I cannot do it. I know I want to…
So often I have imagined this feeling of being poised, toes just behind the edge, keeping perfect balance. I’m in harmony with the earth beneath my feet, the wind on my body and that vast expanse in front of me. How glorious!
But I know I cannot do it. Because, if I crept to the cliff’s edge and stood like some courageous and remarkable creature on the crumbling white chalk, I would not be able to stop myself from launching into the air to fly between the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky, soaring, gliding over the waves in an ecstasy of freedom.
Instead, I stand some three metres back from that place which is calling to me. My mind is possessed by panic, my stomach somersaults, whirling around like the sails of a windmill in grinding anxiety. I must turn and leave, but I am held by the light cascading to and from the heaving water. The shifting sound of the sea is filling my head with such infinite delight, so hypnotic. White frothing water mixes with the chalk that towers out of the sea. Towers that have been separated from the land by the unceasing power of the waves.
I am held, imprisoned by thoughts of fear, of blind terror, of unconditional love for the sea. I need to escape. I need to walk back down to safety.
Then up from under the cliff rises a seagull, the white feathers of its body are teased by the breeze that sustains it. Once it is level with my envious gaze it holds its course; effortlessly still. I am mesmerised. My mind is emptying, flowing out over the precipice. The gull’s black tipped wings are open, stretched in a delicate balance until it shifts sideways to hold me with its pale amber/ grey eye The sharp black point of its pupil becomes the focus of deep connection.
Still watching me, it’s lifted way up and out. Until it closes its wings and falls, skimming over the boiling salty white rocks, leaving behind the echo of its cry and the ghost of its presence.
From the stillness a memory emerges of a previous encounter with a seagull. I had just been to the hospital café and purchased the most delicious of fruit flapjacks to eat outside in the sunshine. Suddenly, it was as if a white sheet had been thrown over me and I felt the deft removal of the flapjack from my hand. I looked down to see a gull standing on the tarmac looking straight at me. If it wasn’t for the crumb that fell from its beak, there would have been no evidence with which I could have held it to account.
Slowly I come back to the sound of the sea. And, as words return, I realise there is no hope - there is only understanding. What exists beyond that I don’t know… Instead I watch, and I listen.
