City slickers get choked up about department store windows. For country folk, it's Currier and Ives. Here on my little stretch of the California coast, with the wintry sun rising later each day and the sunset arriving sooner, it's more than ever all about the light.

I know it's illogical, probably physically impossible, but the Point Dume headland feels like the brightest place in Malibu. It's an ancient coastal bluff that marks the northern tip of the Santa Monica Bay, sticks straight out into the sea. To the south, orderly surf and a sheltered calm. To the north, chaos. Waves and wild whitecaps, breakers, surge, sweeps of current.

Sunrise is good. Sunset's amazing. But here at the end of the year, it's the midday light I crave. It's like slivers, like crashing, like atoms exploding, great chunky fractures, cold and brilliant and loud, none of which makes sense and isn't, let's be honest, even very good writing, but thank god for the fact that something in this calculated, highly calibrated season makes your mind slip a gear, lets you go a little nuts.

Overexposed, I know, but I love the slight curve of the earth.