You know - that thought has simply never occurred to me. You have really surprised me.
But I can entirely see why you ask.
The answer is no - but the coincidence is very strange.
“Comet” was written and published when I lived in the desert, in around 1996.
The sea cliffs in “Splash Zone” are near my home town, and they are a place I have visited and knew long before I went to the desert.
However - the poor woman who actually ended her life there - that event was a few years after I returned from the desert.
Some time around 2004 as near as I can recall, when I was back in my home town and struggling with life myself. So - about 8 years after I wrote “Comet.”
The sea cliffs were a place I visited quite often- alone or sometimes with my children. After I found the car wreck, and then learned the truth behind it, she became inextricably tangled with my association with that place.
And yet - I never once thought of “Comet.”
I wrote Splash Zone just a few days ago, but I still didn’t think of Comet.
Yet you did - immediately….
So - no - there was no literal link between the two, other than coincidence.
But now …. Well … you have forged an emotional link in my mind.
David, this is glorious. And sad. And hopeful. And awful, in the sense of AWE-FULL. It makes me think of my last poem, how sad.....but even if all else goes, there will be the sea, there will be the sand....is this a comfort? Maybe. I like to think that.....have you seen Battlestar Galactica? There is an episode near the end that says what I'm trying to say. In any case, I envy you all this. I have never lived anywhere near the sea....except for a brief moment when I was too young and poor to visit it. I like your poem, I like your prose even more. You are a wordsmith, either way. Thank you for posting this, thank for sharing yourself with us.
Ahhhh... friend Rebecca. It delights me when anyone finds my writing meaningful. For the past 22 years that has really only been my wonderful partner Meg, about the only person who saw my work in that long period after I stopped publishing.
M is still my "Supporter No 1," and my active collaborator (I'm trying to persuade her to engage in more joint works), but there are people here whose own work I admire greatly, and you are one. Your comment means a great deal to me.
Sadly, I have not seen Battlestar Galactica (though I do love SF), but I did read your most recent poem, and yes, I can see the articulation between the two. I have a fascination for abandoned places and the slow (and sometimes rapid) transfiguration of buildings and constructed objects once we leave them behind.
We are damaging the world as we know it - but in the long term, nature will outlive us, and grow again and heal itself - possibly in ways that are incompatible with our existence. We need nature, but nature does not need us in any way at all.
Oh yes! Indeed. It doesn't need us. You ought to get Battlestar G. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now. We should all dig in and write a series of Sci Fi inspired poems!
Beautiful. Gorgeous. Poignant. I’m still crying. I love the science woven into this. I love the elemental feel. The tactile nature of what you created here. I was there. I was immersed. Which is perhaps why the mother story hit so hard. Along with feeling the spray of the waves and smelling the ocean, I felt her pain, your pain. Please write a novel. I’ll buy it now.
David, I simply don't know where to begin. Perhaps at the end. The story of the mother and the car, and the effects of time, and the photograph of the remaining metal. It had an anthropomorphic quality, the tube sticking up in the air, the body of the engine, they had an alien quality to them, but weirdly, after all that time, they looked like they belonged. Like the beach and the car had grown together. And then the photo with the red shell, almost like the shell was just passing through to bless them. Offer a benediction of sorts.
And how it all affected you, and then gradually changed over time ending with the memory of going there with your own family.
As fun as it was for me to read that I was a bit player in catalyzing this piece...well...that is certainly satisfying in its own right. But you, sir, to be able to just ...what is it...you breathe poetry and archaeology in the same breath. And the effect of the archaeological references once again brings the feeling of time. The eons of time involved, even on a micro scale, the rusting of the car took as long as the evolution of the cell phone. We are playing around now in a vortex of change that is whirling so quickly we cannot hardly participate without becoming dizzy and nauseous.
But this piece frames that with decades, thousands of years, millions of years, patient years of slow evolution and change, of nature being nature and all your pieces that talk of the first humans flowing with it.
I don't know man, I am humbled to be part of it and in your orbit. Thank you...
Hey Jed. You are more than a bit player. When I write I am often (in my head) writing as if it is direct to a particular person. I'm writing to communicate.
Meg is pretty much always the person I write for :) and for the past 22 years until August when I started my Substack she has been really the only person I have written for - with a few very rare exceptions. (I wrote a "public" poem for my lovely Niece for her wedding, and I still think it is one of the best things I've ever done). Some of the work I've done for that audience of one seems to have wider application because some of it now appears in my Substack Poetry Shack and people say they like it, but the process of making it happen has been very personal and focussed.
