The water and the past.

As spring fades and with summer being just around the corner I feel like this is a great time to talk about one of my favourite places, the beach. 

I have mentioned it briefly before, the water, the sand, the shells, and many more memories I remember as I think about the beach and what it means to me. As I start to think of the past, good and bad the beach is one of those many core memories, with summer approaching so I thought I would talk about it and what it means to me.

The oldest memory I have of the beach beside the old camp I used to go to is when I was really young and me and all my cousins would still see each other and all the family was together more. oh the laughs we would have. I remember this one the most I can I tell why it was one of the last times everyone was there and I mean everyone, people I don't even know the names of now were there. there was like 12 kids maybe 20. 

We were all going down to the beach and there was only one car at the time so all of us piled in, sitting on the floor, on each others laps and one kid got put in the boot of the car [don't worry he loved it]. I was definitely jealous and I mean I cant blame myself but man isn't that silly, it was cool to be in the boot of the car, I guess different times. We had to go down this little winding road, everyone was talking and laughing.

When we got there we got all of us kids out of the car and yes we didn't forget the kid in the boot, we took him out. We had to walk through some trees and these bushes, it was like a little secret path people took and you could tell because grass didn't grow on the path as people had walked there quite a lot. Then we would have to walk through this golf course to get to the beach, I remember this golf course cause of something that I found there years later, also these wild hares would hop around in the summer and sometimes you could see them running across the field if you were lucky. It was a real sweet spot especially when the sun was setting, it was mesmerising.

Thinking back to the beach makes me really miss it and the family I never see anymore, sometimes I see them at Christmas, sometimes. Everyone just eventually grew apart and I get it it happens it's just hard to believe looking back that it would have ever stopped. I used to go every summer and stay a few days in the caravans we had. So many family members had them but eventually they all got sold except the last two. There still down there at that camp I think. I don't know why we all stopped going when we did but it happened and there's nothing I can do now. I think the land was sold to some big organisation to build a hotel.

There was so many jokes we would tell, so many stories we told and were told, we would roast marsh mellows and our parents would sit out on the deck drinking and laughing, you could smell the sea in the air as the tide came in. I still remember that scent, the salt hitting my nose and being so shocked that I could smell it and running and telling my aunt, stupid to some but to me it was the coolest thing in the world.

I remember one particular night a few years after the beach thing with the kid in the boot, it was around 2 am I was fake acting drunk as many children do but I was just doing it for fun, well its either that or sleep exhaustion, me and my cousins had been staying up quite late. It got so late that my aunt , who I was staying with decided that my older cousins should walk me back to our caravan. I remember the walk vividly, the walk there was the funniest piece of shit to me at the time. That whole night was the best, I'm pretty sure we didn't sleep till 5 am. That was one of the many times before everyone disappeared, all going there separate ways.

I miss everyone, I miss them a lot more on days like this were summers creeping just around the corner and springs not quite over. its right in the middle and I'm right in the middle, both stuck between the change of seasons.

The beach is the place I took my first steps as a child, the beach is were I used to go with all my cousins old to young, it's were I seem to enjoy myself the most from sun bathing, digging holes to sit in to the walks me and my mother take down the beach now that I'm older.

I guess I miss the water, deadly but beautiful. I'll make sure to go to the beach this summer, its been too long.

-Yours truly, Alice Crow.