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I’m at my happiest in or by the water. In colder months, I find solace in the comforting embrace of a warm bath, my cares diminishing the further I sink into its depths. In warm weather, the rhythmic lapping of gentle waves over my bare feet or the shock of diving into foam-tossed seas is balm to my soul.
Last summer, on a visit to family in the Otways, I enticed my sister from her beloved rose garden with the promise of finding her a suitable pair of bathers. We were at the tail end of an intensive period of care-giving and making the most of a week’s respite in more frivolous pursuits.
We approached our shopping mission with optimism and military precision and emerged triumphant with the prescribed flattering – though modest – bathing suit. Together we frolicked in the waves like the carefree teenagers we used to be.
Seeking solace in a warm bath.Credit: iStock
When next I stayed there it was autumn and a time of loss. Refuge from the storm comes in many forms: for me it lay in the long drive west along the Princes Highway. What became my daily ritual was set on the first morning. I woke early, went for a long walk then – in what felt like an act of pure indulgence – ran a mid-morning bath.
The pale morning sunlight from the east-facing window warmed the exposed parts of me as I lay there, eyes closed, listening to the magpies. The soporific effects of bath and birdsong soothed the troubled waters of my mind and led me back to bed. My mid-morning sleep was immediate and untroubled. I repeated this pattern every day of my stay.
During my Otways sojourn this summer, the stinging heat of an unforgiving north wind once more beckoned me seawards. On the drive to the beach, I came upon a towering 80-year-old Californian redwood forest and stopped to explore it. The heatwave weather conditions, cheek-by-jowl car parking and noisy groups of picnickers did nothing to disturb the cool quietness of its interior.
Gazing up at the leafy canopy 60 metres above me, I experienced the same visceral response I had felt during my first visit to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. My chest had filled to bursting at the sight of its ceiling with its multi-branched tree-like columns leading to a riot of giant daisy-shaped sunbursts: an unfamiliar sensation for this non-believer. Now, here in the heart of the Otways Ranges, I felt it again.
No better way to relaxCredit: iStock
I drove on towards the coast where the cycle of rinse-dry-repeat worked its usual magic. Diving under the waves, the sense of being cut off from the world was as immediate and as rejuvenating as my immersion in the silence of the redwood forest.
Replenishment comes in many forms. Whatever its source – be it wind-tossed waves or quiet waters, towering forests or something less tangible – it can, if we seek it out, help us to restore our equilibrium and, for some, our souls.
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