Christmas Lights

We drove to North Rustico to look at the lights, and ended up out on the point, past the lighthouse and up the dirt track, with the water on our right and darkened summer cottages on our left. Up to where the dunes parted for the boat launch and the row of rocks stretched out into the sea. We put the windows down and turned the engine off. The kids put their heads out the windows, and so did I. There it was – the sound of the waves.

Sometimes I forget that sound in winter. We don’t think to go to the beach in December. But tonight I’m glad we did. The old roving light illuminated the rocks in its steady sequence from somewhere behind us. We could just make out the white of the breaking water on the sand, and from there out all was dark and the sea and thy sky seemed one dark mystery save for a few stars overhead. Where are the boundaries between heaven and earth anyway?

There are nights when the veil is thin. Holy nights kissed by the salty air. Hushed nights when we turn our revving, striving, sputtering engines off and look out to sea.

We sat eclipsed for just a few minutes, silence peppered with the questions and exclamations of small children out past bedtime. Transcendence can creep up on you when you least expect it. Before we rolled the windows up, the kids called a goodbye to the ocean. “See you in the summer,” they said, and Arden blew a kiss into the night – “I love you.”  

~lg