The sunflowers have turned their faces to the sea. Somewhere across the ocean it might still be summer, but soon there will be nothing here but bare rocks and a cold wind blowing across the bay. Boats will sail south and the tourists exchange water skis for snow skis and flee to Vermont. The innate human inability to simply sit still means most people must escape the blue-grey boredom of a bleak off-season coastline. But being a dyed-in-the-wool misanthrope, I enjoy an empty horizon with a black smudge of storm clouds and no other footprints in the sand except those of my dog. Release your Krakens into the wintry waves. What do I care? I've got a library of unread novels, a fireside, and many bottles of tawny port to see me through to Spring. The bookworm's dream of cozy seaside erudition.
Of course, books reserved for winter are much weightier tomes than typical beach reads. Summer just seems to be the wrong sort of weather for a zillion chapters with a convoluted plot featuring a cast of thousands. I can't commit to Charles Dickens, for example, between early April and late September. In fact, nowadays I experience difficulty involving my mind in any kind of story when the daily temperatures rise above sixty. Perhaps that is some unexplored bibliographical effect of climate change unique to myself? If the world keeps heating up at its current rate I will be capable of reading nothing but short stories and travel guides to Iceland before too long. Tourist season will extend well into December and recommence by February. The window of opportunity to luxuriate in my bookworm's dream will dwindle to a few preciously cold days in January. What will I do with all my unread novels in the incessant tropical humidity of the future? I guess I shall use them to press the overabundance of perennial sunflower petals that have turned this rocky shore into a jungle.
Photo by me, if anyone cares about such attributions.
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