Collecting Cuttlefish, talking about how to find the suspected shipwreck in it’s sands, skinny dipping in it’s icy waters on the most wild and woolly winters day there ever was, watching nieces in their childhood play in the sand and be washed over by the waves, running up and down the steep dunes, a mischievous drunken night of camping with great friends, our beloved mutt Dodger eye balling us so hard that in empathy we would throw him a tennis ball - which he always knew we’d do eventually, being petrified of the ferocious clutches of the waves except for on one uncharacteristic summers days when the water was warm, serenely inviting and we swam blissfully, walks with the in laws both during happier and harder times, discovering a small tiger snake in the sand dunes, playing sumo wrestling tournaments in the sand, squatting bare bottomed for a piddle only to be sprung by horse riders going passed….all of these things are what this place means to me.
It’s hard to explain this place. It’s called The Cutting. A wild, invigorating beach situated between Warrnambool and Port Fairy in the Western district of Victoria. It’s one of those places that always looks different every single time you visit. It has many different facades, shades and persona’s. It is it’s own living, breathing, evolving form.
I once had thought Mr Vick and I would get married on that beach. In my girlish daydreams I imagined arriving on a horse.
It is relatively unknown but it has always been our little beach close to Mr Vick’s home town of Koroit. It was a place we visited frequently. To stew, to canoodle, to refresh, to reflect. There’s always reflection there. Yesterday when we returned was no exception.
All of the memories weighed heavy in my heart. The instant I stepped onto the sand and my hair tangled about my face helplessly, I was taken back to past times. I was somewhat sad that those times have passed, sad that chapter has finished knowing that friends and family have come and gone in our lives and we can no longer share it with them. There’s a sense of being at home there and yet it feels a little emptier than once before.
I feel my late mother in laws spirit there so strongly. She is not at the cemetery where we farewelled her body, she is at the Cutting. I watched her stride up that beach with such determination frequently. I watched Mr Vick piggy back her over the sand dunes when her weak legs couldn’t get her there. I sore how free she was there. The Cutting encaptures all that was her.
The new chapter begun yesterday. We introduced Little Vick to the Cutting. To him it was just another big beach which he could scoop sand up in and be wary of the waves. The same as all the other beaches we have taken him to. How could he ever know what it means to us?
But as the Cutting evolves so do we. Ready or not it’s time to sit comfortable with the next chapter. New friends, new places and new little people will enter our life but old haunts like the Cutting will still feel like a special place in my heart.
