The lane that led down to Studland Bay was lined with dogwood red, but the beach had a more austere palette. A pair of black crows pecked at dark seaweed, as white gulls hovered above broken waves.
Stepping over a stream I saw a pattern I recognised in the sand. The rainwater had flowed down from the hills to rejoin the sea, but not before etching rill marks into the beach. There were tendrils, tentacles and upside-down trees carved into the sand.
I pulled my jacket collar higher, against a cold onshore wind that toppled the waves. Each plunging crest nudged the foam higher up the shore. By my feet, the water sank down and then the bubbles appeared. I looked a little higher up the beach and there were the pinholes, tiny dark holes formed when sinking water pushes air back up, creating countless microscopic tunnels in the sand.
In more sheltered spots the cold vanished and I was hugged by a surprise warmth; it was a hat-on, gloves-on, hat-off, gloves-off kind of day. Old patterns were soon joined by familiar sounds and I rejoiced in the happy racket of halyards slapping against dinghy masts. A single stubborn oak joined me in celebrating the fresh air, reaching its arms out to the sea, showing off jewellery of golden lichens. This one determined tree still held its leaves in late November, most the other trees had beaten a retreat.
I walked past memorials to fears of a different retreat. The Dragon’s Teeth are solid, pointed stone emplacements designed to stop a German tank assault. I found it hard to imagine that fear of attack now, as the wind tugged at the National Trust’s bright flags and boards with cheery colours proclaimed the virtues of the café’s ice cream. But all coastlines are conflict. Where land meets sea there are the battles of perfect surf and violent erosion, sharp air and shelter, tourism and locals, sweet ice-cream and bitter litter, happy wet dogs and glistening turds…
The dog tracks were not all the same. Letting my knees drop into the soft ground, I noticed how some dogs kicked back the sand and others left cleaner, neater prints. And then, with the childlike joy that always accompanies these moments, I appreciated the story within the differences. The dogs that left the tidy prints had run over sand still wet from retreating waves, those that ran over drier sand left the prints with scattered sand. I was looking at a timeline: the tidy dogs were those with early-rising owners, they had come this way a couple of hours earlier, when the tide was higher and the sand wetter.
This new micro-story encouraged me to sharpen my focus. Patterns emerged in seaweed, in waves, in lines of geese that flew fast and low, in the sky. The sun sliced open the clouds and lit patches of grey sea with a turqoise lamp.
Past Old Harry’s Rock, the sea boiled, these were the dreaded overfalls: when currents pass over a rough seabed, the water is kicked into angry confusion. I had sailed through these savage waters once, just for the hell of it. And hellish it was. Mugs smashed and this young man reminded himself what danger felt like and inched again through reckless follies towards maturity. That young man became a parent fourteen years ago and has had enough maturity already. Now he wants an ice-cream. No, a hot chocolate. With marshmallows on top.
My eyes returned to the beach and were alive to the glorious detail. Every anomaly tickled and tugged at my curiosity. It was impossible that the small depression could go unnoticed. The last high tide had breached the defences of a child’s brief empire. Waves had smashed the battlements and reduced the sand fortress to the meekest undulations. Like an aerial photo of an iron age fort, the ironed bumps were feeble and fabulous at once. I saluted the parent that had their child building sandcastles in November. Look on that love, ye mighty, and despair!
With enough love and enough time on the beach, conflicts earn beauty and maturity need never catch us.
