As I’m sure will apply to many right now, I find I have a bit more time on my hands and a lot more thoughts invading my brain. They are not always welcome thoughts but lately I’ve been trying to find a way through these and focus on happier ones.
A good way to do this for me is to revisit in my mind my favourite places and this led to the contemplation of whether I had a special happy place and, if so, what was it about that place that made it so special to me? It’s something I’d quite like to share, so here goes.
It’s not always easy to find a happy place. There are probably lots of places where we feel content, comfortable, at ease, but a true happy place will elevate you in a different way. I found mine not that long ago, and it’s something I think everyone should seek out.
Over the past year or so, I’ve been visiting Rye Harbour Nature Reserve in the beautiful East Sussex countryside and have come to know it well. I tend to follow a similar route when I visit, but there are many different paths to choose and all offer something different.
My walk begins along gravel paths which are flanked either side by a curious mixture of marshland, saline lagoons and reed beds, and ends at the shingle banks which lead down towards the sea. There are various paths leading off to the left and right, but I usually continue on towards the shoreline, especially on days when the light is radiant and the sun is beginning its descent towards the horizon.
If the tide is out, I’ll walk along the sand, trying not to disturb the waders at the shoreline; otherwise I’ll walk on the shingle, stopping now and then to watch the sun on its journey through the sky.
There’s a sense of reassurance here, a constant that is heartening in a world that is changing too fast. I know the sun will always set behind those cliffs, I know the tide will rise and fall with a comforting predictability. Looking out into the open sea, towards the clean, unbroken horizon, gives a liberating sensation of infinity and I can feel, as I breathe in the salty air, that my lungs and mind are opening.
As the light changes, I turn off from the shore and walk back over the shingle towards the path. There are various bird hides located around the reserve, positioned thoughtfully so one can take in the best view. I favour one in particular which is set back from the path and usually quiet towards the end of the day.
I remember walking into the hide for the first time. It was dusk – that short window of time before sunset when the air seems to hang a little heavier and time feels slower, as if attempting to hold back nightfall. The hide was empty and in the gloomy twilight it was hard to discern the outline of the benches in front of the window openings.
Hinged wooden slats cover the openings, and there is no glass between you and the landscape, so you immediately feel a connection that isn’t there when seeing the world through a transparent barrier.
Because the hide is built so close to the water’s edge, you feel as if you are in the lake, a part of the landscape, and there is an instant realisation that you are not apart from nature, that you are as much a part of it as the wildflowers that line the banks, or the shingle that has been crafted over time by the rhythm of nature, or the whistling grey plovers that peck at the shore. That interrelationship, that union, is eternal, unbreakable and very real.
There is not a lot of noise from the hide but what sounds there are seem to bring about an immediate physical change. The gentle lapping of the waves against the shoreline, the insistent, incisive peep of the oystercatchers as they search for nesting sites, the muffled flutter of wings in the sky above – all these seem to prompt a calmness that descends before you realise what’s happened.
As shoulders drop and eyes widen to take in the strikingly beautiful view, you are alert and in the moment, an unusual feeling when much of life is spent distracted by inconsequential nonsense. Time stops and there is a sense that everything is as it should be.
As the sun drops lower in the sky and nudges the top of the cliffs, the world takes on a different hue. A fusion of colour erupts across the final remnants of blue and scatters its palette across the surface of the water. To my eyes, it is a perfect composition.
The first time I saw it, it invoked a powerful emotional response that took me by surprise and seemed somewhat disproportionate to the scene before me. And yet, shouldn’t we all be triggered in that way by beauty, whether in the form of nature, art, music?
I am lucky – I have never lost my sense of wonder or gratitude for the natural world and its staggering and humbling capacity to sustain life, but places like this serve to remind me that I can still be overwhelmed by life’s splendour, by its profound beauty, and reminds me how important it is for us all to reconnect with our senses.
This is my happy place. It does what it’s supposed to do – it makes me happy – for all the reasons above and more. When we emerge, battered and bewildered, from this crisis, one of the first things I’ll do is return to this place. Planning for things like that keeps me going during dark days.
If you don’t have your own happy place, I would urge you to make it your mission to find one, as soon as the time is right to venture out. If only for a brief time, it will pull you out of the gloom and give your soul the affirmation it needs, wherever it may be, and that’s something I’m sure we could all do with more of.
Image Credits: Barry Yates , Office of Keith Taylor , Colin Page .
Dear Vicki, This is a beautiful piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it with us. I will share it with my Quaker Friends. I’m sure, like me, they will be inspired by it – and we will all – I’m sure we already do – find and appreciate our own happy places.