They are drawn to the sand as much as the water, fossicking among the treasures: garlands of ropy sea matter, shells and the odd gasping mollusc, probing its tongue around in the last moments of life, as if trying to determine where on earth it had landed.
In their examination of nature’s detritus, I like to think they are paying a service, honouring and acknowledging these minute life cycles, millions and millions of them, all over the world. That explain why shells are often pocketed by us tourists on this planet – so that we might enjoy their colours, bumps and ridges as a kind of metaphor. For to find a shell, as you might know, that you can put up against your ear and hear the surf is to hit the symphonic jackpot. The music it takes to your head can be as harmonising to the soul as a roomful of skilled voices lifted in song.
As a baby, Keira’s face was dotted with milk pimples; mostly across the tip of her nose. They faded in time, as the baby books reliably predicted. Now, her face is beginning to experience the odd blemish, clogged pore; blackheads sprout on her nose in the very pores I observed when she was younger. They are growing up so fast, it catches my breath.
I still cannot express how much I love this child.
Or this child.
These children.
This family.
But I will keep trying.
