Coves are there for hiding, but when you sit in one and look out you share in something bigger than yourself. The seclusion is a bridge to a wider world. You think galactically when isolated like this, down by the ripples, the tiny craters of kelp, the anchored boats, abandoned under the sun.
The sun gives us every form we know. It's not hard to imagine worshipping it. This evening, it turned the water incandescent, simply by not being there. Things go wild with a mute energy when our only light hides behind the hills.
The bay - pinkblueorange cauldron of quicksilver.
I can't describe the light that's still outside, still changing as the world winds down, orange and deep as a mine shaft. I've written before about man-mixed pigments failing to match anything that nature can conjure. Walking down the steps through the trees ringing with tui birds, the shingle and the mirror of bay beyond look like they've been made up by a crayon-loving wizard.
I'm starting to appreciate how coastline isn't just about the shifting beauty of water and light, but how these movements are made all the more sheer because they come into contact with the solidity of land.
The evening shifts the colour of cove water by the minute. I notice how fast the ripples, those tiny slips in a cosmos, come to deck the stone beach.
In the shallows, there's a rock formation that looks like a dog watching the headland, its back to the waves. I know it's stone, but my brain won't let me see it that way. My brain worries that the dog will be submerged by the tide, just for being stubborn, watchful, and still.
