My thoughts keep me company and comfort me as their sounds echo through the mist. A thick, woollen jumper holds me together as I trudge through the wet sand in fur-lined wellington boots. I’m walking blindfold through fog. I sense the thing I lost long ago calling out to me in the blindness, coming towards me, covered in black shadows. An outstretched hand holds an ancient key, beckoning me. I walk to the water’s edge to meet the stranger, not caring about the potential danger of its secret. The shadows disappear and all that’s left is the vast emptiness that is the sea, calling me to a place that was once my home. But I am deaf to its plea and want to stay here, keeping the secret warm in my memory. So, every night I sit round a blazing fire with my fingerless-gloved hands wrapped around a mug of scalding Yorkshire tea, thinking how quickly I got used to the hard water here. It was too soft where I came from. My skin was so thin then that it hurt when people looked at me. I have new friends now. I can never go back. I’d be an outsider if I turned up uninvited at the place I once called home.
Waves and Wishes Workshop, Scarborough Flare Festival 2014
