a good day

the night is coming down around me. encapsulating me and trying to enforce sleep with its cocoon of darkness and humidity. in its wake, i've been sitting on the steps leading to the shore, watching the ocean - black and green against the coming dawn - and feeling the fog roll in. my hair, my skin, my clothes are damp, my smile is wide and i smell of the sea.

i am restless tonight, but strangely, not tired.

i know better - now - than to fight sleep. it comes when it wants - like the stray cats near the beach - to feed and be allowed to lie awhile.

it's cool tonight. which i love. cool enough that it would feel nice to sleep next to someone. feel him lying next to me, around me, keeping me warm and listening to me breathe. (it is an image perhaps more intimate than sex and one which resonates.)

'cool' never stood a chance at the bottom of the lone star state. summer, like the people there, was greedy ... grabbing at everything, with its heavy, humid hands, fogging up the windows and sending us back indoors. and so i find myself awake, long past my bedtime, happy for the 'chill' and for the change of scenery. there is a color of light in me that only shines here.

it was a good day, to be sure. 'fabulous' new shoes, a visit from home, the early chapters of a good book ... a day filled with the lovely ... the unexpected ... the hoped for.

maybe that's why i can't sleep. i don't want it to end. i'm fascinated by what the outcome will be. and running away to the heart of the night, i'm not afraid anymore. i know the morning will come, the light bleeding through my window, a mixture of blues and greys and a new adventure will unfold, or an old adventure will continue, and there will be finally be time for the north and south to engage in the most civil of wars ...

i've been pragmatic and intellectual - i'm ready for giddyness, ready to fall off the earth again.

and here i go ...