However I wrote this one for M, but also very specifically for you and for Rebecca Hooper.
When I dashed off the private message to you about the weather and feeling like I should be out in it, and where I might go, then deciding to stop talking and just get out there - it was me thinking through my own energy and realising that I just had to be myself and get up and go.
Once I got out there, I was thinking of you and of how I would describe it to you, but I was also immediately thinking of Rebecca H, because the wild coast and the weather and the things I know I love about the place are so similar to some of the things she writes about herself, and I love every one of her reports.
I took photos with the intent of writing that kind of report myself, and I was fired up with the idea of it - even though I was unclear exactly what I would write.
The photos of the car engine were not part of that - they were just for my own peace of mind. I had not expected there to be any remaining trace of the car at all, and that has always been a very private matter between my heart and the universe. When I saw there was a last glimpse of what was left, I wanted a record of it for myself, so I took those two photos.
Then I got home and saw your lovely reply to my message, telling me that it was a poem and asking me to tidy it up and make that into a Post, and I was torn two ways - between wanting to honour your wishes (because I deeply value your friendship and wisdom) - and wanting to do my "in the style of Rebecca Hooper" report.
Consequently I spent all of my Tuesday avoiding writing anything - apart from comments on other people's work and replies to comments on mine, and my private messages to you where I admitted that I was dodging myself.
Then I basically said "Fuck it" again and just started writing, admitting at the start that I didn't know where it was going (that admission was not a literary "device"). So I did it chronologically - starting with my message to you, and explaining that you asked me to publish it, and then realising - (of course!) - that I'm not bound by any rules to just write "a poem" or "a report." The poem and the report were simply different aspects of the same thing, and I just kept going.
So it became part adventure, which is why I went, then an essay on nature, because that's why I have always loved the place - and in part that aspect is an oblique and silent tribute to my Dad, who taught me my love of nature, and all about fossils, and geology, and geomorphology, climate, weather and much much more......
Then I came to my last photos, and I realised that the whole work had been about the experience of being there, and seeing the things that I saw, and communicating them and the knowledge behind them (thanks again Dad) in a way that was meaningful to me, as nested stories of some kind of truth, including being part of my own story.
And those two private photos, well, they represent a profound truth to me, and that young woman's story is now a part of that place - even if most people do not know it.
So I decided to tell her story too, because all life has meaning.
And then I knew that it was done.
D
PS. I think I just meant to say "Thankyou." Sorry....
David, I just read all of that, and I am written out at the moment, so I cannot respond in depth, but I just want to say thanks for introducing me to the work of Rebecca H. and thanks for allowing me to be a participant in this piece. This has profound value to me. I loved the way you described the different perspectives of the experience and how the piece became a holistic melding of your different frames of mind leading to your different choices of action, all compounded over time. Thank you.
The idea of us chasing after our doubles in the neighboring multiverse is very sticky. That is gonna stay with me for a long time as I continue to change and work through moods and attitudes and choices.
This is just stunning, David. The prose, the poetry, the photographs — what a marvelous integration of forms. Your works (just like Rebecca’s!) make me long to be near the ocean…alas, I’m landlocked on all sides!
Good morning Samuel. Thankyou for the wonderful compliment! It could have been a much longer piece, but I exceeded the size/length limits of what can fit in an email and then I had to make a decision. I didn't start with the end in mind - or any real idea of what the piece would become - but when I got there, I knew that the end point I reached was "right" - so I removed a bit from the middle to get back under the email limit.
What came out was not essential. What never went in - is probably another essay entirely, or a poem, or a story....
Good morning friend Richard. Thankyou! This is a case of being inspired - and encouraged - by other wonderful writers here. I acknowledged two in particular who are directly linked to this piece, but the whole process of creation and dialogue on Substack has influenced my recent work in ways I did not expect, but do feel grateful for.
Oh - and thank you for putting me on your recommended list!
Morning, Dave. I have been in littoral spaces ever since. I am remembering a South African poet, Douglas Livongstone, whose work seems to come at me sometimes when I write and he loved the littoral zone. That's really when I first began to understand the idea of it. Through you and Jed, I am finding some great writing. So thank you.
You certainly whipped up a writing storm! The story at the end was heartbreaking but I went back to see the incredible honeycomb weathering and somehow that too is nature telling us something about loss...was moved to see the shell token you left behind....
I am delighted that this felt strong and meaningful for you. And yes - you are right about the honeycomb weathering. Nature has so much to teach us. We just need to make the space and time to watch, and listen....
