notebook / sand / waves

16 January 2011 02:29 PM Categories: Quotidian existence

First, the translation:

mid--Jan 2010 (sic: 2011)

sitting on a beach in Pacifica. I'm wearing urban wear -- black boots, jeans, a sweater. Makes me think of SF beaches (Ocean Beach), the Japanese couple dressed all in black, like they'd wandered in from a nightclub after an evening of alternating between heroin and coke, but still so young that any traces of debauchery didn't show on their faces.

D and G are on the other side of the beach, having waded through a rushing stream. Not me. I sit and bask and listen to the surf, the sound of water rushing over rocks, grateful that my little notebook is in my pocketbook.

I don't normally come to beaches in my boots. We took Mom back to the airport and ended up here and all I can think about is how much she would have loved to be here -- She would have taken off her shoes and rolled up her pants, gotten wet in the waves.

Sometimes I wonder if my refusal to participate, my separation, is some sort of statement -- or is perceived as such. Here I sit. I listen. I watch. Maybe this is the writer's approach, or a certain kind of writer. Maybe all I have to do is hang out in nature and humanity. Take BART into San Francisco. Sit and drink tea at a local café. I miss people, the variety of them, their fashion choices, their shoes. But in the process of being an observer, not a participant, what do I lose? Do I remove myself from my own family? How much like my mother am I? She's rubbed off on me these last few days, as always. By the end of her visit, I could see how simple one's future could be -- the studio apartment, the cats, the silence w/out the difficulty. The hurdle (?) of other people. Surely this will wear off.

Back to observer/partipant: I am separated from my family. Removed. It's a choice, not necessarily a good one -- and what's that all about?

Maybe it's time to take off the boots and jump the stream.

beachfeet