“You going home now?” The broken English of the gas station attendant rattles in through my drowsy ears. As I rub leftover sleep out of my eyes, my head nods a sleepy “yes” and I swing the gas nozzle back into its cradle. The old attendant stands with his hands folded neatly behind his back and nods his graying head in agreement. “Be safe then. Enjoy.” Then he disappears into his little garage without a backward glance because he knows he will see me again next week.
At about 6AM every Sunday morning I stop at this corner gas station to fuel my car with ambition for the journey ahead that will jumpstart my day, my week, and always my life. As a single parent, there are times when I become buried in my seemingly endless days at the office and struggle through “all-nighters” as I study for my college degree. TherearemomentswhenIfeelcompletelylost even though I am on a strictly guided path of responsibilities and obligations. So, while my daughter sleeps soundly in the comfort of her grandparents’home, I steal the first few hours of every Sunday for myself.
This has been a routine of mine for about nine years now, and mine has become a familiar face to the old man at the gas station. He politely asked me once, either for the sake of conversation or out of genuine curiosity, if I was on my way to church. I shook my head no and explained that I was on my way to the ocean. “Oh, you live in Santa Cruz? That is very nice,” he said in a happy and approving tone.
“No, I don’t live there, but I think sometimes that my heart does,” I replied with an apologetic smile. He paused for a thoughtful moment, then raised his chin out to the side a little, “Ahh, if your heart lives there,” he said with a gentle finger pointed at my heart and his whole body tilting forward a little with the motion,“then that is certainly your home.” He seemed quite pleased with this notion, and almost immediately I came to adopt it myself. So, now here I am, yet again on my way home where all my worries will be washed away while I reconnect with the world around me. My weekly mission will take me out of Los Gatos, through the mountains on a winding treacherous road known to locals only as “17”, and on to a quiet beach just south of the town of Capitola – or, as my wise acquaintance so earnestly calls it, home.
These days I have taken up the habit of expanding this concept of home and wrapping it around the idea that I am related to all those who cross the path of my little weekly pilgrimage. So it is that my fellow commuters at this hour of day usually consist of distant cousins: hardcore surfers driving different versions of beat up old pick up trucks with random pieces of duct tape and decaying surfing stickers plastered over them and torn up surfboards wrapped in blankets sticking out of their truck beds. Of course my cousins and I share the road with our disowned yuppie relations who drive trendy sport utility vehicles with polished, lazy, roof racks that see action maybe once a week. There are also the occasional uncle-like big rigs, which are mostly tanker trucks weighted down with gasoline. Motor homes and camper trucks too, like distant relatives being brought to the fold for the first time, carefully plod along these unfamiliar roads.All us drivers have one thing in common; our use of rear view mirrors is minimal. We are united in a destination that for unique reasons consumes us – the Pacific Ocean.
As my decrepit little Honda chugs along with my fellow travelers, I wake up a little more with every mile, and I let my mind wander into this game of identifying new relatives. Together, we cruise along the winding mountain road, sometimes passing those irritating kid siblings whose cars can’t handle the grades efficiently, and sometimes being passed ourselves after failing to take advantage of downhill slopes like our older brothers who had cut us off to do so - and with such gusto! We cruise in and out of little pockets of fog that hug the towering redwood trees and past wayward deer that are either too curious about this parade or slightly suicidal. Cautiously we all glide around Big Moody Curve, and I bite my lip in a silent prayer of hope to all my ancestors who began their final journeys north on that deadly bend. Then I turn the corner on that one unnamed stretch of road that tests every driver’s visual comprehension of sky versus sea, and on past the happy whale sign on the outskirts of Scotts Valley. It seems I have sped past that sign a million times and can never recall exactly what the billboard’s intentional message is – my mind nags me that its purpose is to promote car sales, but for me it just hollers like a silly nephew, “Ocean – 15 minutes ahead!!”
Then there is the unclenching of my knuckles from the steering wheel as I pick up the pace on the flat, safe stretch through Scott’s Valley. There are no more blind corners now, only the straight happy road that seems to be extended out like the gangway to a beloved grandfather’s boat for all us youngsters trapped on dry land. Eventually there is a change of direction, from southwest to straight south as my tires kick me onto Southbound Highway 1 – the highway, who, like a brazen stepmother, flaunts her love affair with the Pacific Ocean and is now legendary throughout California for her bewitching ways.
There are more cars on the highway now by the time I’m at this stretch of it, mostly the same campers, surfers, and weekend warriors but doubled in number as the westbound merge with the southbound. There are fewer tanker trucks here though; those uncles are most likely loitering behind on “17” in a slow crawl that serves to block the path from the impending sun seekers and party crashers driving over from the valley. On I drive, south past the city street exits that lead into the ever free and happy Santa Cruz, and past the contradiction of pretentiousness and sincerity that is the little town of Capitola.
Now the last exit for Capitola appears, and I take the off-ramp that will lead me home to the edge of my world. I roll into a classic “California Roll” (learned through years of examples set by cooler and blonder brothers) where my car blatantly defies the stop sign by never actually coming to a complete standstill. My body performs a rare work of contortionism as I simultaneously roll down my car windows and root through the litter on my floorboards for my state park parking permit. I can’t get enough of the heavy fog and the smell of cleanness that permeates all my senses as my car slowly wanders through the parking lot.
There is a smell that accompanies beaches in the early mornings along the Pacific Ocean throughout the Monterey Bay not unlike the consistent perfume worn by a favorite aunt. It is the thick smell of sea-salt that seems caught in the foggy morning air, the distant aroma of campfires, and the unnamable, but definite scent of redwood trees. The pungent smell of sunscreen, barbeques and tourism in general has been washed away by the sea wind overnight, and now the coastal fog has settled in to deodorize this tucked in stretch of bay. My bare feet escape the confines of my Honda andfindthesticky,coldpavementasmyhands bury themselves deep inside my sweatshirt. My eyes are pulled to the ocean as I ramble down the beach stairs and through the front yard of my home almost in a trance.
A sidelong glance to the north and south of my beach catches two of those surfer cousins greeting their blond brothers as they all greedily bounce out through the white foamy remnants of waves, and then there are a few beachcombers that seem to be like cozy great-grandparents strolling along and occasionally stooping ever so slowly over to pick through clusters of seashells. Of course I spot some inescapable second cousins (thankfully twice removed by marriage) who are fitness fiends, plugged into their music and foolishly running down the beach as if there were somewhere better they needed to be.
I stroll for a ways along the water’s edge, just taking in the quieting roar of my ocean as it whispers the sweetest welcome into my soul. As tranquility floods the core of me, I plant myself in the pure, but cold, sand that has been allowed a reprieve from the tide’s slobbering kisses. With the hem of my sweatshirt hugging my ankles and my knees pushed up under the warmth of it, I sit wrapped in the glory of the breaking day. As I greedily soak up the love that my earth, ocean and air wrap around me, my soul feels all the comforts of home and my heart sends out a message of thanks and love to these eternal parents while the ocean echoes my joy at being home once again.
First published in the 2006 Olympiad of the Arts Anthology
