1-10-56 Impression of Only One Moment

As nice as our holiday was there is the impression of only one moment that I want to record.

(Highland Park, Ill.)

After the movie on New Year's Eve we drove to a spot near the lake where there were steps leading down to the beach. We three walked down these steps to the beach in this cold last hour of 1955. The moon was full, or nearly so, and it illumined the whole lonely scene. The beach was white in the light of it and between it and the water was a strip, several yards wide, of ragged ice, crushed bits washed up, I assume, and refrozen solidly together. This icy band, shining whiter than the sand, received the small, lapping ripples of molten moonlight. There was a narrow concrete pier that reached out beyond the ice into the darkness & endlessness of the water. I walked out only so far - beyond that the moonlight seemed not to penetrate. The others seemed anxious to leave but I lingered there alone as long as I could - with my head thrown back looking at that great pearl in that black, black sky, wishing I were completely alone there & dressed more properly. It was all so vast, so cold and quiet, so very elemental and basic, just as it might have been at the very beginning. Then we had to go.

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This desire to express wells up in me so, sometimes I think I can't bear it - surely I shall not leave this earth without having found an outlet for it - I feel it full and rich inside me & the only outlet it finds is in the tears in my eyes - I don't know what to do. If I could only find a way ---