I’ve missed a few of Hugh’s Photo Challenges these past few weeks, simply because I didn’t feel I had the right shot. However, this week I hope I meet the challenge – the theme is ‘Calm’ and here is my image.

It’s a shot of the beach near to where I used to live – our house was only a few minutes walk away and I could hear the ocean at night, humming in the darkness. The waves can get quite wild, rocks battered and sculpted into twisting shapes, the moving sands throwing up curling breakers when the wind and tides were right.

So this beach was more wild than calm , though it was often deserted, families preferring the safety of the bay. The ocean on this side brought treasures, carried on the waves coming up from the frozen South. I remember one day when the sand was covered with sea urchin shells, left in undulating lines where they had come ashore, victims of some undersea cataclysm. Glass and shells made perfect mermaid jewellery when the gorgeous girl was tiny, soft rubbed green and blue shards glimmering in the sunshine, heaped into a ‘treasure’ pile as we searched for more.

The reason this image speaks to me of calm is because this is the place where I found calm again. After a few years of stress and sorrow and losing my way a little, this is where I was able to get back on the path. To take a moment and just… breathe.

I feel very fortunate to have lived in such a place, and carry a little piece of calm with me wherever I go, treasure from the sea.