West Cornwall - from the Lost Blog

Soft, gentle winds and hazy, golden light filtering through my bedroom window each morning. The kind of waves in the bay that roll like a perfect caricature of themselves and with seaspray that lifts off of them and dances in the wind. This has been the tone of February, possibly the fastest February of my life.

In the past, I have often found this month to be a lingerer, yet it’s always had a theme in my life of signifying change, hope and brighter things. My Februarys have in the past been the month of new beginnings and new ventures rather than its predecessor January which normally serves to mark an occasion for embracing change. For me, February had become somewhat symbolic in its way; it was the month that many years ago, I was established in being a part of an incredible friendship group which changed my life, my outlook, and was a huge turning point in my journey of overcoming anxiety. February was also the month I met Jonathan.

Although I can’t say that this February has heralded any new beginnings for me this time around, it’s certainly been a gentle one. It was my first February as a mother and when I look back at it, I’ll remember it fondly and think of soft mornings cuddling and playing with Lyra in the big bed, of her endless smiles, of her first giggles and many quiet afternoons spent by the pool as I work on regaining my strength.

But despite all the joys in my life, some days the old feelings creep back in. They’re very far and few between but if I have learned anything in my adulthood it’s that it’s impossible to expect that every single day is a 10/10 and that expecting oneself to always feel euphoric and elated is as unrealistic as expecting Donald Trump to throw up his hands and announce that his entire life’s antics have been one big April fool and he’s now going to dedicate his life to caring for orphans. Sometimes there’s days when no matter how much sunlight streams through the window, no matter how pretty the view is, nor how wonderful is the gentle soul I wake up next to every day, there’s sometimes a dreary feeling. I think how far I’ve come however, from a time where dreary feelings were a part of who I was, a defining point of my personality that I let consume me. These days, I know I’m so fortunate that I hardly feel the bite of post traumatic stress nor the lows that can come with having an attention deficit disorder. But very occasionally, the days do come and that’s ok. It’s ok to have days where we don’t feel great and there’s no reason for it. There’s such a pressure on us to always be having a wonderful time, or justify any sadness we may feel and I don’t believe such an expectation is wise or healthy. As somebody who seemingly has all the ‘good things’ one might expect to cherish in a privileged life, there comes a harrowing guilt with feeling any type of pointless, unidentifiable sadness. So one parenting ideal that I learned this month is that I don’t want to force Lyra to grow up thinking that she always has to feel happy for my benefit, or repress her emotions to appear happy. I want her to feel at liberty to express her emotions freely to me so that when she has a day where she feels low and there’s no identifiable cause, I can cuddle her and stroke her hair and let her know that it’s ok to feel that way and we’ll ride it out together.

I had such a day. A day that began with sunlight and sweet baby smiles and yet there was an indescribable emptiness in my mind. I was resigned to curl up in bed with the sweet babe and spend the entirety of the day there but my wise and gentle husband knew that there are two ways to lift my soul when it’s feeling adrift: the first is being barefoot on the sand and the other is chips.

Jon coaxed me out the house and we decided to venture to a local spot. The super moon seemed to have encouraged an unusually low tide so that when we arrived at Porthgwarra cove on the Penwith peninsula, there was more beach than I had ever seen here with two seals bobbing in the waves, their snouts peeping out from the sea.

Porthgwarra is a sweet little cove; it was used as a location in Poldark and has a rich history in fishing. It has a beautiful manmade sea cave through which you can enter the beach at low tide intended for use by fisherman as a less steep a slope up which to haul their catch.

While the rest of the country was enjoying snow, we had a mixture of sunshine and showers but the last couple of days in particular have been meek and mild. The magnolias are in bloom with the cherry trees following suit and in the brightest part of the day, one can prance around in the sunshine without need for a coat. The beach was a particular sunny spot and felt almost spring like. The moment I took off my shoes and wiggled my toes in the sand, the empty feeling dissolved and I felt alive again – I felt more than alive when the water rushed up and froze my surprised toes with an icy blast.

It’s the time of year that the Wind Sailors wash in off the seas so I tried to gather up as many as I could to put them back. These beautiful little hydrozoa float on the surface of the waves and eat plankton. I love seeing them but it makes me sad when I come across those that have been on the shoreline too long. Such beautiful creatures from the sea, colours like far away galaxies you could almost stare at them forever.

The last time we came to Sennen, Lyra was snuggled away in my tum and we didn’t have long to go before we’d be meeting her. It’s another of those beautiful Cornish spots that I will only visit out of season because in the summer, you’d be lucky to fit a box of clotted cream fudge between all the crowds on the beach. Every time I’ve been here, the light has always been so dreamlike and hazy, it feels almost cinematic. I could have stayed until the sun went to bed but with a little one, the privileges of lingering places must be put on hold for later days.

We picked up some chips for our late lunch and sat on the bench overlooking the beach watching the surfers brave the cold but beautiful waves. For such a popular spot, this village is mighty isolated. I’ve always found the Penwith peninsula to be rugged and wild in a way no other parts of Cornwall quite are. I often find myself wondering what life must be like for those living in the stubborn stone cottages in villages like St Just and Pendeen that are seemingly in the middle of nowhere, places that probably see a once maybe once or twice a day. As that happens, the fish and chip shop at the top of the hill before you enter the old part of the village down by the sea has a unusually good selection of vegetarian options and is one of our favourite stops for fish (in Jon’s case something vegetarian and deep fried) and chips. Now that I live in West Cornwall, I want to take more advantage of having such a spot nearby and spend far more time here, adding another little ritual to our growing list of habits and haunts. It has the sort of car park where you can just sit in your car on a winter’s day when the wind is a howling and eat your hot, vinegary, greasy chips in your lap and watch the sea. Sennen is also famed for some of the largest waves in Cornwall that blow up in the storms. Google pictures of ‘Sennen storms’ just to see how crazy the waves get.

Soft sands, feet doused in salty water and lapping waves and the sounds of the gulls cawing. Remedies for a dreary head and weary mind. No matter how much life changes and we grow, my constant is the ocean. The feeling of standing in the shallows will always feel the same from when I was a small infant to now, a grown woman. It will always fill me to the brim with happy thoughts and daydreams and a sense of potential adventure. It reminds me of dreams I would have about swimming to tiny islands or the excitement of exploring sandbars revealed by low tides and beaches unexplored. We each have our little rituals for self care, but we must always be kind too. Kindness above all else is crucial.