I love that soft light. That light at the end of the day, when you are sitting alone on a beach. A rugged beach, littered with seaweed. A beach with smells, salty, sour, alive. Where sandpipers scurry from place to place looking for a tasty morsel in the hard wet sand.
It is a place like this where that soft light is so transfixing. Where the sun is looming just above the jagged cliff, casting black shadows and threatening to go down. And you are sitting on an old log, smooth from the countless waves that have swept over it. You watch as silhouetted seagulls cross the sun. The waves rumble, draw back, crest and crash. The mist rises up into the air and tickles your nose. You listen to the gentle hum of the wind interrupted by the thunderous crash of a wave, which dissipates into the docile lapping of retreating water over the sand's grooves and trenches.
A small fly buzzes at your ankles but you hardly notice. You are enraptured by the soft light that glistens on the water and spreads itself delicately over the smooth beach rocks, the stranded kelp and the eroding hillside. You savor every second. You know it won't last much longer.
The symphony overwhelms you. You breath deep. Deeper than you have in a long time. You see a pelican dive dramatically into the water. As soon as it's under, it's back out again with it's prize. The unfortunate of the school. This gives you some perspective. You watch the pelican fly over the horizon and you glimpse the last of the soft light, as the sun retires under the sea. You stare moments longer trying to savor the image.
Water tingles your toes and just like that you are back to reality. High tide has come. It is time to go. You take one more deep breath, one more far off gaze and you promise yourself that when things get rough tomorrow, when life returns to chaos, you will remember your beach and that soft light.
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