Self-sufficing solitude
‘I lie as I am in the light, content in my surroundings. Oh, to be in nature again! To feel the air and coolness on my skin, to hear the sounds of water and to breathe the oxygen-rich air! This is freedom: a beach and alone. “I was taught to feel—perhaps too much—the self-sufficing power of solitude,”: wrote Wordsworth. It is intoxicating.’
A Reading Place
A dedicated place to read and think brings simple joy and reflections of times gone by.
It’s raining again
Pouring rain means a day indoors but reminds me that a life connected to nature means the need to adapt.
The Outer Isles
‘But it was the fly line rolling back and forth in the half-light of the valley that changed me; the only movement save for the running river and the wind through the trees.’
From the opening of a book I began writing some time ago. Perhaps I will continue…
The gifts of fortune
In Part 3 of the Away Again series, I take a somewhat philosophical dive into what makes us happy, agency, and the joys of a simple life.
It’s four o’clock somewhere
Lying in the sun and living deliberately. Thinking about life and death and a life of purpose. Part 2 of the Away Again series.
The wild man within
‘Abandoning yourself to wildness turns out to be the most harmonious and generative thing you can do,’ wrote Steve Biddulph in his best selling book Manhood. Matthew Smeal explores this concept in relation to ocean swimming.
Where does this love of the sea come from?
A creative look back on childhood memories of boats, bays, and marinas. An excerpt from a much larger work that I hope one day to have published.
Away Again
I saw the sea eagle first, gliding low, searching for sleepy fish, riding the updraft from the small cliff face that rose above my chosen end of the beach.