That was breathtakingly beautiful. You captivated me from the first word and made me cry at the end. Thank you for honouring that poor mother. Your shell-laying ritual is a fitting tribute.
Thankyou Maddie. It's 11pm here and hours after you wrote your very generous comment. This piece exhausted me, and I had to take a break after hitting the "publish" button. I really didn't know what I was going to write - beyond repeating my words to Jed - but I had taken a set of photos and that selection guided my words.
There is a huge risk with Substack of hitting "Publish" with no 3rd party vetting and no delay between writing and sharing. Part of me was saying "leave it a week in draft form" but I really felt I had said what I needed to say....
I am truly delighted that it was meaningful to you.
Thank you David for all the dimensions of your piece, which took me to this stunning place and many eras, how stories change over time , what they leave behind. You are a true adventure in body, heart, mind. Looking forward to your next piece
Thank you for a really wonderful read, from one Dave to another. I also have a favourite stretch of coastline, in my case in the UK and a mere 180 million years old, as well as a love for the writing of Rebecca Hooper. I look forward to more.
What a beautiful and mysterious and ancient beach, and the holder of so many stories - many of your own and yet also millions of years of others. The fossilised wood... and the mother... these stories were so moving. Thank you for sharing them. I can't imagine why the council left the car there, but it has become yet another narrative being cradled by the sea.
There is much much more I could say about the place, and being there. I really did not know what I would write when I started, and then a crowd of ideas and memories demanded to be included and I had to make some choices. The story of the Mother.... I had not intended to talk about that at all. The two photos I took there were only for my own peace of mind, but then when I came to that point - I felt that she needed to be acknowledged; respectfully, I hope. Why the car remained there all those years ... deeply strange but, yes, the sea soothes all, and accepts all....
DK as always I love your poems and your stories and this one was up there with the best. Yes a truly sad part to it as well but you honoured and thought about that young troubled woman when maybe no one else did that day. Xxx
I know nothing about her, but think of her often. Once, I did find flowers on the cliff by the remnants of her car. I hope her Daughter is well, and happy, and finding an easier path than her Mother did.
David, this was moving in so many ways. The story of the mother who flew through the air with her car is quite the image in the mind, not to mention the ongoing years of visual impressions left searing your heart and your mind, too. Some people are meant to soar in different ways, I guess. The topic of past lives, our past life karmas, present karmas, ancestral karmas are all topics that I talk a lot about with my Guruji in my studies. If you believe in such things (which I deeply do) you begin to understand that we are all living out very specific tasks in the life we know as our currently life, paying prices of redemption, learning lessons left unlearnt in past lives, perfecting unfinished work from the past, utilizing gifts from the past for specific purposes in this life...all to advance us into our next life in order to ultimately attain Moksha. Freedom from the chains that bind us in the perpetual circle of death and rebirth. This idea brings me significant comfort and also makes me look at life in dramatically different ways now than how I used to. It makes me realize that we are all here for very specific tasks in this life, regardless of how small or big. We all have purposes and it makes me realize we cannot at all judge anyone in terms of right and wrong, good or bad. We are as much insignificant as we are an incredibly important part of the greater whole, a synchronicity of a picture so unfathomable to us. That in itself is something I wrestle with...because we were all taught "right from wrong" "evil from righteousness" etc etc in a classical sense. But there is so much more to it than that. Therein lies the conflict and the serenity in all its enormity and finest details.
Anyway, it took me awhile to read and respond because these things you wrote about have a lot of impact and needed to be dissected in very careful bitesized morsels over an extended period of time. And this, too, is a hallmark of masterful writing. I'm deeply appreciative of your time and those who served as inspiration and momentum in you delivering this piece to us all. And then I am also just as appreciative of those that are a part of the reading of such works.
In this labour of love, while writing and sharing your story, you have effectively enabled us all to become someone who left that beautiful seashell in memoriam of the mother at the alter you created for her at your last visit. That is the power of words. That is the power of shared stories. That is a power you shared with us all. And this is one of our greatest gifts to both share and partake in.
Well - it's early morning here... the river outside our windows is hiding under a delicate shifting shawl of mist, which is just starting to glow as the sun lifts higher - a sure sign that the day ahead will be clear, and blue and warm.... once the river and hills finish their dance of the seven veils and the mist has lifted and vaporised all away....
I admit to wanting to hear your thoughts about Splash Zone, Sylvia. Every reader has their own interaction with a written or visual work, and they draw their own colours of meaning from it. By doing so, something new is created each time - a union of writer and reader, painter and viewer.
