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

As I step 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. 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’m touched by the kindness of strangers, yet I question my urge to over give. I lean in for a moment then decide to move on, tending to others 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. 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. She is now several feet ahead of me. We enter a little cove I call Pandanus Lounge. I watch her move toward the outcrop of rocks adjacent to the headland. I know 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. It was caused by an insect sting when I walked barefoot in the bush near my little valley shack. 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. The swelling has subsided. Yet, a sore, itchy, irritated spot remains right in the middle of my foot. The skin is peeling and raw. I suspect the sting may still be embedded there. The salt water and the cool sand beneath my feet are soothing me now.

I turn toward the surf club and am struck by the scene. For a second I regret leaving my camera behind. I ignore the pesky thought and surrender to the moment. I breathe it in, slowly. 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 enchanted and blessed.

I marvel at the heavy storm clouds that loom, almost unnaturally, above the scene. Directly before me sit a number of large volcanic boulders. I remember a photograph you took of me perched on the largest one. I stood 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…

You, who wounded me so deeply that the pain stole years of my life. But you are only here because you took the picture. I see now you stood on the outside, detached, safe and alone while I surrendered to rock and sea. Bare-skinned, wind-caught, alive.

A flutter of movement to my right.

A large crow lands on a flat rock nearby. Above, noisy miners scurry back and forth across the fine limbs of a swaying she-oak tree. A seagull swoops in, feigning attack, then lands warily on a taller boulder. 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.