Wednesday, 6th July 2016

When I was younger I wasnt much interested in objects of comfort, I would quash any such desire for that vulnerability for security to be transferred onto an external object that would either disappear or disintegrate. Now of course I become aware every time in social situations of my phone use, cigarette smoking, and alcohol drinking tendencies which are all pretty much pacifiers for the fingers and throat. Over the past few months I've also taken to wearing a headband of sorts in my room, not sure why but I find the constant light constraint somewhat comforting. Now I have a rock. I've looked it up and they're called comfort stones, or worry stones, though I prefer the former as it's got a more positive outlook on the whole phenomena, which has historical links to pagans and wiccans, and apparently "Variations on the concept originate in ancient Greece,^[2] Tibet, Ireland,^[2][3] and multiple Native American tribes"
Now it's not a traditional comfort stone as it is not gemlike or small, but actually a palm-sized beach stone (not quite smooth enough to be a pebble) that I picked up on my recent trip to Ibiza.
I'll recount the memory as it was one of my favourite solitary moments of the past few years.

I slipped on my shoes and picked up my camera (Kodak Colorsnap 35 model 2), said farewell to my mother and uncle sunbathing on the beach and started climbing up the rocky side to the beach. What was wonderful was feeling as I had done when I was a child, just going exploring and seeing what comes up next, and even wondering whether I could still climb over rocks without tripping and hitting my head or falling off a cliff like my anxiety ridden mind kept repeating to myself. It's hard to enjoy things when you have those thoughts constantly, but I remembered that I could trust my feet and body to keep me safe. It was a great realisation, this long forgotten simple trust in instinct and motor skills, I felt like walking royalty. No one had walked quite this well before, the quick-thinking choice of foot to rock positioning, how was I doing this? It all seemed quite remarkable and beyond comprehension. Me, a 33 year old man in unsuitable climbing footwear making my way up a 80 foot hillside, thinking that every step I take, if misplaced, could bring about my demise or at least twist my ankle, but here I was, an artist of foot placement. When I reached the summit there was a beautiful view of the sea of course, but also of a little mini beach, surrounded by rocks, maybe only 10 feet long 6 or so people there. It feels much like finding a secret passageway or a tea party in the forest that you've been unknowingly invited to. I took off my shoes and the rocks were pretty sharp and they gave me that pleasurable pain that nature can bring, I took some photos, went near the rock pools and found a little crab one of the pockets, dropped a little pebble in there to see it feel around to see if it was food. Then suddenly I became aware of a much larger crab, it kind of caught me off guard but it was safely out of my danger zone, if it started to clipper at me I knew I could get out of there.
This was the place where I picked up my stone, and its a good holding size and even seems to have indents just in the right place for my fingers to mold into which took me a while to find. Im still getting to know the stone obviously.

I was pretty elated once I made it back to the sunbeds with my family, knowing I survived yet another dangerous encounter with certain death

Here are some photos of the trip:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/williamnein99/
This is the view I had from the crab enclosure
https://flic.kr/p/HEfALH