I surprised C. with a trip to the sea for her birthday. This morning I woke before dawn to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic, which goes against my night owl nature. I hadn’t seen the sunrise in years, and I was surprised by how fast it moved. Standing in the wind while the world lightened, I felt wholesome. Maybe there’s something right about these early hours that justifies the pluck of morning people, the moral dimension they achieve when they advertise waking up at 5 am. I wrote for a while and caught up on some work. Then I took a nap.
A few hours later, I woke to the sound of C. making coffee and waves crashing on the rocks. Whenever I hear the ocean, I think about how it sounds like highway traffic or radio static, not the other way around.
The final presidential debate was tonight, and some self-hating part of myself felt obligated to tune in. Thankfully, C. is wiser than me: “It’s my birthday,” she said, “and I don’t want to see Donald Trump’s face today.” So we listened to the sea, and it gave us much better information.
