On Sunday afternoon, before leaving, we took a short visit to the beach at Seafield on the southern edge of the town, which would have been a regular haunt of my wife's when growing up, but we found it much changed from previous visits... Since 2020 it has been the subject of one of the many projects around the UK seeking to re-establish sand dunes as a coastal erosion and biodiversity initiative using discarded Christmas trees as the foundational matrix for trapping the sand... A mere 6 years has made a discernible difference, and I was surprised when doing some research later that I haven't found more written about it... merely a couple of articles in local papers announcing that they were going to try this, but no "before and after" pieces, and no more detailed environmental pieces that I could find on public sources.
It had also been a while since I had visited my mother in law. She has had significant health challenges over the past year, and a degree of cognitive decline, necessitating a move to more suitable accommodation. This has involved significant heavy-lifting by my wife and the wider family, including the moving away from a house full of memories and the disposal of all kinds of items that were "always there." However, the move and the hard work it entailed, like the sand dune initiative has been worth it. But the challenges of aging remain...
As we walked briefly along the shore this piece emerged almost fully formed...
Childhood memories are subsumed
by encroaching sand dunes,
as the carefully curated rewilding
seeks to resist the rising seas.
“Leave nothing but your footprints
on the beach” we are warned,
for they will soon be washed
or blown away. But how soon
will all sign of our presence
be erased from both memory
and the face of this fragile earth?
The waves continue, heedless.
Selah
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