Looking from the other direction
to see what we could see
Recently we aimed for the other end of our bay for a not-very-big-change in our daily walk, but a change of perspective nonetheless. Instead of looking at the far-off white cliffs that frame the distance in many of my photos, we walked right next to them.
Except that we didn’t walk too close because they are crumbling away at a rate these days that is troubling and sometimes catastrophic. So we wove a path as close to the slowly incoming tide as we could, whilst still being able to look waaaay up to see the layers of the centuries laid down and exposed in the cliff face.
It was a wonderfully balmy day. In the past I cherished those days that repeat just long enough for you to believe that spring has finally arrived for good. And then BLAM: a cold icy wind comes back with no warning, the temperatures chill our bones again and we pile on sweaters and take long hot baths (maybe the baths are just me?). The poor plants duck down too, trying not to freeze their fragile newly-minted blossoms.
Meantime, on this day, many of us were leisurely wandering up and down the beach, with jackets and sweaters tied round our waists as we embraced the balmy gentle breezes and shivered only slightly when the sun dimmed behind the wispy white clouds.
We jumped over little ponds in the sand bunched up like lily pads blown to one side. They formed a barrier between the high beach with dry sand and the lower beach still sodden from the receding tide. There were so many colours of sand and pebbles, and textures too. There ia a deep grey sand called slipper soil here, and it is spongy like playground surfaces, and also sticky. Some of it had rolled along and picked up shells and rocks covering the surface like a toy ball in a tatty gift shop with seashore decorations stuck all over it.
As we continued our walk we came upon a lone brick in the sand.
Hmm, that’s interesting.
We looked up a few yards and there was part of a substantial brick wall, partially buried in the sand.
Well!
We looked around,
a few more bricks,
and then we looked up.
Aha!
Embedded at the top of the cliff was a horizontal wall, and…
further along,
also embedded into the cliff,
what was possibly once a chimney.
And there was our proof indeed that the cliff is slowly,
inexorably,
crumbling down
to the sand.
There were rivulets of water pouring out from cracks in the cliff, and birds nests high up where they can rest undisturbed by humans, dogs or other creatures. There were small caves along the base of the cliffs which in other circumstances might have been fun to look into, but not now, not here.
As we walked further and further, sometimes we felt as if we were back in the Southwestern United States, with the iron-rich ruddy soil sections looking like mini-Grand Canyons. Then we walked along further, and nope, clearly we are in the jurassic era of England, with white chalk cliffs gleaming in the faintest light.
We walked and walked, quiet in our thoughts.
Breathing in, breathing out.
Perhaps this IS a place we belong,
where the landscape blends a little bit of everywhere we love,
depending on which direction we look, and
(for me) the weather on the day.
Eventually we turned around and headed back, now with a view towards the place we call home, at the other end of the bay.
From this distance you can’t see the details of our local crumbling cliffs, with the small gazebo partially hanging off the top, ready at some point to topple over the side and come to rest on the sand like the bricks. Or the places where the rocks have already tumbled down, sloping away from the cliffs, skipping towards the waterline.
From the other end of the bay you can’t see the details of future or past, just a lovely hazy view of where we live today, slightly blurred.
We didn’t think that just changing the direction and slight location of where we walk would feel so dramatically different.
But of course it does,
and it did.
Thanks for reading this week!
I have said this before, but I still believe it: I hope you have the chance to change direction, perspective, or otherwise challenge your routine in some way, however small, sometime soon.
Do you have any tricks you use to change your level of attention, or see things differently, or otherwise spark some new energy into your life? I’d love to hear about them if so!
Meantime, wishing you health and gratefulness!
xoxo Sabrina
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What a metaphor for life.
We get so mired in our own rhythms, don't we? And sometimes that change in direction can be spectacular. Maybe like us both joining Substack to write, instead of just reading other's essays.
The cliffs are astonishing, dangerously exciting, but maybe just another marker from nature for us all to take note and DO something.
Coastal erosion is everywhere - our own beaches come and go over millenia. Escarpments change and build and change again - but ever-present is the power of weather and I wonder just how much longer we can put up with the monetized minds of the politicians, very few of whom give a damn.
Such beautiful photographs and words! Thank you. And for the reminder to shake it up a bit for a new perspective.
Of course I want to know the story behind the bricks. Where did they come from? Who put them there? When? Has that much of the hillside eroded? Could that have made the people who lived there leave? This must have been an exciting excursion for geologists, water scientists, sociologists, and writers.
Your posts remind me to be aware and to NOTICE. One way to do that is to do something differently and look around as you've stated many times. I thought about that today as I took a slight diversion on my walk when I approached streets from a different angle. I did have a new perspective to help me learn the area and figure out how to approach my destinations. I will also confess I have to find the appropriate balance between observing, thinking, and catching up on my podcasts. Today I listened for part of my walk to the New York Time's The Daily about Trump's money problems. I don't remember much of what I saw during that part of the walk because my eyes were seeing red.
Tomorrow is another day.