I left my camera behind today. I need to feel free from having to carry something.

As I walk onto the beach, I notice raindrop impressions, the wetness forming a surface crust on the sand. I love how that crust cracks beneath my feet and the feel of sinking into the soft sand beneath it. I walk toward the water and see someone’s left a car key hanging on a tall stick they planted upright in a mound so it might be seen. I look at it and notice my urge to help. Should I take it to the police station? Or is the owner more likely to look for it here? I deeply appreciate the kindness of strangers, yet I question my tendency to over give. I lean in for a moment but decide to move on, overconcern has too often hijacked my peace.

I move toward the water’s edge and begin to stroll along the shoreline. An older woman is doing the same, wearing clothing similar to mine. Then I look down and find an ocean-tumbled stone in the shape of a perfect heart. I pick it up, turning it over to notice a groove that resembles a crack down its center. Feeling the stone’s coolness in my palm, I am too weary to find more meaning now.

I walk in the same direction as the older woman, now several feet ahead of me, into a little cove I call Pandanus Lounge. I watch her move toward the outcrop of rocks adjacent to the headland, knowing from experience that she will soon realise it is impossible to pass. She does, and turns back as I turn toward the ocean and put my feet in the cool water.

I have an injury on the bottom of my right foot caused by an insect sting when I walked barefoot in the bush on my Valley property. At first, I thought it was an ant bite, but the pain was more intense and lasted longer. My foot swelled and pulsed for days. That was weeks ago now, and while the swelling has subsided, there is still a sore, itchy, irritated spot right in the middle of my foot where the skin is peeling. I suspect the sting may still be embedded there. The salt water and the cool sand beneath my feet feel soothing.

I turn toward the surf club and am struck by the scene. I regret for a moment that I left my camera behind, but quickly realise its absence allows me perfect presence with my experience. I breathe it in. The sun is rising, casting an eerie glow on the horizon behind two punctuating palm trees. The familiar beer advertisement atop the surf club features the perfect postcard slogan: “From where you’d rather be.” The moment is imbued with a timeless nostalgia, and I feel deeply grateful to live here.

I marvel at the heavy storm clouds that loom, almost unnaturally, above the scene. Directly before me sit a number of large volcanic boulders. Suddenly, I remember a photograph you took of me standing on the largest one, topless, my split skirt blowing back in the breeze, exposing my perfectly rounded behind.

Wait. I am deep in my own experience, and all of a sudden I am talking to you.

You, who blindsided me and wounded me so deeply that the pain stole years of my life. But you are only here because you took the picture. I am the one on the rock, bare-skinned, wind-caught, alive. In this moment, it is all mine again, as she and I become one.

A flutter of movement breaks the spell. A large crow has landed on a boulder to my right, above noisy miners scurrying back and forth across the fine limbs of a swaying she-oak tree. A seagull swoops in, feigning attack, then lands wearily on a tall boulder nearby. Soon another joins it. All the birds are now squawking and squealing in a cacophony of protest. The crow ignores them, pecking at some tasty morsel as its mate lands nearby.