Viewing: Notes » Bleak.
Bleak.
(3 minute read.)
Beach walking.
I'm glad 'the shortening days' are behind us again. I really don't enjoy the time from September leading to December 21 or whenever they begin to lengthen again.
Figuring 'better out than in', some months ago I wrote myself a note about this…
********************
With summer over, now deep into autumn, he knew this winter of short days would be a tough one to face and survive. The knowledge sat in his gut like a stone, cold and certain.
His life had that out-of-season feel, shuttered boardwalks and drifting sand whipped by the merciless Atlantic wind. He walked the empty beach, the vibrant tapestry of July and August now reduced to a monochrome palette of grey sky, grey water, and the dull, weathered brown of the closed-up stalls.
The wind didn't whisper; it scoured, finding its way through the seams of his jacket with a practiced ease. It was a wind that knew how to empty a place, how to strip away anything that wasn't rooted deep.
He could feel that same wind working on him. It was hollowing out the spaces life had left behind, whistling through the chambers of his soul with the same lonely sound it made through the gaps in the boardwalk.
The ice cream stand was now boarded shut, a single "CLOSED" sign swinging on a rusty nail. The pavilion was now just a skeleton, offering no shelter.
The days were shrinking, the light bleeding out of the afternoon earlier each day, and he felt his own inner light dimming in tandem. Survival wasn't about grand gestures now; it was about the small, stubborn acts of defiance. It was about clutching a cup of tea just to feel the warmth in his hands. It was about noticing the first, fierce star in the early evening sky and holding its gaze.
He would have to learn to live like the dunes—bent, but not broken; shaped by the relentless force, but still holding their ground.
Nodding to a solitary gull, he turned his collar up against the gale, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and continued his walk. The winter was coming, and all he could do was face it, one step at a time, on the long, deserted shore.
********************
My reaction on reading it was 'Hell, that's fun isn't it…?' (even though I'd edited and removed some of the more gloomy stuff). So, I happied-it-up a tad, by adding to it…
********************
He stopped, shivering as a particularly sharp gust ripped across the dunes, and let out a short, dry laugh. "Well, that's all very cheery, isn't it?" he quipped to the empty horizon, his voice barely a match for the wind.
The sound of his own sarcasm, a familiar, defensive old friend, broke the spell of self-pity. Yes, the days were shrinking, the light bleeding out of the afternoon earlier each day, but maybe he didn't have to dim with it.
Choosing to find the bitterness funny, in noticing that first fierce star in the early evening sky, with a faint, wry, smile playing on his lips he mutter-quipped that it must be as cold up there as it was down here.
The winter was coming, sure. But it would have to get through him first. And he was in a decidedly contrary mood.
********************
Yeah, that's a bit more cheerful.
Anyway, as I've said, it's a time of year I struggle with.
Never miss a Note… get updates by email or rss.