An Early Morning Walk
Being away from my family is strange. You would think I would sleep more heavily in a room on my own, but the opposite has been true this week – usually up before the sun, making breakfast and coffee for my parents.
Last night I had checked the weather forecast and planned a walk down to the ocean in the early morning sunshine. While the weather failed to cooperate, a little after breakfast I still found myself on the beach. The route follows a couple of miles through quiet lanes and farm tracks – I didn't see a single soul.
After wandering the beach for twenty minutes or so I walked home – and grinned while approaching the house that it was still not 9am. How time doesn't fly when you're away from the usual chaos and mayhem of family life.
While at the beach I remembered years past – visiting with friends and family – and wondered how many generations have done the same. The ocean slowly reclaims the coast. I have read accounts of a small parish here that vanished beneath the waves perhaps a hundred years ago – of a village green with dancing and music in the summer. All of it long gone. I looked out on the slow rolling waves and wondered if they remember.
When I was young there was a cottage on one side of the bay – it's remains are now long gone – the cliff it once stood on shattered among the strata that breaking waves now wash smooth.
Time is a strange thing. We are here for moments, and we leave little behind. I found myself wondering what the lives of the people that onced danced on that village green were like. What they yearned for and what made them happy. I wondered if they might have really been that different than generations past or yet to come.
Anyway.
It's probably coffee o'clock. And time to ask my Dad what he might like for lunch.