A morning walk in Otford

I woke up really early the other morning and decided to go for a walk around the block. Mum always used to get up early and go for a walk; she said it was her way of keeping on top of things, keeping her head straight. There are countless places to walk near our house, but our “block” goes along a fire-trail, up through the Royal National Park and then home again. It is a beautiful walk at any time of the day, but it is absolutely stunning at sunrise. It inspired many thoughts; some existential, some creative, some written down, some undefinable.

The air is crisp and cool, and some morning there is mist creeping through the trees. The birds are waking up all around you, giving their vocal chords a bit of a stretch. The trees curve over me, like the ceiling of a cathedral, as the road snakes around dips and gullies. As I walk up and out of the national park, I start walking through patches of sun-warmed air and suddenly the ocean is spread out before me. Such a wide expanse of water. So incomprehensibly huge. I can see the small boats and huts of Bulga, and realise that they are tiny compared to the sea before them. We are all so tiny in the face of the sea, the sky, the earth, the universe. I am not a religious person, but somehow the world seems so much more amazing with no supernatural element behind it, that it came about on it’s own, that our existence is so very improbable. The chance of holding the royal flush is unlikely, but we do.

I would love to capture this moment in music and art. The sounds of gravel crunching underfoot, morning birdsongs and the roar of the ocean are all things I will capture as best I can to add to music that will hopefully soar high and long, and create the humbling feeling of being so small in a world so big.