The Sea

I understand Iris Murdoch when she wrote 'The Sea, The Sea'.
There is a lot of water in Falmouth. Every day, I pass by or see water. Be it through my window at the sea and harbour, or streaming in floods down the roads and pavements. Sometimes when it hasn’t even been raining. Where does it all come from? I’m not complaining though. I love water, am drawn to it even. I can stand and watch the sea for hours at a time, or a stream gushing along, every second in a different state. There are streams all around Tremough. I’d love to know where they start, how they used to be. I like the fact that when I walk up the drive, I pass across water.

I always used to play in water when I was a child, a little brook or a muddy puddle would do. I couldn’t pass water without touching it, I had to dip my fingers in, swirl them around to have the sensation. Strangely though perhaps it took me until I was eleven to learn to swim. And it was something previously that I had been afraid of doing. I think because I realised the danger of water as well as its allure. The sea is the same. I am drawn to it, and if too far away, I become deeply homesick for it, but even when I swim in it, I am aware of the terribleness of it, and the vast empty wastes of water that I am on the edge of.

We always went on holiday to Aberdaron in North Wales, a village by the sea. Hours on the beach, and at the water’s edge, but I could only go so far, before the water frightened me. And I would have spectacular nightmares at times about the sea sweeping me away, dragging me into itself before I could scream.

I think the sea partly drew me here. It Is never the same. Today I walked along a familiar route round Pendennis Point, and along the coast road. The sea was metallic, heaving sheets of silver and lead, and at the same time, blue steel at the edges. Not a day to insult the sea with a swim.