Monthly Archives: January 2013

I passed this tree on my walk today, and the first thing I noticed was its symmetry–it’s the ace of spades from all directions, presumably because it stands alone and does not compete with any other trees for England’s precious sunlight. Almost simultaneously I noticed that it’s dressed for winter in a sweater of deep green ivy. The entire trunk and all the major branches are snugly enveloped in a solid sheath of leafy vines. When I looked again, the tree looked less like the highest card in the deck and more like a young boy with his arms raised, his mother having just drug a chunky wool turtleneck sweater over his head, leaving behind a wild halo of fine, static-charged hair reaching out in every direction.

When I was her age, going to the beach in the dead of winter was never a thought. Not that we were living close enough to the coast to pack up the car for a day’s hike along the shore anyway. No worries, though. I’ve got her same little-kid sense of wonder and excitement every time my feet hit the sand, regardless of the season or my age. Today, I looked just like her, right down to the sand eddying around a pair of cute wellies as the gentle waves receded. Maybe my seaside adventures were meant to be delayed. My younger self no doubt would have enjoyed hunting for shells, digging in the sand, and racing the approaching waves, but I’m not sure I would have appreciated other aspects of the day: the tang of the nippy salt-laden breeze on my lips, the perfectly imperfect striations on the razor clam shells, the way the sun’s rays illuminated the beached strands of Crayola-bright kelp, or the flat-out, belly-to-the-sand run of an Australian sheepdog chasing his favorite ball. So much to take in, yet there is no haze of ambiguity or impression of chaos; every detail is unusually clear yet remains solidly in its context. My senses, it seems, only ever work to their full potential when I’m at the beach.