A Walk to the Beach in Darkness
- Louise Mathewson
- Oct 18
- 3 min read
Originally written in 2015 — Revisited in 2025
I woke up in one of those heavy moods—dark, shapeless, and hard to name. The kind that perhaps only someone living with brain injury and PTSD truly understands. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to hear a male voice (a challenge, since I live with my husband). I didn’t want to be anywhere but alone.
Yoga crossed my mind, but the appliance repairman was on his way, and my husband was deep in a meeting in his home office. I was tethered indoors.
When the repairman finally left, I grabbed my phone, queued up my favorite piano music on Pandora, and headed toward the ocean. I needed air. I needed space. I needed the negative ions that float near the sea—those invisible helpers that sometimes soothe my brain.
I wasn’t sure what was causing the storm inside me. Was it my injured brain? My adrenals, worn thin from stress? My autoimmune thyroiditis—Hashimoto’s? The shift in seasons and dwindling light? The chaos of condo renovations? The Cubs losing to the Mets? Or maybe the lingering grief of leaving the Midwest, the Heartland I called home for most of my 68 years. Maybe it was all of it. A chorus of triggers, ganging up on my nervous system.
As I walked, I remembered a book I read years ago during a similar emotional low: This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart by Susannah Conway. She wrote about using photography to move through grief. Back then, I couldn’t even get myself outside. But her words nudged me. I liked taking pictures. So I tried it. And it was magic—pure, unexpected magic.
That day, I rediscovered a way to meet my moods. Not through supplements or meditation or neuroplasticity (which, frankly, hasn’t worked for my limbic system with its low blood flow). Not through abstract strategies that require cognitive clarity I don’t always have. But through nature. Through noticing. Through the lens of a camera.
On this walk, I spotted three ibis perched on a fence by the inlet. Snap. My first photo of the day.
At the beach, the water shimmered under a windy sky. I took a short video—“20 seconds of Gulf peace.” Then came the yellow daisies at the edge of the shore, an egret standing still in the surf, and two deserted beach chairs in blue and green. More daisies, rosy-mauve flowers, tall grasses, ocean blue in the background. I was in heaven. My mood softened. My mind quieted. My body felt less trapped.
Nature gave me something to focus on besides my discomfort. Photography gave me a way to listen to the world when I couldn’t bear to listen to myself.
On my way back, I met an artist painting hummingbirds and magical fish—blues, oranges, yellows, reds. We talked. She’s an environmental activist caring for her elderly parents. She comes to the beach daily to walk and create. She wants to pair her art with poetry about the ocean’s fragility.
We connected. And that connection brought joy.
Earlier that morning, Facebook friends and a left-brained actuary couldn’t lift my mood. I needed the real thing—nature and human presence. Through walking and photographing, I didn’t cure my adrenal fatigue, Hashimoto’s, or brain injury. But I felt better. And I could write this.
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