That familiar feeling
I have that feeling, an amalgam of physiological and emotional - that I experience when preparing for a flight away from my mother or my kids. The sensation of heart strings literally and figuratively being stretched, stretched, but with surprising give and length.
I am leaving horizon-busting St Ives tomorrow. I have no connection to the place that any census recorder would recognise. I am one of countless people who come here to drink the views, smell the air, fight the seagulls for chips and carry the cushiony white sand between my toes.
There is raw permanence in the big sky, ocean and bay views, reminding me that all attempts to be indispensable, to make a mark, to record our existence in the lives of the people we love is trumped by the bay and the grains of sand; even the watermark of the high tide on the rocks has been around for longer than I have. Sometimes it’s the mellow iridescence that bathes everything in a cloak of dewy light. Maybe it’s the knowing looks of recognition people give each other on the shore. Or its nothing more than the fish and chips which always seem a better idea before you eat it than after!
There is a thinness to this place, in amidst the salty air and the stone walls - its the sort of place you can meld into and disappear, if you wanted to.
This poem by Ella Frears is like a sharp intake of breath in its easy capture of the affection I feel for it - its painted on the wall at the Tate St Ives just outside the cafe. I leave you with her words and the purring ocean.