My own views on recurrent cycles of birth, death and rebirth are open. My years living and working with Australian Aboriginal/First Nation people have influenced me deeply, and teachings from Hindu and Buddhist traditions also. I am not necessarily a believer in the literality of those teachings, but I do believe that they contain much truth and wisdom about the nature of existence. I think we do all have a purpose, as you say - whether it is ordained/fated or just an outcome of circumstance. I do not know much of the story of the woman, the Mother, who departed this life at that place, but I do know that it has had a profound impact upon me and now, through my writing, an influence upon others. We are all of us stones dropped into a pool - the ripples spreading out, intersecting, reflecting....
When I wrote and posted Splash Zone - all in a rush a couple of days after my walk on that stormy shore - I did not start with the end in mind. In fact I had no idea what I would write, until I did. The photo of the corroded, sand cradled engine, with the shells I placed there, was one I took just for myself, with no thought of sharing it. But I was writing chronologically - reliving my journey around the cliffs and the ocean edge - so I did reach that point (it was near the end of my walk) and then I realised that I could not omit her story; that it was, in fact, the very point I had been building towards - physically in my walk, and conceptually in what I had been writing. I just had not known until I got there...
But I was extremely concerned that it might seem a violation of her dignity and privacy.
So your final thought there moved me deeply, when you write: "you have effectively enabled us all to become someone who left that beautiful seashell in memoriam of the mother at the alter you created for her at your last visit. "
Dear Sylvia, I don't, at this moment, have adequate words to thank you for that.
I hadn't intended all the forethought to that to be as long as it was....we writers have a way of running away with our own words, don't we. The ending was what I was intending to say, the conclusion that I had come to. Thank you for sharing your breathtaking rendering of your current status as you write. As sensorial as I am, I feel that delicate shifting shawl (or I am that shifting) in the glow. We are linked in the beautiful moments we translate and share with each other, shattering boundaries of what we conceive to be real. Your words and thoughts always move me. I wish you a day filled with mysteries that become dreams which become translated truths that will be shared with us all in the future to come. ~Sylvia
Ugh...I had to come back and leave more words....your piece is so much more than the story of the mother but it was (not surprisingly, I"m sure) what lingered most on my mind. I won't make this a long one, it probably won't say nearly all the things I want to comment and say, but here it goes anyway: I wanted to mention how the photos are phenomenal, the history of the shore, the tale of the sea.... the care with which you took in writing about so much of your personal story woven into the details of this impressive area did not go unnoticed to me. Thank you, again.
Oh yes..... I have so many stories entwined and tangled with that coast. There is much much more I could have written. I started writing it because Jed liked my Direct message to him about deciding to go there, and he asked me to tidy it up and Post it as a poem.
Which I started to do - but then I thought - well I should also describe what I saw.... And I had taken a bunch of photos too....
And that made me think of the wonderful @Rebecca Hooper who writes so gorgeously of her Orkney Islands home..... so I thought - hey! I can do something similar.
And then it just became what it Became.
Sometimes the best things go that way, don't you think?
Absolutely, Dave! Sometimes I think we are the navigator of these words but in truth we are just mediums of something greater. So many things I want to say but feel stopped by and redirected....
That's fine, dear Sylvia. I may DM about something else I am minded to write about - on a topic which will interest you. I don't want to bore everyone else though. Will be later though - my day is about to get busy.....
And yes! The mist has gone! Clear blue all across the sky, and lacquered on the water, glistening....
Hi friend Nikos.
Oh!!!
You know - that thought has simply never occurred to me. You have really surprised me.
But I can entirely see why you ask.
The answer is no - but the coincidence is very strange.
“Comet” was written and published when I lived in the desert, in around 1996.
The sea cliffs in “Splash Zone” are near my home town, and they are a place I have visited and knew long before I went to the desert.
However - the poor woman who actually ended her life there - that event was a few years after I returned from the desert.
Some time around 2004 as near as I can recall, when I was back in my home town and struggling with life myself. So - about 8 years after I wrote “Comet.”
The sea cliffs were a place I visited quite often- alone or sometimes with my children. After I found the car wreck, and then learned the truth behind it, she became inextricably tangled with my association with that place.
And yet - I never once thought of “Comet.”
I wrote Splash Zone just a few days ago, but I still didn’t think of Comet.
Yet you did - immediately….
So - no - there was no literal link between the two, other than coincidence.
But now …. Well … you have forged an emotional link in my mind.
This is something I will think about….
