Today was the one of the best I've had in a long time. Last night serp said we should go to the beach somewhere, in the opposite direction to the Great Ocean Road. I suggested Rye, having spent many summers as a kid there before Dad sold off the beach house and its massive block of land which was then subdivided...okay okay.
So we jumped in the car and discovered just how much the Nepean Highway is not a highway. It is 60 km/h for a lot of the way and single lane. We followed it more or less all the way to Rosebud, a popular beachside town and promptly found ourselves in a traffic jam. In a beach town. A fucking beach town! I thought Lorne was bad. At this point, sitting in my stinking hot car hemmed in by shiny four wheel drives (of whom the drivers no doubt think a trip to Sorrento is off road), was becoming less attractive by the minute so serp suggested we take some backstreets. We got to where we were going in about ten minutes. People are seriously stupid. First we checked out the beachhouse my family used to own where I was so hot and grumpy I didn't have too much time to be traumatised by all the memories (although I did shed a couple of tears over those hot and sunny childhoods) - and I was too busy being shocked by how much it had been subdivided! Our land had been huge, this block was pretty standard for the city! Instinctively I knew my way back to the main too...it was the strangest feeling but I knew the place so well that I drove forward instead of turning around and turned the corner at the end of the street and kept going until we were back where we should have been. When I pulled into that street and drove down the little dip in the road, even though I havent been there in twenty years, my heart leapt because I knew that dip so well and knew my beachhouse was right there. And it was. I didn't need to look for it. They haven't cleared out much of the scrub either so that part was just as I remember it. The road rose a little after that and I remembered so well the time that Dad was fed up with 'us kids' and told us he was leaving and started up that little hill - it had seemed like a mountain to me at five years old. I remember the panic and hurt I felt as I watched his back moving up that hill, that he was leaving us again (and of course, being a five year old not understanding why), and I remember my sister crying and I ran up that hill calling after him until he stopped at the top and I ran to meet him and he picked me up. And then of course my sister wanted to be picked up too and I'm not sure, but I think he carried us both back down again. In later years it was my sister begging him to come back where I just couldn't find the words, or didn't even know I could ask - but I remember that late afternoon so well, he was wearing a white shirt and the light was behind him and the road wasn't bitumen like it is now, it was yellow and sandy. My memories are tiny vignettes like that, 2 minutes of memory at most and then nothing. I think my brothers maybe remember more but my memories have no lineage and no continuity, just tiny little windows I can look through for a few seconds at a time and catch glimpses of my childhood from before it went to shit.

But this is one of the best days I had and I wont talk about the bad (that memory is quite a happy one for me, in that one he came back). After that I went searching for Rye Back Beach because I know I used to visit there, but its not listed as such in the Melways, and my quick look only found a 'Koonya Ocean Beach' which sounded strangely right to me but I have no idea why. It's not the Rye Back Beach, but what we as children called 'the other back beach' and the one I remember better. As we drove there another memory assaulted me - it really is almost like in the movies, like there is a flash and wham, you're back there for an eternal second, and then you're back again. I could see my Dad standing at the top of the stairs down to the beach, his red hair glowing in the sun. I can never see his face much in my memories, the light always seems to be behind him. And when we got up there, I looked down on the beach and saw the rockpool I loved to play in, and the stairs from my memory. I changed into my swimmers and we walked down there and oh...I can't remember the last time I felt so happy. I showed serp my rockpool and we walked up and down the sand and in the water until I handed serp my sunglasses and just ran into the water. He laughed as I swam in the shallows, some of the rocks had formed a small lagoon which I stuck to and I swam until I couldn't breathe (not long - guess who forgot her ventolin?)

After that I got out and we went back to my car to check out London Bridge, Portsea, a natural rock formation that forms a bridge over the water that I absolutely loved as a kid. It was a bit cold by then so we just looked and talked about the ocean, and then we headed into Rye, and I suggested returning to the Nepean going in the opposite direction (and thinking myself clever), and we were surrounded by four wheel drives in a traffic jam again :P It wasn't far so we stuck it out and got to Rye, waded through bronzed teenagers (I've never seen it so busy and was slightly furious) and naturally got fish and chips! Then we went to the foreshore and sat and ate it. It was just as I remembered, right down to all the shells in the sand (the back beaches have none) - I saw the sand bar in the water that I was so proud as a kid to reach (although I'm sure it has shifted many times since) . We sat and looked at the water and flicked flies and ate our delicious fish and chips and talked crap. On the way there I remembered I'd seen a sign that said 'Rye Ocean Beach' (which then also magically appeared in our Melways) and we went followed that until we saw the sign 'Rye Back Beach' and I started whooping and we got there and I ran to the lookout and saw the big scary beach that I rarely swum in as a child and that the younger of my brothers always begged to go to (and always swam really far out!) By that point it was quite windy but I looked down at the swirling water (it is a dangerous beach) and remembered the time my sister got swept out and Dad had to run in fully clothed to get here (and was none too pleased about it ;).

And funnily enough, as we watched, we saw a man in the water struggling and I turned to serp to ask if he looked okay when he yelled out 'help!' and stuck his arm straight up flagpole style and started waving. His body board had washed up on the beach and all we could see was a head bobbing in the water. Some surfies behind us started laughing and saying things like 'he's not that far out he can make it' and 'stupid idiots panicking' We were too far to help and I started really worrying but there were quite a few surfers in the area and one paddled out to get him. It took the guy ages to get out to him and he helped the man onto his board and what proceeded was the slowest rescue ever. First they slowly inched sideways out of the rip, where a third man got over to them to help, and then they were all pulled back to where they started. The surfies behind us kept cracking jokes (which were pretty funny admittedly) . They got about halfway back in when they stopped making progress and a fourth person on a surfboard joined them and they all got in a group and started moving toward the shore again. When they finally got the guy back to shore he collapsed on the ground for a while while the surfies collected their boards and made sure he was okay (well, breathing). His wife/girlfriend helped him and he took three steps and collapsed, at which point I was ready to run down there and tell them to get him on his hands and knees so he could get all the damn water out of his lungs, but he managed to roll over and do it himself. He lay there a while and finally got up and walked off slowly with his girl, collapsing later on their towels (but still alive). The surfies then pointed out a man on the beach, who had been very close by and had sat on his towel the entire time drinking a stubby. I really cracked up laughing then, they started joking about the guy not losing his stubby rhythm throughout the ordeal. serp said the guy would have panicked and tired himself out, and a surfie rightly pointed out that the guy obviously didn't know the ocean. It's not a beach I would bodyboard at either and the guy was in his 30s! I have to say I've got a lot of respect for surfers after today, they know their shit. Some idiots beach umbrella got picked up in the wind and started flying like a missing down the beach and the guys behind us got really alarmed that it would stab someone and started yelling 'heads up' (their voices are so loud!) and everyone heard and managed to not get stabbed. Then they went back to making more jokes about noobs ;) I dont know how my brother survived that beach, honestly, I know he likes to test himself and somehow he always comes out okay!

After that we hopped in the car and took a different road home, which wasn't quite so bad, went grocery shopping and I cooked serp some dinnar (the very least I could do, I am flat broke and he covered the petrol and food and everything just so I could have a day at the beach before starting work again. So, once again, longest blog ever but not full of misery and sadness. I just had a really good day. I smell like salt and sunscreen and I'm sunburned in places I thought I put sunscreen.

Today I have a new memory. A good, vivid memory that I can return to when all the others pull at me. It goes for a whole day and has smells and sounds, not fog and that sickly nostalgic haze. It has a person I love deeply and a good, happy connection to my childhood. Thankyou serp, so much.