our holiday in the sun

 

for the last 11 or 12 years our family points the family truckster down the road a spell toward the Central Coast where we've been lucky to have rented a beach house in cayucos, the beach town time forgot.  travel is the art of dislocation.  get out of our comfort zone & experience newer & stranger places & sensations.  travel is often uncomfortable too.  the planning sometimes can go awry.  the destinations sometimes become out of reach.  but oftentimes these discomforts produce new pleasures we didn't know we could have.  as frost said in a poem, the best way out is thru.  how do you know what you might like if you never try it.  

& so, yes, our travels to the Central Coast has had its share of adventures.  but travel can produce a sense of home, of homecoming.  at least if you've traveled to the same house on the beach in the same beach town that is so small it really does have one blinking red traffic light in the center of town.  the delights in the ancient sound of surf churning.  the smell & feel of salt air.  whales breaching in the middle distance.  pelicans like flying dinosaurs dropping in the sea as they fish for their supper.  sea otters.  dolphins.  orcas.  all manner of sea birds.  & even a lizard or two sunning on the steps of the house leading down to the beach.

of course, cayucos is changing.  more travelers, beachcombers, surfers et al. are discovering its quiet charms.  hell, i even seen one of those pressed penny machines you find outside tourist shops in popular tourist destinations, like pier 39 in san francisco, in front of a geegaw shop in downtown cayucos. but so what.  as you can see in the photo above there is still some jank left in the town.  even moreso, that sign is wholly gone now.  just a blank space attached to a vacant storefront beside a vacant small lot that is used for a weekly farmer's market.  

but then so, the houses are all million or multimillion dollar homes.  not in a fancy mansion kind of style, tho those are there too, but because of LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.  our rented house is fine for our needs but it ain't a palace.  but it is located right on the beach!  so cha-ching!  but i remember a few years ago when i was climbing the steps from the beach.  i was soaking wet from an afternoon in the surf.  it was dusk.  everyone was already at the house.  i lingered a bit to admire the sunset.  an older couple sat on the bench at the top of the stairs.  the surf crashing behind me.  'you're welcome,' said the woman.  what?  'the sunset,' she said.  'the beach,' he said.  'we moved here 10 years ago just for this view.  we are delighted to share it with you.'  i thanked the older couple & understood the meaning of their message.  we stood in small talk for a few minutes as the salt dried in my hair & on my swimwear.  you are lucky to have got a house when you did, i told the couple.  they agreed.  because now they mightn't be able to afford one.  

& yet still, rather than dwell on the economics of viable living on the beach i turned toward the setting sun.  again.  i watched a squadron of pelicans scan the waters.  a couple of surfers were a pair of black wetsuited dots on the mild waves.  families, couples, singles, & dogs, oh the dogs love running on the sand & in the waves!, was a tableaux vivant.  it was growing colder.  the fog rolling in.  nearby the hamlet of morro bay, five miles down the beach, with its giant morro rock, & its three iconic smokestakes from a long-ago shuttered powerplant, sticking in the sky like a californian mordor, was already socked in by the fog.  it was time to go home.  to the house on the beach.  for dinner.  for a few rounds of poker with anna & nick.  then to watch the 2024 summer olympics on TV.  for a few days in cayucos, the little beach town time forgot, with my family, i was once again home.