I am recently returned on the night wind form my annual soul regeneration on the long pier at Cayucos, worshipping the last of the sunlight as it reflects mirrorlike on the dark water.

Sundown seems to be the appointed hour of destiny with one's self as shadows die and the chill of evening sets in.

The local flock gathers quietly along the shore as the orange and crimson in the western sky begins to turn dark brown, and the few clouds hanging above the horizon are feathered out into long, thin tails by the rising wind.

The birds congregate quietly, as if in some sad and ancient rite to mark the end of day, and exhausted waves die in the dregs of ripples that lick at their claws and then recede to be reclaimed by the sighing sea.

A mood of sadness, even despair, depending upon the turmoil raking one's life, seems to settle in.

Yet, the gulls and egrets and sandpipers never lose the faith, matter not the biting chill of eventide. One late afternoon, I saw a dead gull lying in some seaweed, and another sick and nearing its departure hour.

Both were claimed by the lapping water of breaking waves and carried out to the dark sea from where life came, only to be reborn again at dawn.

Gone from the darkened beach was the blissful laughter of children at play, and the muffled whispers of couples holding hands, young love overpowering the roar of the sea and the black of the pin-cushion night.

Hunched against the pier on which generations of youngsters have carved their hometown and initials, I strained to hear the mournful lament of the reef's bell on a bobbing buoy a quarter of a mile out on the open sea. But it was lost on the moan of the wind and the slapping of waves against the nervous pilings.

Alas, in such overwhelming setting of melancholia, the agonies of the ages ride high on the tide and one begins to question the reason for existence.

At this moment, he is little more than an old dog running along the surf yelping at some thing in the growing darkness and then quickly turning tail and running the other way.

The unknown that man seeks lies somewhere out there where sky and water and darkness meet, as out of reach as it was in the beginning. Yet, the search goes on and on down through the ages until one wonders if the quest itself is not man's destiny.

How weak am I in so many ways, a witless dreamer, a spinner of half-thought-out tales, some with so little substance they die before they can be imprinted on paper.

Fond hopes, like waves, turn into fruitless dreams. That which never was will never be.

Life is but a momentary rush of warmth, a velvety sensation within the heart and mind, somewhere between the gates of fancy and the walls of the promised land.

Comments: Woody Laughnan, vallefox@accessbee.com