Apparently it's a bumper season for cicadas, they've come out again thanks to the rains, after the fires and the drought. Some stay underground for years, in the United States there's a species that spends 17 years underground before they emerge. For their sake I hope these first few weeks of 2021 was not their time. How does anyone, let alone a cicada, make sense of that.

I'm down the coast. It's been too long since I've felt the sand between my toes and the sun on my shoulders. Too much sun, too early in the holiday. A new bikini has exposed too much of my body and sections of my skin which have not tingled in years tingle with every misguided touch. Something to add to my list of things which annoy me about living alone, no one to rub sunscreen on to those places you can't reach, or would prefer someone else to reach. At night as I sleep in a stranger's bed I am aware of every tender part.

But perhaps this is not a stranger's bed. I love holiday rentals, the opportunity to stay in someone else's house. And this house is a lovely one. It's always a punt. A few photographs on a website, perhaps a review from a former tenant. This summer there weren't many options left by the time I decided I needed to escape. I hadn't been away all year, like many of us. We lost a summer to fires, a winter to COVID, finally, despite the updates every day, many of us decided this summer we might be safe.

My boy, not long on his Ps, drove the Clyde for the first time. After five or so years of being in the driver's seat by myself, in so many ways, I am a nervous passenger still. But we made a pact. Direction would be calm, he would listen. It worked and I was proud of him.

A few days in, I was out walking the beach and stumbled across a young family with a solid little blond-haired boy, just like my own, he was perched there, on the ocean's edge, standing next to his mother as the waves rolled in. He reached up to grab his mother's hand and my heart lurched. Now my boy grabs my hand to drag me out even deeper. I can't let him know that sometimes I am drowning, drowning in the idea that he, and his sister, are almost adults now, and the tide is taking them away.

But back to this stranger's house which feels oddly like home. I like it that she looks a little shabby from the outside, her driveway unfinished, the render needing a touch up. But inside she is full of life. Three big bedrooms, a comfortable lounge with room for us all, a kitchen that deserves better than a menu of barbecued meats and bags of salads, a dining table where we sit and discuss the day's plan or linger over a puzzle at lunch time.

There are piles of magazines on the coffee table, House and Garden, Home Beautiful, Vogue Living, ones about bushwalking and adventure, cycling and golf. In one bedroom there's a bookshelf full of spy thrillers. In a cupboard I've discovered a pale blue cast iron pot, the colour of the sea. I should put my mind to what I could cook in it. Or book a week in winter and leave a pot of pumpkin soup on the stove all week and do nothing but buy a fresh loaf of crusty bread each day. If you can judge someone by the contents of their home I think I would like the owners of this place.

It's an easy walk to the beach, through a little access street. Gladys Street. I wonder who Gladys was. I wonder too, every time I come to the beach, if living here would mean I would take it for granted. Would I still head to the waves every day? Would I learn how to surf? Buy myself a proper ocean fishing rod and wade out into the waves at dusk with the hope of dragging in a bream or two for dinner like my father used to do. Do you? Those who have done it. Do the waves still lull you to sleep, even if your skin is tingling?

On the lounge room wall there's a print, three pieces making up a coast line puzzle. People are scattered on towels, under umbrellas, in the water. It's so Australian.

As I bob about in the water, trying to keep an eye on the boy as he seemingly floats to New Zealand, he's out so far, a wave of gratitude washes over me. In previous summers I may have been dumped into the sand, salt water slapping my face, tumbling out of control, wondering when, if, I stand upright which way I'll be facing.

But this summer, something is different. We've all been through much this past year, too much for many people. These waves, this escape is different. Something has been washed away. The tingle across my chest is perhaps in my heart. Tomorrow I will get more sun.