The Beer Beech Report
Usually I come away from Beer beach with a suntan, wet swimming gear, and a poem. Today I came away without a poem, but two mackerel, a bunch of photos, a good swim, and hunch that this has to be a ‘report’ rather than a poem.
Beer beach s one of those places that when discovered you feel divided in yourself, whether to tell others or keep quiet. But Beer itself, nestling in a steep-sided valley, is quite self-limiting; once the car park is full, you have to push on to another destination. Therefore, it’s never too crowded.
Appealed to my half-American nature x
At 9.30 this morning, when I rolled into the car park, there were probably ten spaces left.
The 200 yard walk from the car park, down the delightful high street full of non-chain shops, hopping across the stream directed down a gully, to the loo ends – apart from the WC - with a panoramic view over the bay with its vast headland to the west and cliffs running east.
Down to the pebble beach past alluring aromas of coffee and frying bacon, and the slow trudge across the pebbles to find the ideal spot to put chair, towel, rucksack, and book down, and get settled and off for Swim 1.
Today it’s still on the beach. The NE breeze is taken care of by the cliff. The temp is already just warm enough to render any need for a jumper redundant. Ahead, the early sun is glinting off the waves. I sat there trying to figure out exactly how that works. That surely is what a morning by the seaside is for? Contemplating the familiar? Thinking more deeply about things that have never stopped you in their tracks before. Each flash made possible by light that has travelled 93 million miles in the time it took me to trudge across the beach, only to be divided up into flashes of light that last less than a second, seemingly coming from the crest of innumerable waves and bouncing into my eyes. My brain then computing and combining images to produce an array of flashes just like mobile phone flashes in an auditorium of thousands with the lights turned down.
For a few fleeting moments, you are a child again, looking at the wonders of the mundane and thinking this is all a magic show
And there it is: the mystery of how something so reducible to waves and neurones can produce in us a burst of metaphysics, of calming emotion, and dissociation from the material world. For a few fleeting moments, you are a child again, looking at the wonders of the mundane and thinking this is all a magic show.
And if a magic show, who is the magician?
But such thoughts fade. Especially when one is swimming and wondering why it’s more of a struggle than normal, only to remember one has forgotten one’s goggles. One is not amused, but also realising how easy it is to become reliant on aids.
At one point I decide to swim towards the sun and into the sparkles. The Hollywood feeling dims slightly as this direction is against the incoming waves, which, after a few mouthfuls of the English Channel, loses its appeal in favour of floating on one’s back. That is bliss.
Perhaps we should all do this more. Whether in the sea or on land. Look up. Up to the sky…and I don’t mean glance, I mean really look. Study the edges of clouds, if there are any. Watch the aerial display, free of charge, and be absorbed by its reality far above our own.
Beach robes are an invention from heaven, I think. Especially for the British who don’t like displaying their bits or seeing others’ bits. Or if we do like others’ bits, feeling guilty that we do. We don’t do nature or beauty very well. Arms length is close enough, thank you. (Yes, if you’re a nudist or naturist, I hear you chuckling! Fair enough)
Changed back into dry clothes, shorts, shirt, sandals, its off to choose between the two beef cafes near ‘my spot’ to ask for a flat white and a bacon sarnie. The eating and drinking are delegated to the subconscious as I bury myself in AD 997 in Ken Follett’s excellent The Evening and The Morning.
It’s now approaching 11.30. The temperature is now well beyond ‘and a jumper’ temp. In old money it must be 73 degrees Fahrenheit.
A longer swim, out to the red buoy but not the white one further out. Not quite enough confidence. I watched Nyad last night on Netflix. About a marathon swimmer named Nyad who defied her critics and at the fifth attempt, aged 64, swam from Cuba across shark infested waters to land in Florida, 110 miles later. On the strength of that an old ambition bubbled up – to learn how to swim front crawl effortlessly. I enquired on line about 1:1 lessons and drove to Beer in the morning to try out what I watched her doing.
Progress? I can swim breastbone until the cows…but flounder after a length of front crawl. I’m 68, I don’t want to swim to Florida but front crawling across Beer beach bay would be my equivalent. Watch this space.
It’s home now. A morning’s worth of Beer beach is barely sufficient. I buy two mackerel caught that morning off shore and make a mental note to organise a fishing trip for family and friends perhaps.
So, as I said at the start, I left with some photos, the mackerel, the sky, the film in my head, and the mystery of the mundane. And now, thanks to the web, a chance to share it with whoever is reading this. Greetings, fellow man or woman. How are you doing? If you take nothing much from this, may I lay a challenge at your doorstep? Look up. Lie in the garden maybe or out on the waves. For at least ten minutes. My hunch is if you’ll pierce though feelings of ‘why am I doing this?’, or boredom, you’ll be richly rewarded. If it’s simply time out, or fascination - great. If it sinks deeper into meditation where you lose yourself in deeper thought – that’s great also. If you’ve ever wondered about God but not vocalised it, maybe this is a fitting moment. ‘Hello. Are you there?’ Is a good place to start.