You are at the very tip of a long thrust of piled rocks, dark with seawater. It's a small but long jetty that juts out in the slightest inward curve out into the bay, you and your friend walked out here in delicate steps from stone to stone. Salt in the air, a fogged-out freighter or two on the horizon, your friend's bright blue hoodie the most colorful thing in view by far. Neither of you is saying much, the sloshing seawater is doing most of the talking. You're in a historic town, one where all the buildings try to keep up the conceit that history is still unfolding, strongly giving off the vibe that many people have drowned here, either by accident or suspicion of witchcraft. You're just killing time, seeing what there is to see, trying to read the names of wind-worn gravestones and stretching your legs after many hours in the van. The sea air is thick and nourishing. You stick your hands in the pockets of your jacket and scan the shore from your position on the jetty. There's an old black barn painted shut between you and the flat part of the shore and near where you stand now there's a small and still active lighthouse that creaks with every rotation of its too-bright bulb, almost sounds like it's saying "hey." "Hey" the lighthouse says, and neither of you say anything back. Later that night you and your buddy will play a show in a bar, you'll get stoned and hypnotically interlock while fingerpicking a pair of acoustic guitars in the living room where you're crashing, you'll eat your leftover pizza just after 1am. But now it's perhaps 45 minutes before nightfall in this weird sort of historic seaside town and you cannot locate the sun on the horizon through the salty fog and the iron-grey moving blanket of clouds overhead. So you feel acutely that you have stepped out of time.

You are alone in a country you have never been to before, although after a few days spent traveling you feel you are starting to get the hang of it. You have a special SIM card and a local telephone number and have learned to order little cups of coffee with polite aplomb. It is your birthday and you feel profoundly, overwhelmingly, beautifully far away from everyone you know. The pain is delicious, and you feel sophisticated as you stare out the hard plastic window surrounded by your belongings and your instruments. You are taking a train to the sea. Or you were taking a train to the sea until the train stopped rolling, decidedly in-between station stops and seemingly miles away from anything but these rolling fields of what appear to be wheat. The stalks lightly rustle in the wind as the train hisses angrily, and though you can't understand a word of what anyone is saying you see two of the six other passengers step off for a smoke, so you join them in standing where the train track gravel meets the earth. The heat is intense, maybe even "vivid" but since the air conditioning had already been broken on the train for the previous two hours stepping out into the sunlight is refreshing. You can feel the sweat evaporating from your skin. It feels preposterously old-fashioned to be stalled on the tracks without access to the Internet. There's a light breeze and the rustling increases in response. For one moment it feels like you have already arrived at the sea, you imagine yourself splashing into the field and free style stroking over the horizon. But then the smokers embark and something is barked in Italian so you hop back aboard as the train inches forward. It's running but running honey slowly, and what does it matter? You've got nowhere to be but the sea. It will be a hot broth when you finally take your sunset dip. You'll watch movies you've seen before dubbed into a language you don't speak but you'll understand it all perfectly. You'll drink frizzante water from bottles from the vending machine one after another and fall asleep without looking at the clock, it doesn't mean a thing.

On the third or so day of having no idea at all of what to do or how to be your friend sends you a text message. She is going to the beach, would you like to come? And there is suddenly no other viable option. So you gather your things and take the subway, though none of it quite feels real. It's still early and you have told your job only that something terrible has happened, not what exactly or when you expect to be back, so the long J-train wobbling rumble out to the ocean feels not made for you, like a part of the day you aren't usually allowed to see. The train stops every so often but you hardly notice, your mind is elsewhere. And everything feels hollow, holographic. Nothing is quite real, you could punch through the surface of it as easily as a finish line. So when you're waiting for your friend to arrive and quietly sipping a coffee and the local television news asks to interview you about the beach you are hardly even surprised. You look into the camera and say with full earnestness yes I love the beach and the interviewer nods (later an acquaintance recognizes you while waiting for her clothes to dry at the laundromat, this is how you learn you made it to air). You spend most of that morning sprawled out on your beach blanket talking shit and gossiping with your friend and it almost feels normal, but when you're out swimming and feel how small your body is against the enormity of those salty waves you see how big the grief might be and it feels like too much, too much. But then, you've also got all the time in the world and the sun is out and you are with your friend whose, maybe with time - enough of it - it'll one day be the past.

First big snowfall in a new place at the end of a long and surreal period. It's heavy - way heavier than you or the local municipality expected, the roads are totally shot and it just keeps coming and coming. For what feels like the 1,000th time this year you totally change your plans for the following few days and, what else, hunker down inside your apartment. But after a few hours of watching the blank wave rise from the sidewalk you and your sweetie decide to go check it out for yourself while you can. You walk into the wind with every piece of winter gear you have piled on your person and it is quiet, quieter than you have ever heard this city or really any other city ever be. It's eerie but lovely, and the enormous christmas tree downtown looks so sweet, colorful, real flocking (the following week you walk by the tree and notice it is almost entirely brown and dead before the holiday, no one seems to be watering it). You wonder aloud to each other if the river freezes up here. And in that moment of silent consideration you hear what appears to be the river answering: cracks from the bank, the first ice breaking as the currents run underneath.