Seaside Memories
‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside,’
sang my Dad when I was young.
‘Oh I do like to be beside the sea.’
We were there of course, when he did –
a family clump, sitting around on the sand:
parents, brother, uncles, aunts, cousins.
Only a few small excursions into the sea.
We lay on top of the waves, blue waves,
above the fathers’ large, spread hands
guiding and guarding hands, palms up
beneath the water. Our trust gave buoyancy
despite white froths of spray, despite
the secretive current, the undertow.
‘Swim sideways, not across it.’
Aussie kids know these things.
But from the sand the sweet sea sparkled,
the sun poured down. We sprawled
under big round beach umbrellas.
We smelled of insect repellent, sunscreen
and last night’s barbecue sausages
eaten cold with tomato sauce.
The parents slept a bit in the sun,
taking turns to watch the children
make sandcastles or bury the dads.
A final quick salty swim before sunset.
Gathering up towels etcetera any old how;
driving home still in our damp bathers.
Written in response to Weekend Mini Challenge: At the Seaside at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.
Image: William Robinson: 'Summer Self Portrait I' 2004. (Public domain.)
Written in response to Weekend Mini Challenge: At the Seaside at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.
Image: William Robinson: 'Summer Self Portrait I' 2004. (Public domain.)
I so enjoy anecdotes and personal memory poems, Rosemary, and this one's a beauty. I love the snippet of song, the 'family clump, sitting around on the sand' and that you've included the way most of us learned to float on hands! I also love the way the lingering sense of smell drifts in the lines:
ReplyDelete'We smelled of insect repellent, sunscreen
and last night’s barbecue sausages
eaten cold with tomato sauce'.
"Our trust gave buoyancy..." : I find the buoyancy of this trust so evocative and something that would make a family outing so personal. The image of lying on the top of waves is beautiful, as is the progression into a day long leisure.
ReplyDelete-HA
In summer, our bathing suits never fully dried, we swam so often. I remember pulling mine off the clothesline and putting it on still damp for the next swim. My grandma's house was one block from the lake.
ReplyDeleteAh.. this is lovely 💜 reminds me of my childhood summers spent at Hawkesbay Beach 😊 which was a bit far from Karachi.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of returning home in damp bathers brought back memories Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteWe kids would wear our bathers under our clothes and then it was easier to strip off when we arrived at the beach.
At home time, if our bathers had dried out under the sun, we would keep them on and dress over.
If still wet, we would remove them and dry ourselves off, hidden by the giant towel held by mum or dad.
Coy little thing I was then, I always wished the bathers dried off, which happily they generally did.
Anna :o]
Ah yes, we also wore bathers under clothes on the way to the beach, and changed out of them behind the big towel held by a parent. (Smiling at the memory.) But sometimes we holidayed in a house near the beach, and then it wasn't far to drive with the wet togs.
DeleteI love the way you were kept safe in the surfs by your parents... I have never mastered bathing in oceans... remember the big surge of waves and how frightful it is when the crash on top of you.
ReplyDeleteI never can manage it either, now that I am past the days of being able to stick to the shallows and rely on powerful parents. I grew up on the banks of a river (getting to the ocean required something of an expedition) and I much prefer to swim in still water.
DeleteSo fun!!! I think we all need a day at the beach.
ReplyDeleteYour sweet memories make this poem a wonderful treat. I grew up in landlocked Midwest, no memories of the beach until I was all grown up. Might explain my fear of water?
ReplyDeleteNice memory recollections, Rosemary. That is something we never did growing up. There were some river and lake beaches in Nebraska but we just didn't go. As parents we made up for lost time. But we didn't have the big white towels but rather changed behind an opened car door. In Texas, as probably in the Aus, we could drive on most beaches and park close to a spot we'd find.
ReplyDelete..
Oh, the towels were never white, but very colourful! 'Beach towels' were and are a thing.
DeleteLiving in Ontario, the nearest seaside beach was the next province over, in Quebec. Or a very long drive south, to the United States. Instead, we would gather at various provincial parks, in June, celebrating the day (the 13th) that my dad's family came to Canada, from the Nederland. You thought an army had invaded the park, with our sheer numbers. That stopped, in 1996, with the death of oma, as the uncles and aunts with their children went their own way. Some ways, I miss this and others that I don't. Especially, the large number of first cousins (26), not include their spouses and children.
ReplyDelete