Best Wishes - Dave
David, this is glorious. And sad. And hopeful. And awful, in the sense of AWE-FULL. It makes me think of my last poem, how sad.....but even if all else goes, there will be the sea, there will be the sand....is this a comfort? Maybe. I like to think that.....have you seen Battlestar Galactica? There is an episode near the end that says what I'm trying to say. In any case, I envy you all this. I have never lived anywhere near the sea....except for a brief moment when I was too young and poor to visit it. I like your poem, I like your prose even more. You are a wordsmith, either way. Thank you for posting this, thank for sharing yourself with us.
Ahhhh... friend Rebecca. It delights me when anyone finds my writing meaningful. For the past 22 years that has really only been my wonderful partner Meg, about the only person who saw my work in that long period after I stopped publishing.
M is still my "Supporter No 1," and my active collaborator (I'm trying to persuade her to engage in more joint works), but there are people here whose own work I admire greatly, and you are one. Your comment means a great deal to me.
Sadly, I have not seen Battlestar Galactica (though I do love SF), but I did read your most recent poem, and yes, I can see the articulation between the two. I have a fascination for abandoned places and the slow (and sometimes rapid) transfiguration of buildings and constructed objects once we leave them behind.
We are damaging the world as we know it - but in the long term, nature will outlive us, and grow again and heal itself - possibly in ways that are incompatible with our existence. We need nature, but nature does not need us in any way at all.
Best Wishes - Dave
Oh yes! Indeed. It doesn't need us. You ought to get Battlestar G. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now. We should all dig in and write a series of Sci Fi inspired poems!
Beautiful. Gorgeous. Poignant. I’m still crying. I love the science woven into this. I love the elemental feel. The tactile nature of what you created here. I was there. I was immersed. Which is perhaps why the mother story hit so hard. Along with feeling the spray of the waves and smelling the ocean, I felt her pain, your pain. Please write a novel. I’ll buy it now.
Oh, Kiki. Now I'm crying too...
Meg will ask me what's wrong - but she understands.
Thankyou for such an enormous and profound compliment, and for thinking of that good Mother....
Best Wishes - Dave
David, I simply don't know where to begin. Perhaps at the end. The story of the mother and the car, and the effects of time, and the photograph of the remaining metal. It had an anthropomorphic quality, the tube sticking up in the air, the body of the engine, they had an alien quality to them, but weirdly, after all that time, they looked like they belonged. Like the beach and the car had grown together. And then the photo with the red shell, almost like the shell was just passing through to bless them. Offer a benediction of sorts.
And how it all affected you, and then gradually changed over time ending with the memory of going there with your own family.
As fun as it was for me to read that I was a bit player in catalyzing this piece...well...that is certainly satisfying in its own right. But you, sir, to be able to just ...what is it...you breathe poetry and archaeology in the same breath. And the effect of the archaeological references once again brings the feeling of time. The eons of time involved, even on a micro scale, the rusting of the car took as long as the evolution of the cell phone. We are playing around now in a vortex of change that is whirling so quickly we cannot hardly participate without becoming dizzy and nauseous.
But this piece frames that with decades, thousands of years, millions of years, patient years of slow evolution and change, of nature being nature and all your pieces that talk of the first humans flowing with it.
I don't know man, I am humbled to be part of it and in your orbit. Thank you...
Hey Jed. You are more than a bit player. When I write I am often (in my head) writing as if it is direct to a particular person. I'm writing to communicate.
Meg is pretty much always the person I write for :) and for the past 22 years until August when I started my Substack she has been really the only person I have written for - with a few very rare exceptions. (I wrote a "public" poem for my lovely Niece for her wedding, and I still think it is one of the best things I've ever done). Some of the work I've done for that audience of one seems to have wider application because some of it now appears in my Substack Poetry Shack and people say they like it, but the process of making it happen has been very personal and focussed.
However I wrote this one for M, but also very specifically for you and for Rebecca Hooper.
When I dashed off the private message to you about the weather and feeling like I should be out in it, and where I might go, then deciding to stop talking and just get out there - it was me thinking through my own energy and realising that I just had to be myself and get up and go.
Once I got out there, I was thinking of you and of how I would describe it to you, but I was also immediately thinking of Rebecca H, because the wild coast and the weather and the things I know I love about the place are so similar to some of the things she writes about herself, and I love every one of her reports.
I took photos with the intent of writing that kind of report myself, and I was fired up with the idea of it - even though I was unclear exactly what I would write.
