Sunrise at Sunrise

We are lucky enough to live right on the beach. That’s if you can keep your eyes high and not look down on the road that bisects Sunrise Beach into “the beach side” and “the other side”. One serpentine line of black, with white dashes like the ‘cut here’ line on a voucher, creating a distinction of around a million bucks

During the day there is a fairly constant stream of tin-machines being propelled along the bitumen, scurrying from one commitment to another, and from my eyrie I can close my eyes and imagine that the swoosh of rubber on road is just the sweet sound of swell picking up.

In the early hours as the sun lifts herself over the horizon, and then again at night when everyone retires under the blanket of evening, the cars stop their scurrying and flurrying, and all we can hear is the repetitive whoosh of the waves, and, if the wind is just right, the distant sound of some neighbour’s wind-chimes as they herald the arrival of the cool air, wet, with dissolved salt and smell of something elusive and free.

From my spot up here I can track the passing of time and seasons, not by the calendar or the clock, but by the way the ocean heaves, the intricate mix of sweet and sour in the air, and the look on the face of the sun as she gives me the first wink of the morning.

From my spot up here, I can watch the tide of people as they flow to all of their places, I can see how busy they all feel by the way their engines rev up the hill, and the blur of red brake-lights as they hit the suburban 60.

From my spot up here, I am detached from all of the concerns of time and endings, of forms to complete and places to be, and all that I know is the eternal rhythm of our place on this planet, a sphere who wakes before us each morning, and outlasts us every night.

…From The Ashers 

Generally speaking I don’t like nature to touch me.  I don’t go on long bushwalks.  I don’t like birds, insects or wildflowers.  I don’t care for ‘fresh air’.  Plants are okay I guess, but I don’t understand the crazy rules you all have about what constitutes a plant or a weed.  To me they are all plants, however many of you seem to have decided some of them are good and some are evil.  I have no idea why.

The only exception to my nature indifference is the beach.  I love the beach.  I love the feeling of crunchy white sand.  I love the smell-taste of salt and how it scratches my skin when it dries.  I even like the water, as long as it has been heated to the appropriate temperature.  However if I’m to be completely honest, my love for the beach could be tempered by a Pavlovian-type response that goes: Beach+Coconut Oil=Tan.  So perhaps I only like the beach because I’m vain.

Now back to the nature thing: I don’t like it much.  I’m happy for plants and trees and stuff to be over there, looking after themselves, but I don’t need them to get all close to me.

This weekend, nature could be avoided no longer.  Even my untrained eyes could see our joint looked a bit crap, so gardening had to be done.  So we made a plan with our neighbours, and we gardened the shit out of our plot.  We grabbed nature and we showed it who was boss.  Mostly.  Other than all the times that it showed us me who was boss.  Stabbing, scratching and hurting me in ways inhumane.  Here is the proof:

Exhibit One: hand maiming

Exhibit Two: Leg scratch

I know, I know, it’s terrible isn’t it?

No wonder certain politicians are against all nature and want to kill it with fire.  Nature is terrible and dangerous and it must be stopped.  Sharks and their bitey teeth and their cold, dead, untrustworthy eyes.  Coral reefs and their sharpey, prickly, stabby bits that scratch your feet when you walk on them.  And of course you’ve just seen what damage inert plants can inflict, left unrestrained.   Pfft, out with dangerous nature and in with air-conditioned comfort.

See for yourself how sane it looks in this picture (that I stole off the internet, but didn’t write down the source…Sorry clever cartoon maker, possibly Allie Brosh) :

Just sayin’