On the 15^th of December 2023 my husband and I met with a builder at our bush block, expecting him to soon construct our new home and by the 17^th of December we had decided instead to move to the coast. By June we were here.

We are not ‘beach people’. We were lured by the promises of cooler summers and proximity to services. We were previously only thrice-a-year beach-goers but we had a hunch about this place. So we gave away most of our things, sold our precious home and left our community of 20 years. We went all in, it was big leap of faith, and the sea, thankfully — caught us.

The depth of my new love for the sea surprises me. I’m West Australian, so of course I’ve seen the sea and swam in it before, but now — now I’m a becoming a mermaid. Stay with me. Now it’s normal for me to swim on frigid four-degree mornings. Now it’s normal to watch thunder storms roll in over sand and for me to get soaking wet and not really mind. It’s beginning to feel mythic and I finally understand the hype.

Proximity helps a lot, I don’t need to pack a cart, no need for an umbrella, I often don’t even take a towel. Low energy output means the sea is free to be her tempestuous self without much bother to me. I take myself to her, ask her what’s on offer and if it’s too choppy or soupy, or any of the other new words I am learning, I just try again tomorrow. The ease is unmatched. And ease is welcome in a body like mine.

Gravity is no friend to me, and I don’t mean in the usual ways a fortysomething might bemoan it. My ligaments are faulty and so gravity hurts. The sea though, she supports me, holds me and presses icy cold compress against my skin. She comforts, I float, I fly.

The sea is freedom. The salt soothes my skin and the sky — my mind. 

The sea changes more than I had expected it would. It is not quite like a tree with blossoms and autumn-leaf fall, yet the seasons are distinct. The summer sea is lavender in the early morning, the water, smooth and glassy. There are fish swimming around your legs and they’ll nibble your toes if you stay too still. Summer seas have clear shores, but by winter everything has changed. The corrugations in the seabed deepen, there are sharp drops into the drink, evidence of last nights’ surging swell.  

There are fewer fish in winter and in their place there’s seaweed confetti swirling like a shaken snow globe. There’s a lot of flotsam washed up on the shore. My dog delights in sniffing the squishy things, the hard, weird, barnacled things, the long, dangly things — she loves it all. I hope in time I’ll know these things by name. It’s exciting to make new friends. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Sea, tell me more about yourself.’

‘What about sharks?’ I’m asked, the same way I was quizzed about snakes when I intended to move to the trees. To be honest, I’m not sure. What about them? It’s an illusion to think that a life lived anywhere is anything other than risky, so I shrug. But I know now, that on balance, the sea gives me more than she takes. 

I swim at a dog beach and there’s a few dogs — always retrievers who stand ankle deep and carefully watch for bait fish to flash silver and aqua when sunlight hits their sides. I’ve seen a bright orange starfish, so lurid I thought it was fake. It was not, and I have seen fish that my dad says are tailor. Hello, Tailor! They swim in triangular schools; one top, two bottom, many rows — a conga line of shimmering silver and yellow. I’ve found that if you float face down and stay very still, probably looking rather dead, you can watch them swim around you, unbothered by your corpse. They swim in such long lines it feels like waiting for an outback coal train to pass. Hundreds of carriages one after the other, after the other, seemingly unending. It’s hypnotic, and its hopeful. 

If you flip yourself over, and lay on your back, you’ll find solitude when you stretch your body across the surface, eyes up at the sky, arms spread wide, primed for embrace. You could be anywhere. Soundless and weightless. It feels cosmic. In an infinite universe I’m just one tiny star buoyed up by the sea.