corner view ≈ in my experience

there's a belgian seaside town cradling moods past in such a groundhog way i'd like to bid adieu, assuming it's the sensible thing to do. drumming up nostalgia however, i am caught up in sandy dunes, wet sands and sea noise. mainly though, memories. 

it started in the early seventies with a handful of supervised nieces and nephews spending consecutive summertimes at stella's on church street. i was one of the nieces. without effort i recall the smell of polished, stolid boarding rooms. the windowless pension's backroom doubling as guests' dining room was our evening play area par excellence. and how can i not elicit the crushing toll of one gigantic receptionist's bell. trying to ring that bell first, we repeatedly beat one another, tumbling down the stairway. 

like magnets spinning awol in the pro kitchen, stella let us after hours, while the mothers nipped a nightcap glass of sherry too many. these nights unmistakingly leading to a less monitored {and much favoured} state of contentment, facing one last solitary sand grain ending up in one or other bed: heaven forbid! at last our small troop could snooze off for the night. i can but smile. 

around about the same time and on different occasions i walked the blustery seatown streets holding {another} auntie m's hand. sugar and spice accompanied breezy readings of children's books auntie m got me from the local supermarket. having thrown out those crumbling books at some point in my life, i've slowly been thrifting them back in, one by one. such an act hits you with a thud.

later i worked all one summer by the sea. i rented rooms in different boarding houses, chastily sharing family beds with friends from home, or staying overnight in auntie m's flat on quiet nights. all that all of us did every day was work our guts off in fish restaurants and at night spend the hard earned penny at the local discotheques, on booze and cigs. that summer we got sick and tired of moonlight shadow and thrilled at 81-82-83-84. a long, promising summer it turned out. oh, hush! my wistful heart.  

these days when i'm in town, i stay opposite the postmodern swimming pool off auntie m's condo. that pool is exactly where i fell in love with e. in a most unrequited way. i was a fool for it and a fool for him, but that enamoured bogy kept me going a decade long. between that somewhat discordant past and my hotel window today lies the town's sealife rescue centre. by chance the seals' low cries rising up from the centre concur my inner sequence. the quiet morning though offers sparkling freshness.  

i hop over the tramway tracks under construction, clamber the low dunes and lift my gaze towards the huge seaport in the east, outlined by late shimmering lights. walking down along the embankment, i turn towards the concrete jetty and follow its tail straight into the sea. braving the height beaming up through the wooden floorboards, the water lies nearly still as the sun lazily rises from behind the apartment blocks on the embankment. IME, i'll be back. and maybe, just maybe, i'll stop minding at last. jane's corner view, francesca's hosting, kristen's theme. {ps - low pixel quality images from tablet!}