I love the ocean best when it's cold and the beaches are barren. I like how my boots sink into the sand and the way the wind rips through my hair, making it a salty, knotty mess. The crash of the waves seem louder, too, when they don't have to compete with the noise of bathers, as do the eery calls of the gulls hovering above, riding the wind like surfers do the water. Just as Maria runs to the hills when her heart is lonely, I escape to the ocean. I want to feel small, know my problems are but a drop of water in the greatness of the sea.
Photos taken near Rye, UK in late October. The model is my beautiful mother.
