Going, going gone
(This post was started back in August one windy night while camping at Walberswick)
The campsite at Walberswick is behind a shingle bank which protects it from the sea. The photo at the top shows the bank. The sea is down about ten feet lower on the right. The campsite is about ten feet lower on the left. All of us know that we are only one Great Storm from seeing the end of this lovely place. Once properly breached, it could never be fixed. There is a transience to our situation here that makes it if anything even more glorious. Remember the bit about not 'binding to yourself a joy'
I went out at 2:00 in the morning to film a quite strong sea ripping and tugging at our protecting bank. Tonight we'll be fine but you can see and hear the issue. You can see some of the surf near the end of the video below if you can follow the link
The good thing about something that does not hide its transience is that it can make it even more attractive. On a shorter scale, the flowers of the magnolia do not lack in beauty for seeming to drop off as soon as they bloom. In fact for many people they are their favourite flower. And the beauty in the frost on cobwebs on a winters morning is not spoiled by the fact that you know it will be gone by lunchtime. It seems more special, because it will pass and will pass soon.
It makes you rather doubt all the assertions that some people make about the eternal beauty of some places. Maybe the Eternal City itself. Is that what you really want? Surely anything eternal is dead, and the worse for it. Like searching for perfection itself, maybe searching for an eternal perfect beauty takes something away from the beauty. Maybe a transient beauty is better, because it is honest and human and knows that all things pass but that passing does not lessen them.
To come back to the lovely campsite and the hungry sea, I am slightly of the mind of the dying Oscar Wilde who allegedly said of the hideous wallpaper in his Paris room:
"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go"
Let's see which one it is, eh? I'm afraid I have my money on the sea.
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