Lowry's beach
Painting the view from the cliff top where silver wins over slate and charcoal.
Sunday morning and the tide is out. I’m sitting on a cliff top. My beer in a tall slender glass gathers droplets out of the air in the shadow of a parasol made of straw. All I can hear are the waves of the Atlantic. I hear each wave break and roll in towards the cliff where we’re sat. The end of the life of each wave is muffled and merges into the next, much like the days of the week.
The view is platinum and shimmering. A hundred people walk their shadows in silhouette along low tide as far as the eye can see. The hazy light is generous with long reflections on the saturated sand. The colours are diluted, as if painted with the depleted crayons of an artist down on their luck.
I still haven’t taken my camera out of its case. I am tired of the colour of slate. The sea and sky aren’t blue and neither are the plants a refreshing green, after one of the driest summers. I would settle now for beige and straw tones but dark, matt stems just remind me of the struggle for water. Last night it rained for a brief two minutes and the slate shades have turned charcoal black as if they have really seen naked flames.
I watch the surf as it breaks and stretches inland towards the walkers. Lowry’s matchsticks come alive, etching patterns on sand. Three generations or even four, saunter in family lines. Little children, bent elderly forms, broad parents and tall youth mirror from the feet down. They all match each other, coordinated in nonchalant grey, walking bear foot, treading on silver up to the horizon in an endless forgiving curve of sand.
