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The On the Beach essays were originally posted to alt.lifestyle.furry, commencing in January '97. They were written for a niche audience, which I have little to do with these days, and contain a little jargon (in the first entry anyway) which might not make sense to most people - however I'm leaving them up, partly because I got a story published when a publisher approached me after reading this on the web, so I figure it must have some merit, and partly because I keep thinking one day I'll write a (final) part 5.
It's summer. For one reason or another the radio project I've been working on has ground to a halt. I'm only working weekends, and it's five weeks before I go back to university full-time. I realised that effectively I'm on holidays, so I decided to start making the most of it.
There are a lot of beaches in Tasmania. The days are long, and I decided that I would like to walk along a different beach every evening. I worked out that if I'm prepared to drive for half an hour I can walk along a different beach every evening for a month - and that's just the sandy ones. Having done this for a few weeks I think I'd like to keep it up for the rest of my life. Even the cold, drizzly bits of my life.
The hard part: what does this have to do with a furry lifestyle? The only explanation I can give you is that the thing which makes me furry and the thing which makes me walk along deserted beaches at sunset is the same thing. To me furriness is tied up with re-intergration. I'm an animal, and I've been educated to pretend that I'm not. Furries themselves are even responsible for reinforcing this 'humans are not real animals' mentality, because we keep on speaking disdainfully of humans, as if they didn't belong in the animal kingdom. I feel my furriness is part of my humaness, not something outside of it. When I seek to be alone in a natural setting, with no sign of other humans or civilisation around me, I feel both more furry and more human at the same time. I hope that makes a little sense. I also hope that will do as an excuse to waffle on a bit, because though there will be some obvious furry 'links', much of this will probably just be me walking along a beach. You have been warned :)
Clifton is a world class surf beach about 20 miles out of town. I went there just before sunset, and saw almost no-one. There was some good surf, and I'd been staring out to sea as I was walking, captivated by the waves. When I turned to look in front of me there was a Bull Terrier running full speed towards me. There was at least two kilometres of empty beach in front of me, and this lone dog had materialised from nowhere. I stood my ground, and he pulled up about twenty metres ahead and we looked at each other. After a while he slowly walked back the way he'd come. I didn't hassle him, and after he'd gone a little way he just flopped down on the sand, looking out to sea. I realised he'd just been running along the beach for the sheer hell of it, and now he was just relaxing and taking in the scenery the same as I was. So we stood on the beach and watched the surf crashing in.
At one end of the beach the sun was going down in a peach-coloured haze of seaspray. At the other end the moon was rising over the cliffs. Silver spray seemed to hang weightless in the air around it. Somehow this all seemed very symbolic.
Several times over the next few weeks some 'truth' or other would 'reveal itself' in waves or sand. Once I was walking along seven mile beach, and came across a spot where a small girl ahead of me had drawn her name, 'Alexandra' in the sand with a stick. Soon the tide was going to come in and wash it away. To me it seemed a poignant analogy of her own mortality. I drew a giant furry in the sand at Hope Beach. That was only the other day, so maybe he's still there, but I think the tide has probably got him. I was thinking about posting to alt.binaries.pictures.furries about it... :)
I like the idea of a picture being washed away the next day, rather than being 'preserved' forever. Bit hard to explain quite why, but it seems right and proper to me somehow.
In the country, about 30 miles south of Hobart there's an outcrop of rock called Goat Bluff which rears out over the ocean. To either side of it are huge surf beaches, stretching miles to the north and south.
On the full moon on xmas eve at around midnight, I somehow ended up on Goat Bluff with a plush wolf and dog. Yes, it's quite usual for me to cart plushies around in the car. I want to try to explain why plushies of certain species have this totemic connection for me, but this isn't the right place to branch off into that. For now let me just ask you to tolerate this quirk of mine. If there were an alt.gadd.eccentric, I'd post about it there. Anyway on the full moon on xmas eve I was standing on Goat Bluff wih Beth, one of my plush-pack wolves, and my old friend Dog. Out in front of us and far below waves were crashing against the rocks. A small lighthouse set on a rock out to sea was blinking at us. To our left the land fell down steeply until it met the beach. The immense unbroken expanse of sand curved away in a milky crescent. In the moonlight great waves rolled in, miles long. The sound of the surf was intoxicating. I decided to drive down, and eventually I ended up standing on a magnificent, smooth sandy ocean beach at midnight, watching the surf. In the moonlight it was breathtaking. I felt my spirits soaring. It was the first time I'd stood there in at least 15 years, and I decided I'd be going back. Now the place has a real hold over me. Again. We go back a way, you see.
