Beach-Combing Journal: Loss
Four days of weather
T. S Eliot, The Waste Land IV: Death by Water
“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers.”
A roaring swell. The roaring fills the Bay’s amphitheatre.
Words come slow. The fallow phase cannot be hurried.
The days are short. I walk in the afternoon, two days in a row. Sunlight for mental health.
I revert to a former tool, the camera. Bright sun, high contrast.
The ocean is a washing machine. Fragments appear and disappear among the pebbles.
This glass has a word— see?
Is it a number?
It is a number, but I read the word first: LOSS
The oystercatcher and I both skirt the wave-edge. The rhythm of its dance in pursuit of sand-hoppers is like mine as I comb: walk and bend, step step stab, step step stab.
The partner takes fright and flies away Southward over the water, calling. Tōrea don’t like to be parted, but instead of immediately following, this one rock-hops to the far side, then stands watching me. I step up on a rock, too, thinking in angles— a photographic mode. Usually tōrea are skittish: the distance must be sufficient for a stalemate. Wild animals have a sphere of tolerance. Too close, they go. I put my camera to my eye, my finger on the half-down shutter for focus, waiting for the bird to follow its mate. Long minutes pass. We hold our positions. I squint into the sun, reframe my shot. (The backlight, the red bill.) It moves— stretches a wing, a black hood— then suddenly it’s gone.
I didn’t get the flight shot. That’s OK.
One Christmas Tyl made cards with oystercatcher watercolours. Simple, graphic, the black and the red on the white. I loved mine, but I don’t know what happened to it. Maybe I’ll find it in a box sometime.
When the Farmer leaves home for any length of time, he takes his seedlings with him. They are too little to be left alone.
On the third day, the weather turns Southerly.
Hungry waves. Snow-mountain wind.
Too wild to beach-walk.1
Instead of seaward, I go inland, to a disability funding cuts protest at Parliament. After a while Kat has to go back to work, so she hands me her cardboard sign: DECOLONISE DISABILITY FUNDING, red on black. The National M.P.s cluster in their suits, their faces blank. It’s impossible to read a thought there. Shame! shouts the crowd. Shame! Shame! When the last of them head back to the shelter of the Beehive, Emily2 runs after them. She is the parent of a disabled child. I can’t hear her words, but I can see she’s giving them a piece of her mind. A handsome, moustached security guard comes over, and when the M.P.s pass through the door, he puts his arm in front of Emily, a human barrier-arm, as if they’re a train and she’s a car.
The fourth day dawns calm and fine.
No time to comb. Another protest today— Budget Day. (Numbers / words. Profit / loss.) See you at the Beehive?
Tomorrow is Winter’s Eve.
I’d do it, if not for the wind blowing sand into my hair.
Emily wrote on her Facebook about what she said to National M.P. Louise Upston: "To be clear - we wanted Upston to listen not speak. And because of that, she left. I was begging her to meet with us, since she will not answer repeated requests for a meeting.
We have 350 stories from parents horrendously impacted by the cuts to disability support. Parents who have lost carers, lost access to amazing programmes like riding for the disabled, parents who now have no respite. Upston will not meet with anyone to accept the book of collated stories to read. Penny Simmonds wouldn’t either. They don’t want the evidence of what they’ve caused."
And: "[H]er necklace alone is probably what I earn in a year. I think it was her smirking face that made me break down. She was completely unmoved, like a robot, when I talked about a mum who had attempted suicide after losing all respite. She just did not care."
L O S S. T E A R S. I only just realized that this word is what tears at my heart to bring me to tears.