Day 3/3. Beach 3/3. Each more perfect than the last.
This is Berry's Beach in Phillip Island, Victoria, but as we arrived I was transported back to the memories of a holiday from when I was about 21 that is still one of my all time favourites. It was a last minute trip. A good friend and I spontaneously decided to go to Western Australia. We were 21: despite my Virgo tendencies, spontenaity was still a thing. We met up with two other girls that my friend knew, hired a car and drove north, Thelma and Louise style without the gun. We had a destination in mind, but nothing planned along the way - an 800km journey. I'll never forget the white beaches that went on for miles that we came upon by chance; the water was crystal clear and warm at our feet. We stopped where we wanted to stop, figured out accommodation on the fly in whichever town we happened to be passing in the late afternoon. There was literally nothing and no one expecting anything of us. We had total freedom. It wasn't long after this trip that Matt and I started dating, and from then on I was never as free again as I was on that 2 week break. In many ways I have more responsibilities and less freedom right now than I've ever had before. Although they aren't babies, my kids are still reasonably dependent and I'm still reasonably (ok, a lot) protective of them. Last night I polished off their jar of vitagummies because I felt like something sweet but I didn't want to leave them alone asleep in the hotel room to go and buy myself an ice cream! But today at this beach I did something I haven't done before. I let the kids wander. They climbed over the rocks and jumped into the pools of warm water and picked up sea slugs and shells. They didn't have their hats and probably not enough sunscreen and the pools were technically too shallow for jumping. But I stood back and let them play. Not because I wanted to abrogate my responsibilities - I did it because I remembered that long ago West Australian holiday, and I wanted them to feel the deep sense of pleasure that warm water at your feet and a white beach that goes on for miles and, most importantly, freedom, can give you. I looked out to the horizon past a cloudless sky as I walked through the warm shallows myself, listening to the distant sound of the kids laughing as they played. And for just a moment, for probably the first time in almost 3 years, I felt free too.
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AuthorFiona is a writer, consultant to government and not for profits and former cynic turned yogi. Archives
June 2017
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