We set out and this second day before the rain came, and while all the birds were still pecking at the worms in the newly-ploughed fields we passed to get here.
The landscape is a palimpsest that we struggle to read. The bunkers are stenciled over with nostalgia and lichen. The sand at low tide, is speckled with weirdly bright orange and blue bits of rope that have washed in overnight.
We find clear bits of glass along the 2.5 kilometer stretch. E. collects them as we go – along with a plastic cup, a bit of a potato chip bag, and a snickers wrapper.
I take a picture of a dead star fish. Then another. And another.
Then a dead fish that the birds will be happy to find when they return.
E. is talking about the war machinery still. And my mind is wandering in between and around all the broken shells that make a delicate pattern along the edge of the tide’s flow. The sea teases with these signs of life, like bit of a lace slip hanging below a hemline.
In two months’ time the shallows here will be full of orange jellyfish. We’ll have to watch our step, careful where we wade, and where we run.
But this Easter morning, we experience a caesura, and anticipation builds. No. I suppose anticipation is the wrong word.
We have no idea what is coming.