. But it really is time to leave. When I get back there are golfers staring at me from the first tee behind the dunes, grinning at the mad woman. They were talking about you, I heard them, my kid said. They think you’re bloody mad. I stuff a Marks and Spencer’s iced spicy bun in my face and drink coffee from a flask as if my life depends on it. My teenager remarks that my red lipstick is still perfectly in place. Of course, I tell her, laughing. I’m a fucking goddess.

Later, there are French 75s, tempura prawns and false eyelashes; ridiculously expensive cheesecake, a fire under the sky and music. There are sunflowers and roast lamb and peach bellinis and love. And I am undaunted and unafraid because I have sand in my shoes and a tiny white shell at the bottom of my bag that is the key to new – slightly mad - adventures.