A Jour

I finished a diary today, it wasn't the way I wanted to bookend a year but it occurs to me that this is life and we must accept all its comings and goings if we are to ride the wave to shore. I closed it in peace. They had salted the footbridge along the river; were they expecting snow? I haven't remembered to memorize the forecast. The air was cold, to be sure, my breaths violent in my chest and my limbs frozen stiff, but my feet pounded that pavement until the blood raced all thoughts to oblivion: I was cleansed.

The ghosts of our past come back to scare us unasked; they dance around our heads and turn the ground into burning coals, there is no escape. But I looked mine in the eye today, we spoke at length and weighed our options. When the glasses were emptied and our hearts worn, we nodded in agreement. The truce was not anyone's surrender, merely compromise. The waves continue.

But the surf is worth its price.