I got Ocean in my Gumboots!

by Robyn

Today is Maeve's Birthday. It is 19 years since she and her twin cousin, Zoe, were born.

To celebrate, I rode along the river to where it meets the ocean. (Actually I do that most mornings.) There have been fierce storms and heavy rain here for a week, and the sea was 'seething' with coffee coloured foam and big waves far out, whose tops were being ripped off backwards by the wind.

I went in my new Doc Marten gumboots that Mom gave me for Christmas from her op-shop.

I decided to walk along Lighthouse Beach, to see if there was any interesting flotsam.

The coffee foam was foot deep in ribbons along the shore. I walked through it, thinking how it looked a bit like dirty snow but wasn't crunchy. I walked through it, feeling like a giant walking over the earth with the clouds at my feet. Like clouds but bigger bubbles. Some bubbles as big as your palm.

I wanted to walk into the shallows and have the little waves wash around my gumboots. I started walking out towards the waves. The water was running back back back into the ocean, the new waves just piling up and folding under themselves. I seemed to walk a long way out. I kept thinking, soon, a big wave will spill over the top of that pile. But it just kept running out. It was like the ocean was taking a great big breath in. It was like the story of the Genie who sucked the ocean in so the boy could collect treasure from the shore, but only so much and no more.

Then suddenly a wave spilled over the pile and came towards me. Then another and another, and first up to my shins and then up above my knees to my skirt.

The water wasn't really cold, but i did look funny standing there up to my thighs in the waves in my raincoat and skirt and gumboots.

I got ocean in my gumboots, and I brought little bit of it home.

xx R