The Ocean Knows

I wanted to write about taking the kids to the beach. How the sun shone on us, promising that summer is on it's way. But I keep letting my political raging overtake.

In a very romantic and cliché way I love the beach. I have lived near it my whole life, except for a short stay in Northern Melbourne, where the air was so dry and unfamiliar, that I craved a breath of sea air.
I don't live on the popular beach. Some may say I live on the less attractive side. My side has mangroves and crabs, dunes of seaweed and a calm safe bay. There is no surf and few tourists and that's exactly how I like it. Don't tell any Melbournians but there are often dolphins too.

Sometimes, after school, there is a specific smell; dry, salty, bodies. I expect to hear my father say "looks like chips on the beach for tea tonight", of course they are my words now.
I love my beach.

When I think of all the beaches across Victoria that my parents crafted memories on I am amazed. What's more amazing is that she was there too. That she helped my sister and I get undressed; to run more freely across the sand and roll down the dunes, in the nude. That other time it was just the three of us and it was her idea to throw jelly fish at each other, she laughed and ran as well, my mother.

What the ocean knows.
ox