Ebb and flow

Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

You can tell I’ve been by the sea.

Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

It’s how I think about life. I find it restful… peaceful… Like watching waves that swell and retreat.

Sometimes life seems good, the world full of promise and light. Ebb. Sometimes life seems disappointing, stuck in a rut, grey. Flow.

The children are playing together, happy, larking and laughing, enjoying each other. Ebb. Now some invisible line has been crossed. They’re annoyed, tempers flare, there are blows. Flow.

Perceptions. You know… One day you study yourself in the mirror and think “hm, not bad”, and the next day you see yourself in the same mirror, wearing the same clothes, and think “oh dear, big tummy, big bottom, not nice”. Ebb and flow.

When I open a newspaper, sometimes I read of the thousands who are struggling, starving, dying. Other times, the ebb is overwhelming, so I turn the page and instead flow with stories of a cat rescued from a well, or pensioners standing up for their rights.

Is it meant to be like this, though? Or is there some sweet spot in the middle? Are we meant to be searching for that place? Is that what life is about? If so, who would tell me how to find it? An up-to-the-minute psychologist? A religious guru? Would it be better to be at the still centre? I like the idea. No more buffeting one way and the other. No more pulling this way and that. No more lurching. But is the world ever experienced like that? Don’t they say that the very universe is expanding and contracting in infinity?

I’ve always liked the French word for wave: une vague. Isn’t that a beautiful accident of language? A wave is a vague thing, a thing you can’t pin down, whose edges you can’t define, a part of a larger whole from which it emerges and into which it disappears. I like the idea of a still centre, but wouldn’t I miss the mysterious perpetual motion that is life? This way, that way, a shift, a movement, changing moods, each one part of an unseen rhythm.

We have a lovely children’s book about a dog, Ebb, and a little girl, Flo. It’s one of my favourites. They go for a picnic to the beach (where else?), and a seagull steals Flo’s sandwich while her back is turned. She blames Ebb, who goes off and sulks in an empty rowing boat. Then a storm brews up, and the rowing boat is swept out to sea. But don’t worry, it ends happily.

Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow. Ebb… and flow…

At the beach

Where've I been this week then?

I've been here.



Fife.

We used to live here. It's lovely coming back on holiday, because it's the best of both worlds. It's a holiday, so there's none of that daily life stuff to bother about. But it's familiar territory. We know where to go, where to shop, what to do, all the best haunts. We've caught up with a few old friends too.

This is the May Isle. You can take a boat trip there.


But guess what? I never have done. I don't know why. Just didn't quite get round to it when we lived here, and haven't ever got round to it since. I love the fact that I know it's really called the May Isle, not the Isle of May. It's the Isle of May on maps and to visitors, but locals have always called it the May Isle. I love knowing that. I love calling it the May Isle.

This is what my daughter looked like about 6 years ago.


She still loves the beach. She doesn't get there very often these days.

I've lifted these photos from a post I wrote a year or so ago about my favourite beach in Fife. This is how I described the beach then.

"I don’t know how many hours I spent on this beach, in the company of this view, but it was many, and I don’t regret a single one. I love this beach. I got to know it, as you get to know a friend. I learned that the day after a storm, it might be covered with slimy green seaweed, but that a few days later it would be pristine clean again. I learned that the best way to spot sea glass, is by walking into the sun, preferably when it was low in the sky. I learned that gravelly sand can be as good for sand castles as fine sand. I learned that the sea would accept any anxiety or ill feeling, tied in my imagination to the stone in my hand, and thrown as far as I could manage it. The sea could be waveless, still as a pond, or dancing daintily, or crashing feverishly. It could be twinkling with sunlight, blue and silver, or it could be grey and dark, not bothering to reflect the sky at all. I tell you, every time I went to that beach, it offered me both something new and something familiar. Like the best of relationships."

You're allowed to recycle old blog posts when you're on holiday, aren't you?

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