Still walking

Some beaches have quite thin lines of sand between the foaming waterline and the grassy verge. It’s not always a verge of course, sometimes it’s a dune or a rocky face, an artificial path or town esplanade. And it is not always a thin line of sand, sometimes it’s a sweep of super smooth pebbles, or a mass of roots, dirt and leaves or occasionally an angular concrete projection that stops sharp at the heaving ocean.


Yesterday evening though it was fine white sand, and it was a grassy verge up to the surf club. But it was not a thin line of sand, it was a great crescent of shifting and shimmering golden powder for hundreds of meters along the waterline. The beach rose and rose in a mountainous cascade of sand that required hundreds of short stabbing steps to ascend.


I set out to climb this proud edifice at 5:45pm on Sunday at the end of two 30 degree days and 6 games of competitive frisbee with one 2 year old in my arms. As I stabbed each fatigued foot into the mighty sand slope, my muscles protested and my mind spasmed. One particular spasmodic thought came very clear: “Well I’m really glad I can still walk.” I thought this thought in earnest and after the exertions of the weekend it seemed legitimate.


Then I thought, “well that is a fairly intense thought to have after a weekend of discretionary fun.”


Anyway, that was my weekend, hard work, a bit of suffering and a range of thoughts and feelings at the NSW regional championships. I can still walk, and we won. Yeah.