The Heart Eclipsed

There is a place I go every year to re-set and recharge and see friends, surf and stare moodily at the sea. Anglet on the South West coast of France, just north of the much more polished Biarritz.   I lived near here a long time ago and love it.   The beaches stretch for miles and miles, there are casual waterfront bars on a boardwalk, surf shacks every 50 metres and the Basque country close at hand.  This is a place where I have come when I am happy, but also when damaged or in need of some time to recover.  In the battle with the pounding waves there is survival, tumbling through the power of the ocean on the way to shore, coming up and gasping for air.  No space for introspection and overthinking.   Then exhaustion after an hour or two of trying to emulate the locals who make it seem that surfing is the easiest thing in the world.

Tonight was different.  As I headed out to the Chambre d’Amour there were hundreds of people coming to the beach to watch the eclipse.   They arrived with cool boxes full of beer and wine and no doubt cheese.  It was a family affair, an eclipse picnic on the beach, with a natural light show to follow.  Grandparents, parents and children, together for a once in a generation event.

I watched from a balcony, wearing the cardboard glasses I had put so much faith in.  The moon moved slowly across the sun, until it was almost a total eclipse and we were in a kind of half-light.   Then it was over and upon advice I took photos through the glasses, most of which I will never look at again.  Then I sent them on, wishing the recipients were with me.  People around me did the same no doubt.  We smiled at each other.   People shared the special glasses which had been incredibly scarce on the day versus the last minute demand. Nobody was left out.

Afterwards I walked back to my hotel and grabbed a beer from the fridge and walked back out to the beach as the sun’s last rays began to disappear in a stain of red across the sky. People were still everywhere in the near dark, sitting on blankets, drinking wine, talking, brought together to experience this natural miracle.  

But I found a spot alone and watched the waves as the dark rose out of the sea to meet the sky.  I drank my beer and allowed the sound of the ocean to fill me with melancholy and acceptance.  Lights blinked on the harbour walls and the Biarritz lighthouse swept the shore with its beam.

I lay back and stared up at the sky, dark now and with the stars tiny pinpricks of light.  There was a shooting star, possibly the first time I have seen one.  As I lay there under the big sky, listening to the ocean and empty of thought, I felt something subtly move in my head and my heart.  Underneath God's sky, in the darkness, I realised what I had held so recently and lost. The woman who loved me and moved on. The cost of my insecurities, and how much time I had wasted in my own head.

I changed, perhaps only a little, perhaps fundamentally, under that sky in that wild and open landscape. 

And I realised that I loved her and that it was too late.