Where the Ground ought to Be

When you wonder if there is any reason why the sky is always there, remember that sometimes it is far too easy to forget where the ground ought to be.”

We were standing up on the headland when she turned and said this to me. She turned, holding her headscarf on her head as the wind whipped around us. I could see her curls, blonde, where they escaped the headscarf, dancing in the wind.

I don’t know how old I was, but my mother seemed young, youthful, as she turned and spoke to me, twisting towards and down to me easily from the waist and her hair seemed golden in the bright sunlight. She reached out and grabbed my hand as we stood there, as she spoke to me. She spoke with some urgency, looking into my eyes as she said each word slowly and clearly as though imparting some great instruction to me like, “Don’t talk to strangers,” “Don’t play near the road” and “Stop messing with it” and many other such rules for how to live my life.

I suppose, at the time, I took it to mean for me to pay attention to where I was walking, up there high on that headland with its sudden sheer cliff that tumbled down into the sea, and sometimes it did tumble down to the sea, quite literally. There were many places, you could see from the beach, where that cliff had tumbled into the sea as though some giant monster of the sea had reared up against that cliff and taken a huge bite out of the land.

I think I may have also taken my mother’s words to mean that I should always keep an eye out for this monster too. I was at that age where monsters lurked around every corner, hid in every bush and shadow, slept under my bed and made nests in my wardrobe. So, that too would not have been much of a surprise to me and my mother’s warning about such a monster would have been reassuring to me, just one more monster to be scared of in a world filled with such creatures.

Although, I don’t think I ever did find out what she really meant, or why she felt it was so important to say such a thing to a small boy. I never got the chance to ask her either, not long after that she was dead and I never did get that chance to ask her what she meant.