I just sit here and tell the story as though I can't help it. There's always something in the day that reminds me, that sets me off all hot and guilty and scared and rambling and wistful, like I am now.

Surfers are the canaries down the mine. Those of us who surf spend more time than anyone soaking in whatever the sea has become. We're suspended in consequences, you might say.

And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.

Ah, but you, Darkness, you know all this. I tell you night after night. Nothing will shock you. Maybe I go on at you in the hope that there's something beyond you. Some nights I sit here and talk and sob and stare out into the blackness thinking that if I look hard enough I'll see the light behind. But I stay out until the break of day, waiting, hoping, and there's only sunrise again.

Optimism is necessary even if you don't instinctively feel it.

Whatever you believe, you need faith to get through the day.

I liked books - the respite and privacy of them - books about plants and the formation of ice and the business of world wars. Whenever I sank into them I felt free.