St. Andrews, Scotland: A Winter Evening By the North Sea Shore

My walk along the sands during my year abroad

I love the sea. Its endless waves touch a longing for infinity in the human spirit that the buzz of modern culture just can’t reach.

After my undergraduate degree, I decided to study the Classics (ancient Greece and Rome) at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

The small town sits on a promontory that hugs the North Sea, whose cold waters reach the U.K., Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

On January 22, 2009, I bundled up against the chill and stepped out onto a long, straight beach just as St. Andrews was preparing for evening. I’d like to share that experience with you.

Note: these photos were taken on a low-quality digital camera. I hope the grandeur of the setting will make up for it.

The beach began at the 18th fairway of the Old Course, where lucky golfers from around the world teed off if they’d won one of the rare tee time slots, or if they belonged to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club.

Ancient indeed. The game of golf was invented at St. Andrews around 600 years ago. Imagine medieval noblemen and laborers struggling over the wild Scottish dunes with their clubs and leather balls.

Even Mary, Queen of Scots played. She was “accused of playing golf at Seton Palace after her husband Lord Darnley was murdered in 1567, when she ought to have been in solemn mourning.” (Wikipedia)

Turning away from the golf course, I stepped out onto the wide North Sea sands. A few groups of walkers were still out at this late hour. I was alone.

I usually found myself alone here, often in a wistful mood, but today I was glad for the solitude. I wanted to think, to dream, to soar.

Shadows played across the sand. I looked like a circus performer on stilts, tall as a mountain.

In a way I was. I was young and strong, on the university rowing team. Chronic illness had not yet come to me, as it would later in the decade.

By that ancient sea I was as mighty as a god.

Low tide left the sand slick and flat. Earth mirrored sky, sky mirrored sand. The world was a kaleidoscope of blue, gray, white, and tan.

Patterns danced upon the sand. In some places the unceasing tides had carved snakelike ripples, packed so firmly that my shoe made no imprint when I walked upon them.

In other places, the sand was smooth as silk, forming delicate waves that seemed to flow from an artist’s brush.

I wanted to be that artist, or better yet, the writer who created such a world. Back in town, I liked to perch on the cliffs above the sea with notebook in hand, trying to write a novel. So far, my pages were blank, but that dream could never die.

Out on the sands now, I returned my gaze to St. Andrews. The waves were becoming wild. To the left, I saw a tanker ship out at sea. As I’d discovered, many ships ran this route. Oil rigs mined the sea bed to the north off the coast of Aberdeen.

I didn’t like to see the ships. They didn’t belong in this environment of timeless ocean and medieval town. I hated to think of the viscous black oil pumped up through pristine water, an accident waiting to happen.

But oh, the medieval towers of St. Andrews were beautiful. For how many centuries had the waves pounded those shores as people looked out at ships upon the water, willing them in to a safe mooring?

The evening temperature was dropping. The wind whipped at my hair, leaving tangles to be combed out later. In spite of the weather, though, I was smiling.

A crazy idea entered my head. I wanted to touch that freezing water, feel it caress my bare skin. I took off my shoes and socks, then strode toward the sea, faster and faster.

The water hit my ankles, more gently than I expected. I didn’t go in far — just far enough to say that I’d waded in the North Sea in winter.

But that infinite, ancient sea touched me deep within. I was but a small speck on its shores, a tiny moment in time as I stared out upon it, trying to comprehend the mystery of humanity’s place in the universe. The sea holds the answers, but I didn’t understand.

Over the dunes at my back, the setting sun hid behind a cloud, and for a moment, the world went dark. It was time to go home, back to my rental house with the unpleasant roommate and the dinner of peanut butter and crumpets that awaited me.

I clambered up, leaving the North Sea behind — for today.

Now the sky was my sea and my sand, the waving brown grasses that grew on the dunes.

Here was the Old Course again — more fairways, more greens — and here was the story of the birth of golf. How, for example, a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament banned the game because too many soldiers were playing it instead of practicing archery.

But I was still entwined in a different story — that of the North Sea on a winter evening, and me walking alone along its endless sands.