All things by the sea

i just read this post on  Wotsitallabout about nature and to walk in a park in a big city like London and find peace.

It made me think of every place I have been living. Most have been by the sea. Growing up I lived by a river I never visited but had to cross every time I left or came home. The river was ‘the sign’, the Home Sweet Home, sort of.

I would get on my bike and ride to the sea. Maybe twenty minutes. Mostly to hang on the beach and swim and play.

My first stint from home was in a seaside town, Brighton. The next was Stockholm followed by Middlesbrough – with a bus ride away from Redcar. I loved Redcar beach. Then I moved to an island called Gotland, where I remember standing in the harbour in the fall with 2-3 meter waves flooding the parking lot where the tourists cars had been standing just a few weeks earlier. When we wouldn’t get any post or news papers because of the weather. I learned a lot about my self living there.

I have kept moving over the years. Restless. Groundless. Rootless. But I have found my paradise. My garden. My peace. Near the sea. Very near the sea. I can hear the waves and smell the salt – from my open bedroom window.

Whenever I have been troubled I have gone down to the seafront. Always. I have no other explaination than it makes me calm.