14 january - mar de las pampas

we've been on the beach for a few days now, this being our fourth. trundled down (rather, up and over the dune, and then down) to the surf for a morning swim. at 07:30 my traveling companions are quite asleep though the sun is a good thirty degrees into the sky already. the beach is populated by joggers, wanderers, dog walkers. i swim, stretch, sit, and contemplate the future warren.

oh. what. to. do.
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15 january, tuesday

awake before dawn and forced myself out of bed to see the sun rising over the southern atlantic. groped my clothes on and stumbled over the dune to throw myself to the ground and wait it out.

as the sky becomes shades lighter, a group of seven later-teenagers run out of the brush about 300 yards to my left. one strips to his underwear and is soon in the break whooping and hollering. the other two boys in the group quickly follow suit while the girls take several moments, a confrence, a recon, and a deliberation before three of them strips down and head for the surf. the seventh stays clothed and with camera, shooting them all in the pre-dawn joy display. frolicking. indeed.

there are a few high clouds and the sky is the powder blue of the argentine flag. as the clouds turn pink and the kids dry themselves, the horizon is hidden. obscured by low fog many miles out to sea, the sun's appearance delayed by a half hour or so, ultimately showing itself first as a thin fingernail sliver of light. rising quickly and brilliantly over the ocean, it fills its disk. glinting light plays over the water with the gulls and cranes. lighting the sky and obscuring the stars.

i return to the cabana, shower the sand of of my body, and fall back into bed.
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19 january


from orion's feet proceed eight fists with an outstretched arm in the direction of his sword to the southern cross.

if not recognized at once, verify by following then the long leg of la croix a thumb's width to musca alpha and beta, forming a sort of fish-hook or making an anchor of the crux.

(fishermen and crosses. go figure.)

anyway, what latitude makes all the difference. in more northern climes the earth shoves her pregnant belly in the way.

of course, old and familiar ursa (ma and cub) are on the other side of the planet for me today. out of sight, but never out of mind.

i would like to think that someday i might think of this place and that crux. where ever that i may be and still count eight fists down, perhaps even into the earth's core, to see those stars yet again.