Maud’s favourite beach has always been the one by the Blockhouse in St. Andrews. Since she was a puppy, she’s known its rhythm, its shifting moods, its daily transformations.
At low tide, the beach stretches almost to Navy Island, as though the land itself is reaching out to touch its neighbour. It can take ten minutes to walk the length of that fleeting peninsula, the sand pointing outward like a finger tracing the horizon. But when the tide is high, it disappears—swallowed by the sea. Only the tops of red rocks remind us of what lies beneath, with seagulls perched proudly on them, flaunting their freedom to live on land, sea, and sky.
The seaweed has its own choreography—slumping when the tide retreats, springing back when it returns. It’s a rhythm as old as time, the steady in-and-out breath of the Bay.
Depending on when Maud and I arrive, we’re either watching the tide reveal a brand-new canvas or watching the water erase it again. Sometimes we find urchins, shells, or seaglass, as if the ocean has left us little gifts. Each tide brings a fresh masterpiece, another chance for surprise.
For Maud, every version of the beach is joy. She runs through it all—the sand, the tide pools, the ice-cold waves in winter—without hesitation. She leaps into the sea to fetch a frisbee, no matter how far I’ve thrown it, no matter the season. She doesn’t measure the day by whether the beach is there or not; for her, the tide always brings enough.
I’ve walked that shoreline in every season too. In summer, when the sand is warm. In winter, when the wind howls like a wild animal. Sometimes I walk as the tide comes in, the water creeping higher and higher until it spills over my boots. Other times, I stand still and feel the sea move around me—an unstoppable force reminding me of my own smallness. The salt air washes over me. Call it a meditation, a prayer or a moment for self-care, but it’s time I didn’t realize I needed to just do nothing and stand at the edge of the sea and stare off into the horizon.
Maud brought me back to the sea, not just to a window that looks out on it. She’s made me make more time for it. She pulls me to the shoreline, gets my toes wet, and reminds me, again and again, how healing the ocean really is.
Read Vicki Hogarth’s past chapters of For the Love of Maud:
Chapter 1: The Beginning Starts Somewhere in the Middle
Chapter 2: A Valentine for Valentine’s Day
Chapter 4: The Power of a Small-Town Parade
