Strange Coast

IT WAS not until my bus pulled into view of the sea somewhere past Sandgate that I realized how long it had been since I’d seen the ocean. After so many years, the sight still gave me a homeward pull in my heart, though this stretch of coast was strange to me. For if the character of the water here was undoubtedly different to that of the waters where I come from—placid, pale, unmuddled—the two remain in a larger sense the same, and as sea embraces sea so we can say that to step into a different ocean is also to step into the same ocean twice.

In the coastal villages of southern Kent, the breeze off the water is said to cause things to age quickly: iron to rust, brass to discolor, lichen to cover roofs like the scales of a lizard. It was strong enough, at any rate, to put the taste of salt in my mouth when I got off the