2.20.22

Before I lose the direction, sound, heart beat of where the words are coming from. Quickly. Driving down to Playa Del Rey tonight to meet ______ and ____ for ____'s birthday bonfire. Old memories of that one time the two of us were last at Dockweiler Beach together. The beginning and the end. We walked away from the fire. I was cold. I didn't know the ocean then. Both times were endings, when I think about it. The first was an ending of a time of my life and then the second was as well. Was the moon out or was it hidden? Tonight the moon was hidden. I always drive to the ocean with the urgency of meeting a lover. When I catch sight of the shoreline it feels like my heart might break with love. There is so much of it, the ocean. Thinking of Jim Harrison. Harrison quotes a Sioux saying at the beginning of Dalva. Or was it Returning to Earth? He quotes: "We loved the earth but we could not stay." The words remind me to take a breath and I do. 

When I parked I wrote about the drive to Playa Del Rey, which I've done many times to surf at El Porto. It's especially beautiful at sunset and under a full moon. The last stretch of the drive takes you through the Ballona wetlands and there's no buildings on either side of the road, just telephone poles and wide empty space. It feels like somewhere else as Los Angeles always does. Whenever I get within a few miles of the ocean I can feel the salt and chill in the air. Two years ago, I had biked with ______ along the Ballona Creek trail on her birthday to see the fluorescent algae bloom in the water. Since then I've learned that the glowing algae is a product of a warming ocean. The end of this world may be strange and beautiful, I thought, just like the beginning of it. 

I love ocean vegetation. I love the low lying brush and I love the cypress trees. Rosemary, sage, and lavender. Cat tails. Ice plants. Eucalyptus. I must learn more about those who live close to the ocean. The plants, animals, insects. I want to live a life too, shaped around the ocean air. How might salt change me, I wonder. How might my limbs hold more space for the wind. Once with a broken heart, I found myself wandering around Venice alone. I hadn't eaten all day and I knew I had to eat sooner or later so I bought some gyudon. I sat on the beach with my back to a sand dune the wind had built up. I began to eat and when I began I could not stop. Reluctantly, I loved the taste of salt on my tongue. I thought to myself: whether or not I wanted to, I would go on living because I loved the taste of salt on my tongue. 

Can I give a name to what is breaking my heart? What is the vegetation of heartbreak? What grows close to the heart that is molting, leaking, opening? Is there a face to the longing that has brought me here? Earlier I wrote about somebody I loved and realized that what hurt me the most was not that they left me but that for a time, I was able to give a face to desire. Now I'm not sure in what direction I should want.

Anyways, the words are quieter now. I keep thinking about ______ and how months ago when we surfed together, we were sitting on the rocks and she said to me: "This is perfect. I don't even care what comes next." ______ if you are reading this, you know already but I do love you so much. When you went out to the shore tonight to dip your feet into the water, I looked at you in front of the ocean that seemed to stretch on forever and it was enough for me. And then you turned around and ran up to me and hugged me laughing. Thank you and the ocean, for giving me something to hold with more than just my arms. I don't even care what comes next.