"I think you should go through the dunes and grainfields to Salamander Bay one day in the spring, when the wildflowers are blazing in the sailors' cemetery. There are ghosts of ships and seamen in that old harbour, but the ghosts of Salamander harm no one ...”
lines from Lawrence Green and immortalised for me by a yellowing piece of paper on which they hung above the large table of our childhood family holiday home, nearby.
Phoebe's grin is centred in the frame, and stays there. If she shifts, I remind her to shift back, to keep us balanced. The slightest imbalance is discomfort in the oars. Her long hair flows outward from the centre of her scalp. And behind that stretches the transient mark of our passing – little eddies that live fleetingly and then return to stillness. There is something about the stillness in this place that speaks of deep connection. The stillness and the light. This is a place that has held me for as long as I can remember, and holds me still.
