Larger Flakes.

It's black night out now - I can see large flakes of snow falling in the peach streetlights below.

Mournful fog horns.

There is a pickup truck, its running lights glowing in the snow. A large man in a heavy coat is down by the docks, he lights a cigarette, drags on it for a few moments and tosses it into the water at his feet.

I've been resting here for the past 4 days, since Friday evening. There has been a run-in with a seal, over-priced pub food, the discovery of a 'fridge full of champagne and frozen cookie dough and a fair amount of sleep and introspection.

I wish I could say I am coming out of this a transformed person - unless you think that being more yourself is something of a transformation.

I've actually not talked all that much these last few days. Went to Portsmouth with friends for a tango practica, sat with a carpenter/boat captain pal in his rebuilt sail-loft of a house, drinking coffee and talking about the challenges of a being a new tango person - "new' being anyone not born and raised in Buenos Aires.

Through the windows that face my bed I can see lights moving through darkness, around the island docks in the middle of the harbor. It's motoring toward the dock with the pickup truck. The large man tosses what must be his fourth cigarette into the water and moves to the back of the truck. Looks like rope coming out, a line or something.

I think I've stayed here long enough. I feel rested, like my zealous, over-filled soul has used the time to listen quietly, patiently, to the gently varying sound of the waves on the shore. Like the snowflakes each wave has its own sound, its own pattern.

It should probably now become part of my routine to find time to sit by the ocean, wherever I am on the coast of Maine, to sit, listen and calm my spirit, tune my ear to hear the sound each wave makes, just once and then forever gone.

Unique and irreplaceable. And then gone.

The boat is at the dock. A tall man exits the wheelhouse, waves to the man on the dock, tosses him a line. The boat is home safe.

The snow keeps falling.