At Folkestone, on the south coast of England
The sea thuds and rushes, then whispers, rattles like a tempest in a bottle, trying to get out. That’s the stones hitting each other, as the waves drag them back. The next wave will push them up again. Just out of reach of high tide, there’s a bank of them, like old veterans, watching the stir and sigh, the rattle and the rumble – now out of waves’ way, reminiscing of old waves and wars and wanderings.
The sea is stirred with sand, near the shore, opaque, mud-coloured, and further out, it’s pale turquoise and out near the horizon, it is indigo and meets the dark blue clouds and France is there, just out of sight. The seagulls dive, and are lifted up, by wind.
The sea rubs and scrambles up the edge of sky, tears lines apart and the clouds melt into a soufflé, that the sea spoons up and the wind whips into salt and spray.
The clouds are blown away towards the east. The sky shifts from its storm grey, reflected by the sea, into delicate colours of blue and green. The sea responds.
We are elongated coastline, damp and rounded stones. Our bones are heavy with the pulse and thump and clatter of the waves.
These sounds we cannot do without. These sounds our bones carry on the cliff paths, into forests, over desert sands, our footsteps sinking, far inland, murmuring memories lining each step, to remind us. We are sea.
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Berwick-on-Tweed, on the north-east coast of England.
From the cliff-top path, there’s a series of metal steps leading down to a bay, a curve of beach. I take off my sandals, walk on the wet sand, edge closer to the small waves, let the water flow over my feet. First touch of sea on skin, this year.
I walk to the end of the bay where the red-stone cliffs jut out into the sea. Then walk back. And notice, a little way from the end of the metal steps, what looks like very rough steps ascending a rock. what’s on the other side is invisible. I go back to the flat rocks at the bottom of the staircase. They are carpeted by dried moss and seaweed but further out towards the stepped rock, the seaweed-covered stones are wet. I walk carefully over them. Then they end. To reach the stepped rock I have to go into the water, roll up my jeans, and go in. Clamber out again. The steps are very worn, and sloping, gestures rather than steps. More worn than the steps in Canterbury Cathedral, leading to the casket holding the remains of Thomas Beckett. Who cut these I wondered, was it a smugglers’ path? Perhaps at low tide, the next small bay would be traversable but there are no visible steps on the other side, which leads down to the sea. So I back carefully down the steps again, through the water, up onto the seaweed-slippery rocks, head back up the iron steps to the cliff path.
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Making the Wave event at the River Tweed, Melrose, Scotland, in the days leading up to the G7 summit. Tea is served in the river, to point out the dangers of floods and rising waters. And the importance, as the climate changes, of our precious rivers, oceans and land, and all the living beings that live in, on, around and above them and who need them for their existence. As do we.
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