Beachcombin in the Littoral Zone

I love Tim Winton’s description best:
“I am a ‘littoralist’, someone who picks over things at the edges.”
I am captivated by the accuracy and poetry of Tim’s wondering whether he goes beachcombing in order to “simply keep the sea in view”; and by his acknowledgement of his obsession — like every Australian’s — to “stare out at the blinding field”. I share his “possibility of finding something strange that keeps me walking” — Talismans and pieces of magic and wonder. And, I love his observation that, as Australians, we are “verandah dwellers”; a population clustered around the coasts, the edges, the fringes of land and sea.

Beachcombing is itself, something of a personal obsession. Look down, look forward, look to the sea as touchstone. The walk can never be taken swiftly; too many treasures stretching heart and mind and jaw. And always, there is the awe-filled and breathless moment, “look at that!”
And, there is the camera. Seeing it all. An experience exposed. Time suspended.

Akin to meditating, the beach, with its littoral zone of tidal conversation, anchors me in myself.
It is the place I re-turn to when my own inner edges are frayed, or threaten to unravel completely.
What is it? Can I name it?
Yes, there is space; of sky and of ocean. Light.
Yes there is sand; always changing face of the land. Transformation. In tides and semi-tides.
Yes, on a good beach — for me at least — there will be rocks. Ground, Earth, sounding my Bones.
And of course, there is the water itself; an expanse, a rock pool, a washing-through-sand. Echoes of all my own interior fluids. Memory of something ancient within…
There are the little creatures. Fellow travellers.
And finally, for me, above all else, here is what the essence of this experience holds, like a chalice:
Here is innocence. Here is curiosity and wonder.
Here is Purity and great wild Joy.
Here is Home.

Excerpts from Tim Winton, Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir.
Blessing always, Narelle Carter-Quinlan at figandagave.com
