Today is the second full day of winter—and the day before Christmas Eve. The temperature reached about 5C (40F) under clouds holding rain that could drop late tonight but will definitely fall tomorrow, according to the weather forecasts.
It seemed like the perfect day for a ride—to the ocean. The wind blew out of the southeast, so I was pedaling into it down the Beach Channel isthmus to Rockaway Beach and past sand and tides to Point Lookout.
My reward was exactly what I’d hoped for: early winter light, gray yet intimate like one of those old friends with whom you don’t have to pretend—and couldn’t, even if you wanted to. Or, perhaps, it is a reflection the few people I saw walking—themselves, their dogs, their lovers or spouses. Maybe they—and I—are reflections of that light, which doesn’t force extroversion.
Perhaps the strangest and most wonderful thing about that light, and the winter seascape, is that it allows a glimpse of the sunset hundreds of kilometers away, in the middle of the afternoon—and renders that sunset as a brushstroke that accents ripples of gray mirroring each other in the sea and sky.
Oh, and on my way home, the wind blew at my back—after I munched on the slice of Kossar’s babka I’d brought with me. I made good time in every sense of the word!
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