Bare Coastline.

    The smell of sage brush and salt water. I want to name everything I love after California. The blues and the browns; oceans and seas of grass. The most living and dying colors right up next to each other and all over.There was a surf spot yesterday. Hidden rocks. Pulsing south swell. A girl named Noah with a pointy backside hack and quiet confidence. I wasn’t cool there. I wasn’t the best. I just fell on the best part of my best wave; thought I had a concussion for half the day just from the unexpected slap of the water on the side of my ear. Maybe some of my biggest regrets will be the waves I haven’t ridden. I hope.I’m the same surfer I used to be. Even after my uterus has filled and emptied of water.  Hungry. Competitive. Hard on myself. Always wanting more.

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This coastline. Big Sur, Los Padres National Forest, kelp beds miles wide. Everything is surviving here. Maybe everything is cursing and celebrating under it’s breath. “Fuck!” and “hallelujah!” Everyone’s neck hurts. Even the trees. People grow here too. Saw about 15 road bikers riding up miles of a mountain. It was like the ‘Rainbow Road’ level in Mario Kart. No barriers to keep you from falling off the face of the world. Wanted to stop and ask each one why they were doing this. The ‘How?’ doesn’t really matter here.But the baby was sleeping and even the most interesting stories or expansive Vista Points weren’t worth interrupting that. There are stories blooming everywhere. Even in all these shuffling rocks. In everyone’s throat. “Live you little fuckers.” Is that what God is saying?  So many stories live in the quietest places.I want to be perfect in the way this coastline is. Broken and craggy, surprising and lost, slouching and severe. Loved and unlovable.As wild as the world will let me be.

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