Child of the Tides…….

I have often wondered how I have become a solitary person in my old age, happy in my own company. But, as I think about my early life, say between the ages of 9 and 12, I recall that my family lived in a little backwater suburb of Brisbane, called Shorncliffe. It really was the end of the line.

However, its main charm was Moreton Bay, with Moreton Island strung out in the background of the bay.  When I first stood at the top of the cliff, over the road from the shabby, wooden house my parents had just rented, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My only view of water in my entire young life had ever been the muddy Brisbane River. I had never seen the sea.

Just across the road from our house and down the face of the cliff  was a little track leading down to the ocean.  Not the hurling, curling surf of the Gold Coast, but sandbanks, which stretched for miles when the tide was out. A sea of shimmering blue satin when the tide was in.

My life was, for ever after, ruled by the tides. Who cared about school.  Just a little break of 4 or 5 hours to learn your  ABC’s and then I rushed home to the Bay, and went crabbing, fishing, beach combing , and swimming. These were the happiest days of my life. It didn’t matter if the tide was in or out, rough or calm, there I was, alone

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So now, when the going gets rough, my mind takes me back to stand in the warm salt waters of the sand pools and look into the eyes of the sea anemones, clinging onto rocks, or catch a glare from an annoyed prawn, waving its whiskers, at my presumptuous invasion of its territory.

Those were the days, my friends…..