"I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside"

Just a quick trip before dinner, he said. Hubby wanted to take some photos as the light faded from the day, to practise all the technical stuff he'd learnt in photography class. We jumped into the car —well Cindy did, then she whimpered nervously all the way, thinking she was going to the vet or the poodle parlour or, worse still, the boarding kennel.

South Cronulla

Walking around the Esplanade we passed couples and families with dogs on sunset walks, lone joggers, and others who perched on their low brick front fences enjoying Saturday evening drinks overlooking the ocean. Tripod up, shots snapped, tripod down, move on; and repeat, from cliff top to grassy slope to concrete promenade.

The clouds blushed to flossy pink and the waves caught the leftover colour. Soon the day was little more than candlelit, the approaching darkness making every place we stopped seem cosy, like a room at home, despite the exposure to wind, salt spray and unfamiliar faces. An overwhelmed feeling was building inside me, like a wave before it breaks. At first I was puzzled, then realised I couldn't look anywhere without being swamped by recollections—everything around me evoked a flashback, with varied emotions attached. And all intensified by the closing dark.

Looking up to the lit windows of a restaurant, tables set ready for the evening's diners, I was flooded with memories of my grandmother and her 90th birthday dinner there many years ago. Then the park that adjoined the beach had my mind flying further back—playing with my brother under my grandparents' watchful gaze, making a game with fallen pine fronds and littered bottle caps. Rock hopping around the point at low tide, swimming in the ocean pool and wearing seaweed wigs.

So many memories crowding in, pushing to be remembered. Sunbaking on the sand as a teen, right there. The surf club, a ride in a rubber ducky on a summer day almost hotter than the lifeguards. Next door, the indoor pool, our kids in swimming lessons and then Swim Club, trying their hardest, almost twenty years ago.

Cindy strained against her lead, nose held high to sniff the crashing waves, dragging me back to the present. Boys were still surfing, dark shapes clutching at the last of the day. Some looked as young as twelve and that made me scan the water for fins—it was shark dinner time, after all. They reminded me of my own nephew, and the little shudder of fear I feel when I think of him paddling out through the Broadwater at Southport.

Invisible markers for every stage of my life surrounded me. It wasn't the cosiness of dusk that made the beach feel like home, it was the still-lingering spirit of days lived and people loved.