Slipping Away in the Dying Light.

Elegiac: as in "wistfully mournful." Can you spend a life "wistfully mournful?" Probably so. If you are awake to the moment, you are constantly reminded of the fleeting nature of your existence. Even as you live a life, you can feel it leaving you, stretching out away from you.

Yesterday was elegiac. Here in the Midwest it felt like the end of Summer. The death of the Sun King. The light. It's all about the light. A dying light. I spent most of the day out in the elements. It was hot, humid, but the light, it was different. It felt like the end stages of something profound.

My fellow human beings were out in full force. Late in the afternoon, I walked on the beach (the beach is now officially closed, which means you can now fully enjoy it without any official documents),  with a faithful, four-legged companion. We were aliens on the margin, watching human beings soaking in the last rays of summer: swimming, wind-sailing, dining, building sand-castles, burying themselves in sand, playing frisbee, picnicking, drinking, laughing, snoozing, tanning, dry-roasting.

I took it all in, thinking about how I was taking it all in. I was in it, but not of it. I, like so many other people, live much of my time in my head, I am heady, it's my nature, I have always thought that's the writer in me. Not just walking on the beach, but watching myself walking on the beach, and deciding what's important to remember, what's important to write about later.

This scene seemed important. Something to remember. Something to hold onto, but of course, there is no holding onto, just another fleeting memory, a scene, an image, a feeling, slipping away in the dying light. It was elegiac. Wistfully mournful. Another day.