The photos of the car engine were not part of that - they were just for my own peace of mind. I had not expected there to be any remaining trace of the car at all, and that has always been a very private matter between my heart and the universe. When I saw there was a last glimpse of what was left, I wanted a record of it for myself, so I took those two photos.
Then I got home and saw your lovely reply to my message, telling me that it was a poem and asking me to tidy it up and make that into a Post, and I was torn two ways - between wanting to honour your wishes (because I deeply value your friendship and wisdom) - and wanting to do my "in the style of Rebecca Hooper" report.
Consequently I spent all of my Tuesday avoiding writing anything - apart from comments on other people's work and replies to comments on mine, and my private messages to you where I admitted that I was dodging myself.
Then I basically said "Fuck it" again and just started writing, admitting at the start that I didn't know where it was going (that admission was not a literary "device"). So I did it chronologically - starting with my message to you, and explaining that you asked me to publish it, and then realising - (of course!) - that I'm not bound by any rules to just write "a poem" or "a report." The poem and the report were simply different aspects of the same thing, and I just kept going.
So it became part adventure, which is why I went, then an essay on nature, because that's why I have always loved the place - and in part that aspect is an oblique and silent tribute to my Dad, who taught me my love of nature, and all about fossils, and geology, and geomorphology, climate, weather and much much more......
Then I came to my last photos, and I realised that the whole work had been about the experience of being there, and seeing the things that I saw, and communicating them and the knowledge behind them (thanks again Dad) in a way that was meaningful to me, as nested stories of some kind of truth, including being part of my own story.
And those two private photos, well, they represent a profound truth to me, and that young woman's story is now a part of that place - even if most people do not know it.
So I decided to tell her story too, because all life has meaning.
And then I knew that it was done.
D
PS. I think I just meant to say "Thankyou." Sorry....
David, I just read all of that, and I am written out at the moment, so I cannot respond in depth, but I just want to say thanks for introducing me to the work of Rebecca H. and thanks for allowing me to be a participant in this piece. This has profound value to me. I loved the way you described the different perspectives of the experience and how the piece became a holistic melding of your different frames of mind leading to your different choices of action, all compounded over time. Thank you.
The idea of us chasing after our doubles in the neighboring multiverse is very sticky. That is gonna stay with me for a long time as I continue to change and work through moods and attitudes and choices.
Oh no hurry mate.
Life has either plenty of time left - or nowhere near enough.
Either way, it doesn’t matter how long you take.
We do what we do until we
Scrub that, mate. It’s too glib. Sorry.
What I really mean is - friendship is not time dependent.
Hopefully we will both be around for a good while yet. There’s no hurry :)
There is no hurry. And sometimes my saner selves actually believe that.
This is just stunning, David. The prose, the poetry, the photographs — what a marvelous integration of forms. Your works (just like Rebecca’s!) make me long to be near the ocean…alas, I’m landlocked on all sides!
Thank you for sharing your art 🙂
Good morning Samuel. Thankyou for the wonderful compliment! It could have been a much longer piece, but I exceeded the size/length limits of what can fit in an email and then I had to make a decision. I didn't start with the end in mind - or any real idea of what the piece would become - but when I got there, I knew that the end point I reached was "right" - so I removed a bit from the middle to get back under the email limit.
What came out was not essential. What never went in - is probably another essay entirely, or a poem, or a story....
I am truly glad you like this.
Best wishes from Australia!
Dave :)
Well, I look forward to reading what never went in, whenever it does take shape. Cheers, Dave! :)
Simply superb. Love the idea of the littoral space. We hug the shore but are drawn out of ourselves towards a mystery. Moved deeply, Dave.
Good morning friend Richard. Thankyou! This is a case of being inspired - and encouraged - by other wonderful writers here. I acknowledged two in particular who are directly linked to this piece, but the whole process of creation and dialogue on Substack has influenced my recent work in ways I did not expect, but do feel grateful for.
Oh - and thank you for putting me on your recommended list!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Morning, Dave. I have been in littoral spaces ever since. I am remembering a South African poet, Douglas Livongstone, whose work seems to come at me sometimes when I write and he loved the littoral zone. That's really when I first began to understand the idea of it. Through you and Jed, I am finding some great writing. So thank you.
You certainly whipped up a writing storm! The story at the end was heartbreaking but I went back to see the incredible honeycomb weathering and somehow that too is nature telling us something about loss...was moved to see the shell token you left behind....
Hi dear Rajani
I am delighted that this felt strong and meaningful for you. And yes - you are right about the honeycomb weathering. Nature has so much to teach us. We just need to make the space and time to watch, and listen....
