Gather round, dear readers, for I am going to tell you a story.
Once upon a time there was a girl who worked in an office without windows. It was a dreary grey office in a dreary grey building, and all day long she filed dreary invoices and answered dreary phone calls. And the girl knew this was not the life for her, or for anyone. She knew, deep down in her bones, that the world was not dreary and grey. She knew the world was gentle sunshine and the whisper of salt winds through sand dunes. She knew the world was the scent of brine in the air and the sticky-sweet taste of candy floss melting on the tongue. She knew the world was the lights of the fairground at dusk, the music of the carousel and the rush of water on sand.
So in her head, while she filed her invoices and answered her phone calls, she ran down to the ocean and pushed her bare toes in the wet sand. She picked up glistening seashells and watched crabs pick their way through tangles of seaweed. She watched gulls wheel over the waters, soaring off to places far away and dream-filled. She imagined mermaids and krakens and underwater cities bejewelled with coral and pearls. And she knew this was the life for her. So she wrote poems and stories and made perfumes, and she filled them all with the sea and its treasures. And she dreamed and she hoped and she waited. Because one day she was going to walk out of that dreary grey office and run down to the sea for real.
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| Seven|ElevenStudios |
And I'm still waiting. It's been my life's dream to live by the sea. I love the British coastline - from the wild mountains and crashing grey waves of Northumberland to the long sandy stretches of Norfolk's beaches. The scents, the sounds, the scenery...it's just the most perfect combination for me. I love to sit and watch the ocean. I love walking along the shore barefoot, picking up seashells, trying (and failing) to skim stones. I love paddling in rock pools and finding strange fish and sea glass. I love sitting at the end of the pier, ice cream in hand, watching people come and go, inhaling the smells of sun tan lotion and frying donuts. That, for me, is the only thing to strive for. A life at the edge of the ocean.
All through my childhood, and still today, my grandparents have had a holiday home or caravan on the Norfolk coast. My summer memories are full of the fairground at Hunstanton - the safe scares of the ghost train, the stomach-churning thrill of the waltzer, the sticks of rock, and the endless flavours of ice cream. The cool haven of the sealife centre, filled with starfish and sharks. Tacky tourist gifts like sea lion keyrings and novelty sunhats. The long walk down the pier with the sea on one side and row after row of tiny, inviting gift shops offering everything from tumbled amethyst to bags of jelly beans.
When I go back there as an adult, I feel joyous and content, and I still want to do all the things I did there as a child. Splash in the waves, scoop up the starfish for just a brief moment, try that rum and raisin ice cream, collect those seashells. There's nowhere as magical as the seaside for me, nowhere I feel more at home. And one day, I will have my house by the sea.
In the mean time, I write stories about selkies and make perfumes filled with the scents of my childhood summers. I'm going to give you the ocean and the fairground, all that sugar-rich confectionery, all that briney tang and golden sunshine. I'm working on a collection of summer scents right now that are really helping lift that sense of dreary greyness that's sometimes so hard to see past. I hope, when they're released in the very near future, you'll get a glimpse of that magical seaside summer I love so much. And if you want to share your own summer memories - please do! Tell your own story :)
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| Chris Miles |
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