Only going back

March 2005: I'm standing near the northern tip of Monterey Bay, along West Cliff in Santa Cruz, looking west towards the setting sun. This is one of my favourite places in the world, a place that I go to as often as I can.I'm thinking of this picture that I took back then and it reminds the wonderment I feel every time I'm there. Because each time I'm there, it feels like I don't need anyone at all to feel all the romance and depth of my life: one moment in time stretching out from my self to the eternity of the sunset and the ocean.

I'm thinking of this picture because this place is the only thing I'm truly looking forward to at this point in time. Going back to Santa Cruz to spend time in the crisp temperate air, far away from the stifling, saturated smell of here and now. Finally spending time with ones I love and can endure spending time with - it's been too long since I spent proper time with my sis.

But I think I just need to get away, to make a tangible slash in my present state, to make a clean separation from my current sinkhole of a life and start fresh after the summer. I really need this. In spite of all the things I've had to give up or put on hold because of this trip, I think it's necessary.

Nothing else seems to be going right. This year has just been sucky from start to present. My passions have dulled somewhat. The music that ordinarily fills my life is still there, but it now makes me mournful and frustrated. I don't feel as keenly the driving need to pursue all the things that have filled my soul, and knowing this makes me feel less whole. My music, theatre, prose and astronomy.

I want to write and write and write, but yet I don't feel like it. They say the low point in a writer's life is when creative inspiration is more prolific. But I beg to differ. It just feels like a thirsty well that's drying out and only has sludge at the bottom, threatening to cake into dry mud when a hot day comes. I looked at the story ideas I penned a few months ago. They all seem so alien and strange to me now, and reading over them, I almost couldn't believe I could have written them.

But one idea that I'd written on that page stands out, and it is the only one I understand now. Just one line: "You were gone today. Sorry, you said."