Serenity on Sea

By Chrissy Brand

I parked the car on a grand looking square. It was just a few yards from the sea. Streetlights lined the shore and a midsummer moon lit the stage for silver-flecked dancers to freestyle on the rippling tide.

Walking along the promenade, taking deep breaths of sea air. It was midnight and I had driven a couple of hundred miles from the north, straight from work. A woozy trip where the last 30 miles had taken me into a twisting twilight woodland world, descending a hill, forever.

This roadside forest had embraced me, wrapping me in a comfort blanket of childhood bedtime tales, of imps and magical creatures. I felt its slightly hallucinogenic effect, encountering an entrance to a new part of the world for me.

Was I taking flight, fleeing from the nine to five, running away from responsibilities to become a creature of the seashore? Or was I merely spreading my wings, once again?

After decades of working for the system, albeit it often in a creative and enjoyable way, I was more than ready to reclaim my stolen 40 hours each week and to be more giving and community-spirited with them. And just to be freer in spirit. Just “to be”, in fact.

“Is this merely another flight of fancy?” I pondered, encountering a house-high mural where a larger than life trapeze artist proclaimed her love for this little town, a town that I had never been anywhere near, in all my years, before tonight.

Further up the hill, interesting-looking people poured out from a restaurant, or was it a bar? Or a cinema? Lost in debate on the arthouse film they had absorbed. Tell-tale signs of an enriched evening lingered, desert islands of plates and glasses on the ocean-like tables.

Every other shop window showcased upcycled furniture and affordable vintage items. This place had a buzz. An overwhelming feeling, and a phrase, enveloped me as I almost bounced along the road. “Could this be the place for me? How can you be so sure within ten minutes of your first ever visit?”

Talking Heads’ 1980’s paean to hope, “This Must be the Place (Naïve Melody)” cosied itself inside my head, to become an ear worm for the next few months.

What was this new world I was entering? Symbolic synergy swept slowly through me. I had travelled as far as I possibly could on this island, literally and metaphorically. Scarcely seventy supplementary steps southward and I would be in deep water.

This was to be the place to plant new roots, to cultivate and grow friendships, to enjoy sunshine, freedom, laughter, and some sea-salted tears.

And so, it came to pass. I visited again, then again, then a final time to prove the disjointed rail network could carry me back to my beloved north whenever the whim took me. It all worked, it all fitted into place.

My only wobble was one bleak, wet Tuesday night in November. The streets seemed deserted, hardly anyone was in the pubs. Perhaps it would be foolish to leave nightly new music and familiar bars of my Northern Quarter neighbourhood, back in t’north.

Was this to be a flight too far? Self-doubt. A bonus of being a free spirit is you can make all the decisions yourself, there is no one to apply the brakes. Conversely, there is little compromise required, no one to sit up all night with, debating the whys and wherefores. Mistakes can easily be made. Sometimes a little brake pressure, a little peer pressure, is not the worst thing.

I was reliant on the conversations in my head, and the blessing of close friends and family back home who could see the attraction for me, flitting off to the seaside.

It worked, and how! I was soon a fully-fledged DFTN (down from the north) but totally immersed in the town. Or rather, these towns. St. Leonards-on-Sea had Hastings tacked onto it, merging along the coast, seamlessly so, these days.

Getting involved in community and political groups and sometimes seemingly singlehandedly keeping cafes heads above the water, from where you can see water, sea water. How selfless. But at least I was spending more on Americanos and vegan food than I purloined from them in wi-fi.

The flight to this foreshore was also a facilitator of a final boost of self-confidence. I had inadvertently found a bouncier, more sociable side of myself. Jumping in the deep end, you sink or swim. I swam, found it was easy to connect with people, many more eccentric even than I.

I gave to the community and, in return, it embraced me and proffered friendship, summer breezes, wondrous woodland walks, fireside conversations, comfortable connections. Endless coffees and cafes, smiles and support. Nights of great live music and food, festivals and forest frolics.

This rogue republic by the sea had its own way of being, with its endless carnivals and characters. It had become my midlife finishing school, polishing me into a sun-kissed, unhinged around the edges, beach bum version of my former city centre self. It fitted me well. Mostly, I was free and happier for giving up the rat race, for going freelance and supplementing my income by renting out my spare room.

I saw the towns as a finishing school for the eccentric, for those of us who didn't fit in. Where you you can learn to be just who you are and realise it is never too late to begin. Be one of all the warriors, painted pagan knaves, drummers and drinkers, here you can start again.

Those downtrodden and creative, the poets and sun heads, the pier-reviewing individualists, we are ourselves, and folk the rest. That part of selfish society, the one created by the rich: our wealth is in our hearts and minds from the hilltops to the beach.

And time passed, until one day I realised, and it was a surprise to myself, that I possess a restless soul. Parenthood, which I love, and work responsibilities (not so much!) had pushed that spirit out of sight for the past two decades. Not a bad thing at all, I had needed to focus on helping to raise two well-balanced and happy young people and to partially provide for them.

But, on another summer day, as I headed homeward from Welsh coast and mountains to my Slenny on Sea, I realised how I was unsettled with living in a flat. The millions who can only ever afford to buy a flat, not a house, are penalised by the system: often extortionate management company fees, plus no control over when jobs get fixed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d been happy to be privileged enough to own a little flat of my own in the first place. I hate paying attention to the system, much less playing the system but … I could now afford to buy a three bed house in a quirky northern mill town.

I would flip my life. Spend a few weeks up there and then a few down here, staying with friends, or camping: a mirror image of my past four years.

It was the bite of the flight, and it took a different type of flight for me to think it over. My own form of in-flight entertainment. I try to travel to Europe by train rather than flying, but the rare forays further afield mean a guilt-ridden flight. On a flight to a women’s podcast conference in LA in that last pre-Covid autumn, my plan evolved and, unbeknownst to me, slowly set in stone.

The stone of northern mill town workers’ cottages, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Peak and Pennine grit. A far cry from my gentle Sussex by the Sea but, at my age, you can do your own thing.

I will still be swooning on the cliffs while the night sky is ablaze, still be wrapped in tenderness, still surfing on a wave. That feeling has captured me, entranced my cynical side, gently washing over me. I can shift and I can sigh, take chances as they pass by. No matter what I do or try, I'm now on a natural high.

I can walk the coast forever more, far from shore and far from sure. Some spirit inside me spurs me on and gives me this natural high. People power can conquer all, in this most conquering of towns, and deeper powers of hearts and minds can turn the world around.

As we hopefully, finally, slowly emerge from pandemic, rubbing sleepy eyes and squinting in the new spring light, I may be about to take flight once more, back up my well-travelled road to the north west.

But fear not, I remain wedded to my community by the sea here. The pandemic’s saving grace of normalising video conferencing has made that easier, and I will be back, often. Friends used to joke that I was never here anyway, so frequently did I need to quench my wanderlust. Long may that continue.

I long for long summer days, coffee on the Edge, by the Ledge. I am a vegan wrap seeker at Fika, a purveyor of buffets at Bullet, enjoying these wonderful towns and inhabitants. That first flight from rat race to beach pace captured my soul.