New Year's Eve Day II - Oceanside

Endless black sky scattered with stars - as many as can be provided to the eyes with the conquering city lights. Black expanse of crashing curling marbled with white cold and awe inspiringly full of life. My personal symbol of the permanent power of nature over the human. The ocean commands respect. Darkening sky on a day that pulled from the heart the most visceral sensations. Freezing, thinking, walking, painting, talking. On the subjects of pain, love, aging, convention, work, romance, parents, values, travels.
Later on, husband and I at our perch where we were spent of our most important evenings: on the hill just above the drop of cascading sand before the ocean side by side under the nightening sky with a bottle of whiskey warming our bones and loosening our tongues. Once we'd conversed thoroughly of worldly things, then moved onto the subject of astronomy, we wandered down to the roaring black expanse of sea. I wandered further, fully dressed in leather boots and pants, and waded until the water reached my thighs. I looked up and took in the night, I looked forward and greeted the sea respectfully and for the first time in a long, long time, found myself at home in the world, maybe having to do with finally having a certain even minor sense of my tiny, tiny place in this vast universe. Our all-too-human lives on this earth do not give us many chances to be reminded of that; to be reminded that there are such grander scales on which important events occur that have nothing to do with us at all. But because they are not important in the pressing sense that our common worldly concerns are important to us, any sense in which they can be considered important is not allowed much room much for recognition. Stand at the edge of a precipice, take just one more step toward that spot where the undertow would suck your fragile body beneath the weight of the waves, crush it and fill your lungs with water and salt. Linger there for a moment in the dark, under that great expanse of sky.

Soon I found my husband, laughing and wet up to his waist alongside me. We splashed and played far past the point when our toes went numb. We drank and looked out at the sea and up at the sky and we loved each other.