Walking along the beach in the dark never feels calming the way it should.
People say the soft sounds of the waves bring an air of newness to them, the fresh sea air with a taste of salt and the smells of the sea are clear but are they calm?
Black shoes peppered with chalk and dust from pebbles.
It’s finally a clear night and the abundance of stars shine down upon you slowly walking past the dark trees, it’s too dark for shadows and it’s too late for dog walkers but the stars give you the slightest bit of light you need to breathe and feel okay.
Only, you’re afraid of the dark and all the calm is clouded by the fear.
The tide is out, you can walk as far as you want, the sound of waves is distant yet prominent. The laughter of you and your friends is the only real sound around; it’d be easy to feel okay.
But, something within you tells you something’s wrong.
Maybe it’s too dark and the small burst of light emerging from your phone doesn’t cover an area large enough to class it as ‘seeing’. Combined with the distant street lights, nothing is exactly convincing, nothing is promising. But everyone is calm, why aren’t you?
The silhouettes of your friends, the trees and the groynes are blacked out but loud in your mind. They’re all you can see and all you can focus on.
A walk along the beach, with no destination but just a journey is clouded by the late night.
Perhaps I’m losing myself in the dark, but the thought of losing everyone else is the scarier part. Perhaps I’m losing faith in the calm sea and the cool breeze.
It’s always been one of my safe places but right now it doesn’t feel that way, it doesn’t feel like it does when it’s 10am and I’m walking alone, headphones in, or dipping my feet in the water as the tide comes in. Now the tide is further out than I’ve seen it in a while, although maybe it’s not because I truly can’t see it until I get too close and I don’t feel safe walking that far out.
Maybe a calm trip to the beach at 10pm isn’t a calm trip to the beach but a wave of fear as no form of light is bright enough.
