Going to see The Creature from the Black Lagoon with V and my two dear exes. We've known each other since we were young(er), erratic, still fledging, stumbling, crooked, raucous. I don't miss it. I like how we are now. And I can thieve the spirit from those days, draw the best of it from back then. Take this picture. This is how I saw V. most often when we lived together on the watery bounds of San Francisco. She and I bowed down to the ocean. So much romance swirled into those waters; I've kindled beside, argued near, run along, fallen into, walked beside, run out of this ocean. I could tell the sands from any other beaches. I returned this morning and all that spirit—the courage, the passion—flooded back for the first time in years.Middle of the night brings some of the sunniest slats of joy.
I'm sleeping.
I open my eyes, focus on Harvey, Velvie, and Pinky. Out the window, see the five tall palm trees swaying beyond the houses out my front window. Again, doorbell. Unmistakable. I'm not one whom folks generally visit unannounced. My moods force volcanoes and scatter birds and it's generally best to know what one's approaching. Still, here he was, pirate of the dawn, master G. So off we went to—where else?—the ocean.
Open the door of The Matrix (my car deserves its name) and play What I Be. Had Michael Franti, local peacenik, on my iPod, so apt for early morning emptying of the lungs at the beach. Sometimes it's nice to act really young. Play music, dance at the beach, enjoy it while it's here. Because much of what's beautiful is the unseen undertow, never visible from this kind of distance. And for now, we're so incredibly lucky to be back at the brink. Oceans, lagoons, more murk than imaginable.
