Making

I know that I should have written sooner but I have been lost out here on the beach. I have trodden across the damp sand over and over again and laid awake at night listening to the wind and the waves. I have both dreams and daydreams of water and seaweed and skin. I catch and cook my food, read, listen to music and stare at the sea for hours. Then, just as the summer was showing itself, all this space became oppressive and I was troubled and thought of leaving here for good. Forgive my silence.

So I have made myself a garden.

Here in the shingle above the highest tide I have sea holly and sea pinks. There are spiky tufts of seagrass and low mats of tiny succulent sedums. Outside the hut door there are old cracked pots planted with herbs: rosemary, basil and oregano so that I may cook with them or just take a pinch to sniff while I walk along the beach.

I dragged a huge slab of driftwood for a seat and set up tall slim sticks tied with washed up bottles and strings of seaglass held together with twine. There are swathes of old fishing net and chandeliers of lost and discarded tackle.

But, as I sat on my seat and surveyed what I had made, I was wistful again and wondered whether I should have cut myself off from the possibilities that lay beyond this lonely beach, rather than stay here and count out my days?

So I went into the hut, picked up my club hammer and took sharp chisels from an oiled rag. I found a suitable piece of stone at the base of the cliffs and dragged it to the hut where I remembered my stonecutting days as I shaped and fashioned a mermaid from the rock and set her up in the garden where she sits, sleek tailed among the plants. I carved her with your hair.

But it was only as I sat here just now, looking at her, that I realised that she also has your breasts.