Absence and presence and absence.

I have been awakened not once, but twice by the dog barking in the campervan next to mine. However, what roused my foggy mind was the absence of the roaring of the ocean waves; a white noise that kept me quiet – if not warm – during the long night hours.

The ocean is guilty in absentia; it subsided to the grunting of the living, fading in the distance and taking my slumber with it. Motorhomes are heated with gas, and I am one bottle down, one to go. “This type is not in Portugal,” said the 15-year-old working at the petrol station, his words accompanied by a smile I silently reflected on my face, staring at him, looking for an answer that never came. “Obrigado,” I said, and I was on my way. So, it’s cold outside, and inside, too, for good measure, as I have no idea how much gas I have left in store.

I take long trips to the beach, which extends for miles to the north and the south, the west merging into one blur with the ever-threatening sky. My drone has flown, disappearing behind the bank of low clouds at large, over the ocean, in an act of self-inflicted heroism I call “stupidity.” It came back oozing from the mist like a single drop of plastic rain.

This is not Copacabana, in case you’re wondering.

Today’s not a great day to write, or not a great day at all, so I spend it shuffling elements of the plot of my novel, putting the finishing touches on minor characters who will slip between my fingers at close of play before being reborn with different names and a worse fate tomorrow.

I crossed the border into Portugal yesterday afternoon after driving for 6 hours over a couple of days. Madrid – Salamanca – wherever I am right now: a dormant Aquapark with its swimming pools, water slides, splash pads, water playgrounds; names that take on a different weight in December, when they’re just empty terms that seem to echo in the emptiness of an autumnal Wednesday – any Wednesday. The showers are right across from the attractions, so I walked in the dark, smartphone torchlight on, to save some gas and have a hot shower in a freezing changing room deep in silent lethargy. I dressed up and waited for a cab that never came, to one of two restaurants a mere mile of dark and muggy country roadway in a marsh. “Spaghetti col pesto, then,” I said out loud, more to warm up my throat than to engage with an absent presence. The campervan next to me – a Dutch family of 4 + the aforementioned dog – was already asleep, or pretended to be under the duvet, pup and all, to keep the cold out of the metal sheet around them.

It was when I lowered my bed and jumped in it that I heard the ocean for the first time from behind the sand dunes. Before a dog could bark, before a man could shout, sooner than the mountains were erected, the rumble was already conversing with the moon: a duet nobody would hear. I fell asleep while reading; the book must have fallen from the bed because when I woke up this morning, I grabbed it and didn’t know where I was. Pages and places, one stain in my memory.

I opened the door to the sunrise and two cats, then closed it because the day was full of promises it wouldn’t keep, and I had no time to waste. Can one be awakened while one’s apparently awake?

Cat day sunrise.