Until the waves came over my boots

Performance through camera.

February 2015. Down on the beach at Sennen near Lands End. A beautiful afternoon in early February, clear and balmy. The tide right out revealing newly configured sand banks and gentle rips. Not a work outing — a quiet Sunday stroll — but something made me want to stand in the shallows and film the to-ing and fro-ing of the waves as they lapped around my boots — the tide gently coming in swallowing up the sand.

I stood very still, held for 20 minutes, and focused through my camera on the water as it spilled back and forth over my boots. Through the cold and lulling rhythm of the water, becoming more and more aware of my own body — breathing, water movement absorbing body sway — the sucking away of the grounding sand under my boots — the bitter cold in my rigid fingers, my dripping nose — and a heightened sense of the ocean.