Best Wishes - Dave
That was breathtakingly beautiful. You captivated me from the first word and made me cry at the end. Thank you for honouring that poor mother. Your shell-laying ritual is a fitting tribute.
Thankyou Maddie. It's 11pm here and hours after you wrote your very generous comment. This piece exhausted me, and I had to take a break after hitting the "publish" button. I really didn't know what I was going to write - beyond repeating my words to Jed - but I had taken a set of photos and that selection guided my words.
There is a huge risk with Substack of hitting "Publish" with no 3rd party vetting and no delay between writing and sharing. Part of me was saying "leave it a week in draft form" but I really felt I had said what I needed to say....
I am truly delighted that it was meaningful to you.
Best Wishes - Dave
I’m glad you did hit publish! I often write with no plan and find that stream of consciousness yields results sometimes. Yours certainly did.
Thankyou, Maddie. A huge and. sincere thanks for that reassurance. My brain has just hit "low battery" alert, and sleep is calling me.
Goodnight from Australia.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thank you David for all the dimensions of your piece, which took me to this stunning place and many eras, how stories change over time , what they leave behind. You are a true adventure in body, heart, mind. Looking forward to your next piece
Hi Sally
As my day ends, and topples over midnight into tomorrow, I’m tired and in need of sleep, but your beautiful comment is a true joy for me.
Thankyou!
Thankyou!!!
Very Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thank you for a really wonderful read, from one Dave to another. I also have a favourite stretch of coastline, in my case in the UK and a mere 180 million years old, as well as a love for the writing of Rebecca Hooper. I look forward to more.
What a beautiful and mysterious and ancient beach, and the holder of so many stories - many of your own and yet also millions of years of others. The fossilised wood... and the mother... these stories were so moving. Thank you for sharing them. I can't imagine why the council left the car there, but it has become yet another narrative being cradled by the sea.
Hi Lucinda. Thankyou!
There is much much more I could say about the place, and being there. I really did not know what I would write when I started, and then a crowd of ideas and memories demanded to be included and I had to make some choices. The story of the Mother.... I had not intended to talk about that at all. The two photos I took there were only for my own peace of mind, but then when I came to that point - I felt that she needed to be acknowledged; respectfully, I hope. Why the car remained there all those years ... deeply strange but, yes, the sea soothes all, and accepts all....
Best Wishes - Dave
DK as always I love your poems and your stories and this one was up there with the best. Yes a truly sad part to it as well but you honoured and thought about that young troubled woman when maybe no one else did that day. Xxx
Oh friend Cheryl
I know nothing about her, but think of her often. Once, I did find flowers on the cliff by the remnants of her car. I hope her Daughter is well, and happy, and finding an easier path than her Mother did.
Best Wishes - Dave
Wonderful, inspiring writing David. Thank-you.
Thanks mate!
D :)
David, this was moving in so many ways. The story of the mother who flew through the air with her car is quite the image in the mind, not to mention the ongoing years of visual impressions left searing your heart and your mind, too. Some people are meant to soar in different ways, I guess. The topic of past lives, our past life karmas, present karmas, ancestral karmas are all topics that I talk a lot about with my Guruji in my studies. If you believe in such things (which I deeply do) you begin to understand that we are all living out very specific tasks in the life we know as our currently life, paying prices of redemption, learning lessons left unlearnt in past lives, perfecting unfinished work from the past, utilizing gifts from the past for specific purposes in this life...all to advance us into our next life in order to ultimately attain Moksha. Freedom from the chains that bind us in the perpetual circle of death and rebirth. This idea brings me significant comfort and also makes me look at life in dramatically different ways now than how I used to. It makes me realize that we are all here for very specific tasks in this life, regardless of how small or big. We all have purposes and it makes me realize we cannot at all judge anyone in terms of right and wrong, good or bad. We are as much insignificant as we are an incredibly important part of the greater whole, a synchronicity of a picture so unfathomable to us. That in itself is something I wrestle with...because we were all taught "right from wrong" "evil from righteousness" etc etc in a classical sense. But there is so much more to it than that. Therein lies the conflict and the serenity in all its enormity and finest details.
Anyway, it took me awhile to read and respond because these things you wrote about have a lot of impact and needed to be dissected in very careful bitesized morsels over an extended period of time. And this, too, is a hallmark of masterful writing. I'm deeply appreciative of your time and those who served as inspiration and momentum in you delivering this piece to us all. And then I am also just as appreciative of those that are a part of the reading of such works.
