Nautilus

Summer's Gift

Ignoring the calendar, Summer was taking one last hot breath - the coast toasting in the Sun. I had every reason to sit at home and do nothing but look at the river - and all the everything that entails - but my heart wanted more. I could smell the end of the season on the air and I wanted to be there by the sea to say goodbye.

Maybe I thought that by doing this I could collect one last warm memory before the colours deepen to Autumn and the world readjusts itself, the days trimming themselves down, each one a little shorter as if the cloth of daylight has frayed at each edge.

So I came here, where the continent itself has worn away, the ocean softening the land, creating caves, rocks and emerald pools over drifts of yellow sand.

A week ago it looked like this - serene under a cloud quilted sky….

But today the wind was up, hot and insistent, pushing foam into the coves and washing over the rocks - a last frenetic burst burning the final energy of Summer, leaving nothing left for Winter.

I climbed around the base of the cliffs picking my way with care, watching the waves colliding with the stone, each one raising a brief kinetic sculpture of white water into the sensuous salt saturated air…

Pausing here in the splash zone, where the sea licks in and out with a foaming tongue, counting the time between each surge, scanning the rocks, timing my run.

And reaching the beach beyond to find this - miraculously washed up, unbroken.

Nautilus pompilius - chambered

spiral shell - the final gift

of the Summer sea

warm in the

Summer

sun.

And then it was done, my own fizzing energy gone, dissolved by the day. It was all I could have wanted and more.

I had felt the rough eroding stone under my hands and the wet yielding sand under my feet.

I had found a narrow sheltered cove where it was safe enough to swim, shedding my clothes and letting the water take me in to teach me its dance - the push and the pull, the lift and the fall.

At the end of the day I climbed up onto the headland and sat on the windswept grass, watching the waves rise and curl and break as the world turned and the shadows lengthened. I thought of the favourite picture book I once read to my children, and now my grandchildren:

“Today was good

Today was fun -

Tomorrow is another one.”

Which is true, for as long as you can be here to see them, for as long as you can stay.

So having seen another Summer, having tasted it on my tongue, I can now let it go -gently, gratefully. Like the Nautilus, I don’t own it anyway.

Summer is over… Autumn is here.

Soon the whales will come!...

Note:

Nautilus pompilius is a mostly tropical and sub-tropical species of the Pacific Ocean. It is reasonably common in the far North of Australia but I was shocked - amazed - to find one here in Northern NSW. I haven’t heard of them appearing south of the Great Barrier Reef 800 kms (480 miles) North of my home. However, I have also found hard corals here in the inter-tidal zone which seem to be growing larger, and more have been documented on the Solitary Islands just offshore (North Solitary Island is just faintly visible on the left horizon of my final photo here). It seems to me that the corals are expanding Southward as ocean temperatures rise - and perhaps the same is true for the Nautilus….