Hello.
I am the beach.
I am created by waves and currents.
I am made of eroded rocks.
I exist next to the sea.
I have been around for millions of years.
I was around at the dawn of life itself.
And I have to tell you something.
I don’t care about your body.
I am a beach.
I literally don’t give a fuck.
I am entirely indifferent to your body mass
index.
I am not impressed that your abdominal
muscles are visible to the naked eye.
I am oblivious.
You are one of 200,000 generations of human beings.
I have seen them all.
I will see all the generations that come after you, too.
It won’t be as many. I’m sorry.
I hear the whispers the sea tells me.
(The sea hates you. The poisoners. That’s what it calls
you. A bit melodramatic, I know. But that’s the sea for you.
All drama.)
And I have to tell you something else.
Even the other people on the beach don’t care about
your body.
They don’t.
They are staring at the sea, or they are obsessed with
their own appearance.
And if they are thinking about you, why do you care?
Why do you humans worry so much about a stranger’s
opinion?
Why don’t you do what I do? Let it wash all over you.
Allow yourself just to be as you are.
Just be.
Just beach.
A note from the beach originally appeared in Notes on a Nervous
Planet by Matt Haig (Canongate, 2018). It is published here with
his permission. Image courtesy of the Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
ARTS & CULTURE
A note
from the
beach
By Matt Haig
“A personal favourite and the best
reminder during the summer season...
or any season, as a matter of fact”
HRH The Duchess of Sussex
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