I AM MAKING A BEACH AT home. Every day, the dogs and I deposit a bit more sand off our shoes and paws. The carpet already crunches, and drifts are building up in corners. My dream is sand dunes in my lounge. Wonderful. Seagulls would enhance the effect. So far, luring them to swoop through the open ranch-sliders has been unsuccessful, but the near misses into the closed windows were spectacular. Another problem is simulating waves and tides inside without doing a lot of expensive damage.
I love the beach. I always have. I am not a surfer or a fisherman or boatie; I don’t even swim that often. But I love it and go there every day if I can – often, twice.
The British invented the seaside, creating the culture of beach holiday resorts and sea swimming in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before then, the beach was considered a shifty, dangerous place to be avoided. That’s according to History (well, Google), but with all due respect: History, you must have that completely wrong!
I cannot believe no one enjoyed beaches before the mid-1700s. Surely, the Vikings splashed and sunbathed before heading inland to pillage monasteries. Does not the Bayeux Tapestry show William’s Norman crew having a lovely few days on the beach in 1066 before getting into conquering mode? It probably doesn’t, but I would assert that a nice sandy coast triggers delight in humans – this human, at least – and I believe that it springs from something deep and ancient inside of us.
Beaches excite me. I nearly drowned once, which, despite being exciting, I was not keen to try again. I had my first kiss on a beach which I was much keener to repeat. I found a dead body behind the dunes. (I could tell he was dead by the way his bones were all white and crumbly). I’ve seen whales, orcas, seals and sharks. I’ve swum with dolphins and had them herd mullet up onto the beach at my feet. I felt like David Attenborough.
But it’s the peace, not the excitement, that draws me back, day after day. Not that my local beach looks very peaceful. On a summer weekend, Auckland’s Long Bay can have the population of Timaru crammed onto it. (Not the actual Timaru population – they have their own beach.) I suspect many people end up parking so far away they never actually make it to the beach and just have a picnic in their togs on the roadside.
Most mornings, even in winter, Long Bay looks like Crufts dog show. So many wonderful dogs with active bladders and fully functioning GI tracts. (Wear rubber gloves if you ever make sandcastles there.) It’s great fun and very sociable for dogs and humans.
But at night or on a colder, blustery day, everyone vanishes. Over a million Aucklanders huddle over their heaters and devices within spitting distance (maybe two spits away), and I have a kilometre of beach all to myself. I have a rain-or-shine policy and walks in the rain are strangely soothing.
Nights on the beach are special. A beautiful big full moon rising up from Rangitoto stirs me like music. On moonless nights, I look up to a mass of stars amidst the swirling milky haze of my cataracts. (Darn, I’m getting old.) Just this week, I watched satellites arcing through the sky before they dimmed out in the Earth’s shadow. I saw a meteor. I walked into a log and stepped into a water-filled hole. Magical.
My local beach is mild and polite compared to its West Coast cousins. East Coast beaches try to cheer you up when you are down, but West Coast Beaches treat you seriously. Take your glum thoughts for a walk in a gale on Piha, black sand grit-blasting your legs, monstrous surf crashing on huge rocks, awesome cliffs backed up with miles of rugged bush.
If Piha was a counsellor, it would be struck off: what counsellor would ever say, “Let me remind you how small you are. Do you realise how temporary you are compared with all this?” – and yet, somehow, to be exposed to all that power and grandeur is mightily therapeutic.
Beach sand is in my car, my carpet and my heart. One day, my ashes will be in beach sand. Beach therapy has made me okay with that idea.
AFTER DECADES STUDYING FAMILY LIFE, JOHN NOW FOCUSSES ON THE ‘PRIME-TIME’ ISSUES OF LATER MIDDLE AGE. CHECK HIM OUT ON JOHNCOWAN.CO.NZ – ESPECIALLY IF YOU NEED SOME WRITING, EVENT SPEAKING, VIDEOS MADE, OR SOMEONE TO HAVE A COFFEE WITH.
