Please work. Or maybe it's better that you not, as I am less distracted from the ocean when you are sleeping or on break. And how much time do I get to spend with the ocean? But still, I just want to sleep.
I have been writing a fair amount over the past couple of days but largely not posting said writings due to a fickle internet connection. This morning I have had the brilliant idea of connecting to a random linksys instead of worrying about our still-uncooperative protected network. I know, I'm a genius.
Things written recently, in reverse order--that is, most recent first (and as separate entries, because this one has footnotes):
I went walking on the beach again tonight (tonight being Tuesday night, but who knows when this will get posted with the way the internet has been acting this evening), out to the waves and then down to the left toward the pier to get my feet wet and let the waves splash up against the hem of my dress and lean against a piling and sing. I carried my water bottle, as usual, both as a source of water and as a blunt object should I be attacked by a madman on a deserted beach after midnight. I should've been a boy scout--always prepared for things that never happen.
I sang under the pier for a while and then headed home around 1 or 1:15 I guess, and halfway back I was suddenly hit with this wave (no pun intended) of fatigue, after which everything seemed so dreamlike--like I wasn't completely conscious, wasn't completely there. Along the way I met a man walking in the opposite direction, and I didn't see him until he was almost upon me--maybe six feet away. I had been singing, and had closed my eyes for a second, rubbing the sleep out of them, and then when I opened them there he was, coming out of the darkness. Sort of freaked me out (in addition to being a little embarassing), though he didn't even acknowledge my presence. He passed me again when I was standing at the waves in front of the house where we're staying, singing again. Rather loudly I think, though it's hard to judge volume with the crashing water. Yes. A little embarrassing.
But even still, night walks on the beach are lovely. I could probably count on my fingers every place I've been where I could see the Milky Way, and here I can see it clearly. Last night I must have seen at least six shooting stars, and I wasn't even looking for them*. The moon rose red and soft over the horizon directly in front of the house, and cooled as it ascended. I wish I wish I wish every time I'm out in the dark that there were some camera that could take pictures of the night the way the night really looks, with the subtle shines and glows and depths which evidently only biological, God-given eyes can see. I often feel at home and in the mountains that I could sit and listen to a stream play or a river run forever, all day and night. It seems sometimes like the sound of a stream, given time, could wash out the inside of my mind. I feel like I could listen to the ocean forever too, but it feels more like a mental caress or an embrace, something to soothe rather than something to refresh and cleanse. I guess refreshing and cleansing and soothing and caressing can interact and overlap, but then, maybe that makes sense. At the risk of getting sickeningly cliche with this, I mean, they're all water. And rivers all** meet the ocean.
*When I am looking for them, of course, I never see any. I lie back in the grass and stare into outer space with grim determination, and then I rub my eyes or glance over at a tree and as if on cue the entire group suddenly gasps with shared delight and appreciation from which I am nearly always excluded. Usually such comments as "that was the [biggest/brightest/most amazing] one I've ever seen!" can be heard.
**Damn logical brain*** forces me to concede that all rivers do not, in fact, meet the ocean. Nature and metaphor are uneasy friends.
**This is why I cannot really enjoy Emerson's**** essays except in excerpted form. It's a crying shame.
****He likes(/liked) to fabricate scientific "facts" to fit his fancy.
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