Throughout my life, the shoreline has always held great significance. As a child it was somewhere for the holidays, full of surprise and enchantment as I pottered around collecting things and stared into rock pools to discover what the sea had left behind. As a young adult, trying to make some sense of the wider world, the coastal margins became symbolic of the inward movement of heart and spirit. It its varied moods, so dependent on the prevailing weather and the time of year, I glimpsed my own experimentation and uncertainty.
In middle age, I found that it took on a further symbolic character as a borderland between two worlds – the spiritual and material dimensions to existence. For such places speak of the dual nature of our humanity. As immortal beings we find ourselves living, for a short time, in a temporal and transient environment.
More recently I have begun to realise how all my different responses to this vibrant interface still live on in me, emerging at different times in response to different stimuli. The child in me still wants to play in the sand; the young adult is still seeking meaning in the ebb and flow of the tides; while middle-aged me simply walks in wonder at the unnecessary beauty of it all…
