A secret place

My favourite place is situated in quite a wide space. It is a secret place on the side of a cliff with a magnificent view of Cornish coastline. It is a protruding section of headland at the end of which you can climb down onto what appears to be an uncomfortable section of bare rock. There are though several ‘seats’ in the hard granite, which are made more comfortable by clumps of sea thrift on which I sit. The ledge is high up windswept and the breeze is often bracing and penetrating. On the wind the sea leaves its mark with the taste of salt, which gives substance to the sound of the waves dramatically pounding the muscle clad rocks below. Nesting herring gulls noisily circle overhead but settle once I stop moving around. The sun beats down on exposed skin in this vulnerable place. To the west of my south facing position is the open expanse of sea, and as I gaze out onto the horizon I imagine myself sailing the Atlantic across to America. In the foreground long lines are formed in the water, which break evenly into an off shore surfers swell. To the south of my position there are four or five giant stacks of eroded granite cliff sitting on the sand covered beach. These give the main focal point of interest and are framed by the sea, sky, and cliffs behind them. These monoliths dominate the landscape, but only because they have become separated from the mainland, do they become a focus of beauty. In the distance there is the grey of a sprawling town, where a famous hotel sits upright on the end of another headland as if to conquer the escaping land.

Once again I take in this view and count the features lost to sliding eroded cliffs year by year. The inscription I made years ago in the rock is hardly visible now but the scene lives on. A place where I feel I belong, where my spirit transcends material living and joins hands with greater significance. A place where the ‘me’ ‘myself’ and ‘I’ melt away eclipsed by the beauty of natural grandeur in all its glory, giving way to a sense of belonging, meaning and renewed purpose for a weary soul.