Early Monday this and that 11/7/11

• 6:30ish am -- I wait patiently, which isn't my forte, on the balcony while Sunbella inches up from behind a solid cloud bank.  Nose dripping from the chilly wind, hands hugging my coffee mug to keep warm, I wait.  She shoots fire orange on a hanging sliver of cloud to keep me hooked in.  First a teeny pinpoint of blazing gold, then she slides up fast, pulsing, drenching melted light across Mother Ocean.  Everything feels different in her presence.  Everything.  The day begins.
• On my long beachwalk yesterday, almost all the walkers going by wore ear buds.  I don't get it.  I wouldn't wear nose plugs and miss the air's salty tang.  I wouldn't wear a blindfold and block out the sun turning the ocean into a wash of glinting diamonds.  No thank you.  I walk the beach to hear the rolling and crashing waves, the whoosh of sand being sucked out with the tide, the squawks and trills of sea birds, the tickled laughter of letting go as the ocean picks you up and sloshes you around.  That's my beach music. 
• Saw flockettes of geese (can 5 or 6 really be called a flock?) gliding on the north wind, hanging for two or three blocks without a wing flap.  What a joy it would be to join them!
• I noticed yesterday that I saunter down the beach, let the ocean caress my feet, take time to dig my toes in the slurpy sand, pay attention to everything.  But there comes a point where the stroll is over and I'm breathless by the time I get back, head down and nearly running to my place to put all my beachwalking thoughts into words.  Maybe that's what it means to be a writer, that urgent urge to spill my soul on paper whether anyone will ever read it.  Or buy it.