Tidy departures.

I can tell, without looking at a calendar, that it's almost been a year since I moved here. 

Without looking at a calendar, I know that I am nearing the end of one full cycle. When I wake up, the sunlight looks familiar. When I go for a walk, the air feels familiar. When I go to the beach, the ocean smells familiar.

While walking to my car this morning, I felt the mist-like drizzle of the morning air (the closest thing I've experienced to rain in months), and I knew that I had felt it before. While unpacking my things from my car when I moved in with Dan and Karen, when I drove to LAX and picked up Kim from the airport, when I went on a solitary walk on a solitary night on an abandoned beach I stumbled upon on accident and never was able to find again. 

The cycle is restarting just as my time here is ending. I am glad that I stayed here for many reasons, one of them being love and another being the familiarity of the elements. To feel the winds change with the seasons and, for once, to know exactly what it meant. Because it smells and looks and feels familiar; it smells and looks and feels so close, so close to home.