Way back in the late 70's and early 80's I used to have a horse who I kept not that far from Hope Beach. The whole area down there at that time was bush, and today it is still mainly undeveloped crown land or pasture. We used to go riding along Hope Beach. I've been there many, many times, but since i moved him away from the area I'd never been back to that beach. Since he died I couldn't even drive down that way. The first time I went back to Hope Beach during the daytime I remembered how I used to ride my horse there. It's a huge beach, and he'd gallop flat-out from end to end of it. Even when he was old, well into his 20's, he'd want to run. I'd just give him the tiniest squeeze with my legs and he'd off like a rocket. From then on it was auto-pilot. I'd just sit back and enjoy the sun, the surf, the speed, the rush of it.
For some reason, 12 years since the final time we rode together there, I felt like running. So I ran the beach alone. It was sort of in his honour. I didn't get anywhere near as far as he would have. Horses are natural atheletes, and I'm not as fit as I ought to be (improving though.)
Another day I discovered that running barefoot on wet sand jarred my back (I have a permanent lower spinal problem), but that running digigrade more or less eliminated the jarring, though it gave the muscles in my upper legs a bit of a work-out. It's probably a good thing the beach is so isolated, as I'm not sure what someone would make of seeing me running digigrade through the surf, with my arms in the air, laughing out loud.(Errr... I sometimes just laugh out loud if I'm feeling good, sort of like an amplified smile, I suppose.) No matter what the weather, the beaches have a wildness about them which comes from their being open to the ocean, I suppose. They're not hugely popular with swimmers, as they have an undertow. Even on a sunny day, with the sand as smooth and white as milk, there is a feeling of natural power. This is the same sense of boundless energy which I feel sometimes slumbering around mountain peaks, or in the countryside under moonlight. I associate it strongly with my furriness, and my were-tendencies, if that's the right term for them (some other time, maybe:))
At one end of the Northern beach are some rocks where I like to sit. Here, if the surf's up the waves really pound in, and that sense of fathomless power is almost palpable. The wind can real howl in off the ocean late in the afternoon, and if the sun is low in the sky everything is stained orange. I was sitting there in a veritable gale one evening, watching big ocean birds hanging motionless over the sea. They looked like hammers waiting to nail down loose fish.
I got sad walking along Hope beach one day last week. It was a still sunny day, with just the surge of the surf. I wanted to bring my Dog Zaphod down, because I know he'd love it. But he has a spinal problem not unlike mine, which has suddenly manifested just over the last couple of months. It's a congenital thing with some border collies apparently. It's nearly crippled him, and he can't walk more than a little way from the house. I can't lift him into the car and bring him to the beach, either because he's uncomfortable and it can be dangerous for him if I have to pull up quickly. I know he might not be with me all that much longer, and I'm sad I can't share this place with him.
The last few days have been very hot - averaging around 35, and for me anything much over 20 is not nice. Two days ago I thought I'd go to Carlton Beach for a change, but even though it's further from town, it has a lot of holiday shacks around it, and when I got there the place was packed. Good god, I wasn't used to actually seeing other people at a beach! In the flats at the mouth of the river dozens of humans and dogs were frolicking in the water. It was quite an amazing sight, a really joyous, communal type atmosphere. I was captivated by the sight of two big huskies which some humans had brought with them, and who they were playing in the water. I'd seen some wolf_ish_ huskies before, but these ones could have nearly passed for real wolves, plus they absolutely huge. They even called out to each other like wolves do. I was very impressed! All the same I wasn't quite in the communal bathing frame of mind, so I headed off to Hope beach again. The southern beach was totally deserted - even in 35 degree heat! It was Sunday. In California Confurence 8 was underway. While lots of my friends were sharing the company of hundreds of furries, I was floating in the ocean, alone, on an empty beach, at sunset. It was one of those sunsets that seem uniquely Australian, too. A powder-blue sky suddenly changing to a violent orange the colour of fanta.
I felt pretty damn good floating there all alone. But today things were a lot different. I read some reports from ConFurence; about friends of mine meeting each other, whom I've never met. And it might be years before I can afford to come over... And then it's just for a moment, relatively speaking. On the beach I feel closer to furry, but further from furries: enriched by my solitude, but all of a sudden, saddened by it.
Today the heatwave broke. It rained and thundered all day and night. I went walking in the rain, and stood by Lindisfarne bay watching lightning cracking the darkness. I felt miserable and isolated from others of my kind.
Every time I walked one of those beaches alone, I was glad for the solitude, but every time I also wished I could have shown it to one of my fellow furries. I'd have given a lot to have one of my friends with me. If any of you ever do the unthinkable and come to the ends of the earth, I'll take you straight from the airport to the beach...
Text 1997, images 1981, 1997 by Tim Gadd
(Except me and Silver, 1981, Lois Gadd)
