I do wish you could smell this place. A deep inhale of this sharp air and all of its redwoods, seashore, fireplace burning goodness. Always the faint smell of skunk and marijuana in the fields. It would do you good. Get out of the spot with the traffic and helicopters and tightly manicured orange trees.
And of course, I wish you could see this place too. We could lay on the forest floor not even caring about bugs or dirt or the giant yellow slugs who live under the leaves. We’d look straight overhead at the trees that are taller, the grasses reaching higher than the places you’re used to. Monarch butterflies return here every year to the same grove of trees. Have I told you that already?
We could feel the ocean, a cold shock up to our knees, and kick the bubble bath foam where it meets the shore. The sand is damp and filled with driftwood and sticks and seaweed and shell chips and the occasional bottle cap that you’ll put in your pocket to throw away later. I’ve always admired the people who can spy heart shaped rocks on the beach and make a collection out of them. I’m not one of those people.
If you could hear this place. The woods are deceptively quiet but if you wait, you would hear a general rustling. I imagine it’s the trees breathing. There’s always a rooster in a yard down the road and a woodpecker doing his job. And maybe you think all waves sound the same, but I swear waves are different here, their echoes are deeper in the bay, maybe.
We’d eat clam chowder and espresso on the pier and cotton candy at the Boardwalk. By the end of the day your skin would taste like salt and fog.
These things are not romanticized by the passing of time, but maybe you are. You probably are.
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