In this labour of love, while writing and sharing your story, you have effectively enabled us all to become someone who left that beautiful seashell in memoriam of the mother at the alter you created for her at your last visit. That is the power of words. That is the power of shared stories. That is a power you shared with us all. And this is one of our greatest gifts to both share and partake in.
Much love, Dave.
Good morning Sylvia.
Well - it's early morning here... the river outside our windows is hiding under a delicate shifting shawl of mist, which is just starting to glow as the sun lifts higher - a sure sign that the day ahead will be clear, and blue and warm.... once the river and hills finish their dance of the seven veils and the mist has lifted and vaporised all away....
I admit to wanting to hear your thoughts about Splash Zone, Sylvia. Every reader has their own interaction with a written or visual work, and they draw their own colours of meaning from it. By doing so, something new is created each time - a union of writer and reader, painter and viewer.
My own views on recurrent cycles of birth, death and rebirth are open. My years living and working with Australian Aboriginal/First Nation people have influenced me deeply, and teachings from Hindu and Buddhist traditions also. I am not necessarily a believer in the literality of those teachings, but I do believe that they contain much truth and wisdom about the nature of existence. I think we do all have a purpose, as you say - whether it is ordained/fated or just an outcome of circumstance. I do not know much of the story of the woman, the Mother, who departed this life at that place, but I do know that it has had a profound impact upon me and now, through my writing, an influence upon others. We are all of us stones dropped into a pool - the ripples spreading out, intersecting, reflecting....
When I wrote and posted Splash Zone - all in a rush a couple of days after my walk on that stormy shore - I did not start with the end in mind. In fact I had no idea what I would write, until I did. The photo of the corroded, sand cradled engine, with the shells I placed there, was one I took just for myself, with no thought of sharing it. But I was writing chronologically - reliving my journey around the cliffs and the ocean edge - so I did reach that point (it was near the end of my walk) and then I realised that I could not omit her story; that it was, in fact, the very point I had been building towards - physically in my walk, and conceptually in what I had been writing. I just had not known until I got there...
But I was extremely concerned that it might seem a violation of her dignity and privacy.
So your final thought there moved me deeply, when you write: "you have effectively enabled us all to become someone who left that beautiful seashell in memoriam of the mother at the alter you created for her at your last visit. "
Dear Sylvia, I don't, at this moment, have adequate words to thank you for that.
Love and Best Wishes back to you - Dave
I hadn't intended all the forethought to that to be as long as it was....we writers have a way of running away with our own words, don't we. The ending was what I was intending to say, the conclusion that I had come to. Thank you for sharing your breathtaking rendering of your current status as you write. As sensorial as I am, I feel that delicate shifting shawl (or I am that shifting) in the glow. We are linked in the beautiful moments we translate and share with each other, shattering boundaries of what we conceive to be real. Your words and thoughts always move me. I wish you a day filled with mysteries that become dreams which become translated truths that will be shared with us all in the future to come. ~Sylvia
Ugh...I had to come back and leave more words....your piece is so much more than the story of the mother but it was (not surprisingly, I"m sure) what lingered most on my mind. I won't make this a long one, it probably won't say nearly all the things I want to comment and say, but here it goes anyway: I wanted to mention how the photos are phenomenal, the history of the shore, the tale of the sea.... the care with which you took in writing about so much of your personal story woven into the details of this impressive area did not go unnoticed to me. Thank you, again.
Ah! I just replied to your first comment.
Oh yes..... I have so many stories entwined and tangled with that coast. There is much much more I could have written. I started writing it because Jed liked my Direct message to him about deciding to go there, and he asked me to tidy it up and Post it as a poem.
Which I started to do - but then I thought - well I should also describe what I saw.... And I had taken a bunch of photos too....
And that made me think of the wonderful @Rebecca Hooper who writes so gorgeously of her Orkney Islands home..... so I thought - hey! I can do something similar.
And then it just became what it Became.
Sometimes the best things go that way, don't you think?
D :)
Absolutely, Dave! Sometimes I think we are the navigator of these words but in truth we are just mediums of something greater. So many things I want to say but feel stopped by and redirected....
That's fine, dear Sylvia. I may DM about something else I am minded to write about - on a topic which will interest you. I don't want to bore everyone else though. Will be later though - my day is about to get busy.....
And yes! The mist has gone! Clear blue all across the sky, and lacquered on the water, glistening....
Your aspiration came to life here! Yes
Thankyou, Alix :)
Thank you! I simply loved this evening hour as I followed you around this beautiful kaleidoscopic tale…