three gatherings

The new year begins with a storm: winds that bowl us over, hail that daggers our faces, each walk a battle, an exfoliation, an unpeeling, and the north Atlantic is feral and froth-mouthed, her white lips the same colour as the hail-skinned and frozen land, her breath salting the island’s air. But that is not what I want to tell you about today. Today, I want to take you back to christmas day, a day that, on this small island, was unseasonably warm, windless, quiet. I want to tell you about three gatherings I happened upon.

gathering i

In winter, huge tangles of kelp wash onto our beaches. Sometimes they cover the sand entirely: bright white shores repainted, overnight, in a canvas of slimy, twisting ribbons. A brown, dead blanket, in some places thick as I am tall. Only when the tide is high does it come back to life, raised up from the sand, resurrected. And when this happens, it dances. I often mistake this dancing kelp as animal, as corpse: a frond like a neck in the shallows, a stalk like an elbow, a ribbon curved like the arch of a back.

When we lived in Cornwall, my partner and I used to go to Porthleven in stormy weather—on the wild west coast, storms came raging right into the harbour, waves knocking at the door of the town, and we would just sit and watch it—all that power, all that fury. But one winter afternoon we saw a shape in the waves, winking in and out of view, hidden by the huge swell before appearing, disappearing, appearing again. It was purple, with a hood. It was child-sized.

Minutes later, on the phone to the coastguard, we realised it was, in fact, just a child’s coat. But it is exactly that shock of fear that greets me every winter morning when I see the shape of a limb, a neck, a curved back emerging from the waves. And there is no exception on christmas morning.

It is a calm day, but the Atlantic is all muscle. There must be a distant storm somewhere out there, in those arctic waters. And in the push and pull of all that water is the kelp, dancing to and fro, making me think, for just a moment, of struggling bodies, of grasping limbs.

And then, a blink, the thought: no, no, it is, as it always is, just the dancing kelp.

Except this is not all kelp. Another blink, a step closer to shore.

Many of those fronds are, actually, blinking back at me.

Many of them are the bobbing heads of seals.

Usually, along this coastline, I might see four or five seals, but here there are fifteen, twenty, more. I try counting them but I mistake one head for a frond of seaweed, mistake one frond of seaweed for a head, have to start and restart all over again. And I feel, as I do this, that delightful bending of reality, of expectation, that the sea so often gifts: one shape morphing to another, another, another—a constant shifting, a constant rewriting of what is real, what is not.

And it hardly seems real, all these dark moon eyes blinking up at me from the inky water, from between those limbs of kelp. It hardly seems real and yet it is, and it is the first gift of the day. The first of three peculiar gatherings.

gathering ii

We go snorkelling. I know, I know. It is mad. It is christmas day and it is freezing and the sea is cold as a sharp tooth. But in a sheltered bay on the east coast, the water is calm and beckoning us in and so we go, for who can resist that call?

A large plastic box, drifting loose—we see it as soon as we are in the water, had seen it, actually, the day before, from our paddleboards, had thought nothing of it. Just another piece of marine rubbish. But today, and who knows why, we check it. It is not an empty box. It contains a gathering.

Inside there are eight crabs and two lobsters, packed tight, claws bound. Clearly they had been caught by a fisherman, had been packed up in this box ready to be taken to shore. But the box must have fallen overboard and now here they are, these ten creatures, drifting.

We are quite sure most are dead. There is only the smallest hint of movement from within, only a faint impression of life.

We open the box, untie the ropes that keep it shut. Difficult, with neoprene gloves, already-numb fingers, the sway of the sea. I extract a large lobster, claws tied in tight bands. I think it is dead, but as I turn it around in my hands it bucks its huge body and I feel the power of the animal, the muscle of it, the desperate life in it, and I have to hold it against my chest to keep it still so that I can unbind its claws.

It goes limp in my hand. No movement until that first claw is unbound and then, a perfect moment: that huge claw, slowly, stretching open, closing, stretching open again.

I feel it in my body, the relief of that stretch. The release of it.

The lobster doesn’t struggle again. I unbind its other claw. I speak to it with my blue-fringed lips as its dazzling blue body shines up from my palms and it is another astonishing gift of the day, to see a lobster so close, to know the electric, hypnotic blue of it against the grey sea, the grey sky, to feel the living weight of it in my hands and, finally, to give it back to the ocean.

It goes to the seafloor, to the kelp, and hides in the shadows. So too do the crabs (all but one still alive), and the other (feistier) lobster.

Kelp creatures now, like the seals. I hope it keeps them well.

gathering iii

At dusk, I take Magnus down to the sea. The sky is heavy, the wind strengthening. On the way home, when we walk back up the hill, we find a peculiar group. While all the humans of the isle are gathering for their christmas traditions—dinner, films, TV, games—there is, at the top of this hill, overlooking the roaring ocean and the thickening skies and the quickening wind, a different sort of gathering.

Atop a fence post sits a raven, facing me. Tall, regal, a shocking shade of black. Next to the raven, a starling. Before them both, on the ground and looking in their direction, are two ducks, three hens, and one short-legged white horse.

The raven, upon seeing me, spreads her gorgeous wings wide. The starling hops away from her, so as not to be pushed off the fence. The horse, sensing some sort of interruption, turns around, gives me one long look and one slow blink. The ducks turn too, quack; the hens scratch at the floor. I imagine this is what it must be like to walk into an unfamiliar church during Sunday service. A shuffle of disruption, a curious murmur.

But then, the raven settles her wings back down, the starling hops back to position, and the horse turns back to them, the ducks and hens too. It seems Magnus and I have been accepted into the congregation. I do not know what, exactly, this means. Perhaps we are being taught a new religion. Or, more likely, an old religion. Perhaps we have inadvertently joined a farmyard uprising led by two winged and skybound things.

Whatever this peculiar gathering is, it is my final christmas gift: ten eclectic animals, including one bemused human and one oblivious dog, clustered on a hilltop as the sun sets over the cliffs.

And it seems to me now, reading back over these three strange meetings, that the day was an otherworld sort of day, as if, in this dark midwinter, I had stepped through the veil and into a different kingdom, a kingdom of moon eyes and black wings and shimmering, dazzling blue bodies returning to the deep. A kingdom woven from threads of fairy tale and feather. A kingdom I hope to be invited back to, but I have a feeling that is not how it works.

selkie woman ii

Friends, I hope you had a wonderful holiday break, and thank you for joining me in this new year. I am so happy to have you here.

This year, if any of you lovely folk would like to support my writing by becoming a between two seas founding member (the price for which is £100, or £60 on top of an annual subscription), you will receive a watercolour selkie woman.

These strong sea women are part of a new collection I am working on, celebrating the oceanic and the feminine. Each selkie woman is original and unique (no prints will be sold of them), and each comes into being slowly, over days, weeks, emerging gradually from the inspiration this island gifts me.

My second-year founding members (thank you, thank you, thank you!) will also receive one of these selkie women. They will be swimming to your shores soon.

I am grateful to every single subscriber—paid or free—and want to say, to every one of you, thank you for your support, your presence, and your time. Happy new year to you all xoxox