Sitting and Thinking

More from the beach...

I'm sitting and thinking. In a favourite spot, on the beach a few feet from the incoming tide. Doesn't matter which beach, doesn't matter what the weather's like, what's important is the proximity of the water and solitude from other beings. People and gulls alike seem to know not to come to near to the fat, middle-aged, baldy bloke dressed in black, who's sitting and having a think.

What the thinking is about doesn't matter so much either. Time out from conversation, finding balance, relative quiet . The noise and connection and joint thinking are welcome, lovely and really important but need to be balance with a "piece of quiet" even before the notebook comes out and it all gets written down.

It's a kind of dreaming. It's real day-dreaming. We were told in class that day dreaming was a bad thing, a waste of time, definitely not something to do in the middle of the working day. But oh, oh, oh, no it's great, it's required, it's the way to process all the unconscious stuff that's been popping up and putting it all away. The turquoise and teal of the sea, rendered here as grey and greyer. The patterns in the foam. The cry of the gulls and a sudden glimpse of a massive wingspan. The feeling of pebbles beneath your bum. And all those thoughts that have been spinning round and turning over on the compost heap of the mind, they settle and find a place to rest, a place to live alongside other thoughts and memories.

These are the day dreams, not a coherent narrative yet, but impressions, juxtaposed and jumbled, grasping for meaning and being satisfied with no meaning at all.