So many greens. The brownish tones of bladderwrack, whose name made me wince in imagined pain, little poppable polyps that we loved before bubblewrap was even thought of. The generic dark forest slime slathered across the rocks, coastal combovers, a slip hazard for flip flopped children, so we took ours off and risked gashes and jagged edges rather than not being able to feel our way with our soles. Sand caught on our feet gave us a tiny bit of traction, but we still slid off and flung our arms out to balance ourselves, rockpool tidal tightrope walkers.

Tiny crabs hid under fronds and someone, probably Monsieur Cousteau, had taught me that these were not leaves. Here were hidey holes for entirely new forms of life, creeping, like us, around the edges of ocean, wondering what was what. Even then, I knew my plastic bucket jarred against all nature’s magnificence, with its hard manufactured texture and artificial colour. The bullhead I caught in it, alien eyes bulging, was given a few strands of spinach green to hide itself in, until it was time to release it back into the sea. The capture of such treasure all on my own, in my smallness, fed my happiness all summer long, and taught me the beginnings of diving for pearls in mystic prayer, the joy of glimpsing life in salt water pools, and the realisation that all life is magical.

text © K Dibbens-Wyatt  Photo from Pixabay