At first thought, going to the beach suggests heat, sand, sun, napping, reading magazines and splashing about – all wonderfully distracting, fun activities, important in themselves, but beaches are alive in the mind in many, many more ways. They imply surprising beginnings and complicated endings, difficult landings and sad departures, magical entries and dangerous exits. They form a boundary between two worlds : they’re not quite land, not yet sea. A beach is an in-between area, a slender margin, where we walk on solid ground, but we’re in limbo. We’re at the edge of the earth and might fall off; we might leave on a long, perilous journey; we might discover an objectively true, new found land, or a fantastical refuge, an origin story, a dream, an escape. Beach creatures also seem to straddle water, earth, and atmosphere, sometimes delicately – crabs, sandpipers, turtles, seals – and our poetic imaginations are intrigued by these seeming shape-shifters. They’re one thing, then they’re another.
Beaches stimulate the physical and neurological body through negative ions and muscular exertion, and can inspire yearning in the heart and memories of long ago – even ancient – passage. The restless mind craves answers – what? why? how? But we are not in control. We know the tides can inundate and transform, destroy and recreate depending on the strength of the gravitational pull of the moon in the limitless void of the sky.
‘Beached’ is analogous to ‘landed’, ‘arrived’, ‘grounded’, and ‘present in the now’ – and from that state, enter the water, contemplate the horizon, and feel the power of the elements. Beach experiences feed and propel the desire to understand the nature of existence. They give us the opportunity to meditate upon infinite space, endless time, our notion of freedom, meaning, and our purpose for being here.