The question is where to start. Actually no, that's not even it. For this, the start and the end are easy. They're already written I've told myself. This is an in between story. It'll be a true story. True's better, I think. Because the best stories aren't ones we've made up, not entirely anyways. They have to ring true, so I don't think I'll stray too much. Everyone stray's a little though, so that's to be expected. But always keep the path in sight. Stay close to the road for this one. I mean, I always do, so I don't think I'll have to worry about that. But where to start...
There's a beginning in the end sometimes, so I'll look there first. The end of the Daydream. Maybe I'll start with the road. I should. I'll be seeing it a lot in this book, so let's first get acquainted.
*******
US 101
Coming over the hill and into the Valley on the 405, you hit US 101 right next to the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Take that north and it'll take you straight to San Francisco in the ballpark of six and a half hours or so, depending on your timing. And on the traffic. It can be a bitch if you time it wrong. If you catch rush hour traffic in Santa Barbara you're fucked, but if not you'll be in San Luis Obispo in a little over three hours, and then you'll be half way there. But I don't think I've ever actually taken the US 101 straight into San Francisco. I always got off about an hour or so early to take the 152 west to the coast and Highway 1 and to Santa Cruz.
I like travel light. Surfboard, wetsuit, towel, booties, and a bag for clothes and jackets and shit. I usually roll two splits for the drive too. One for the Los Angeles traffic, and one for the high speed flying guaranteed after Santa Maria. That first time was no different. I left after a late breakfast burrito and coffee at George's around 11:00. Traffic's not too bad in the late morning, early afternoon, and if I really run it right I can get through Santa Barbara before the rush hour with a quick surf in.
There was swell in the water, I remember, that first time going back. Not much though, Malibu was too small. Zuma was bigger, but mixed up and closed out and blown out like it always is. Foggy in the hills and it started clearing up just before Leo, and County Line was somehow perfect. Four- to six-foot waves rolling in on glass, like there'd been a goddamn oil spill up the coast or something. Silk smoothly. Love truly. The tide was low and coming up. I couldn't not pull over for that. How could I? No. No, I had time for this. There weren't even that many people out. Weekday crowd somehow.
Luckily there wasn't any traffic coming up PCH so I never smoked the first spliff. Usually I don't like to surf when I'm high. And also, an after-surf spliff is just the best. I was glad I didn't smoke it. Chalk it up to good life choices, I guess. Burrito in the tank, that free RipCurl 4/3 and the 6'1 EPS thumbie that Bill Johnson had finally finished shaping for me. Just in the knick of time for this, her maiden trip. I hadn't even ridden her yet.
And let me tell you, she didn't disappoint. I love Bill's boards. Always have, especially the customs he's shaped for me over the years. I'd always get the same thing: 6'1 x 18 1/2 x 2 1/4 EPS. A Hobgood Thumbtail. They're like my magic sticks, I love them. The first time up on the newbie at County that day was like butter on hot toast, like I'd been warming up on her for weeks. No slight, no stutter, just a firm rail and pop like you wouldn't believe. It was that new board pop, and I was test-drive gunning it, fifth-gear on my trusty PC-5 fins. Lord have mercy, what a session. A constant conveyor belt out to the peak where the waves wrapped around south side of the point, and over to Boneyards in front of the rocks, and when I didn't feel like paddling that much anymore I caught a few lefts coming in on some mysto sandbar in front of the beach. Those might've been the best ones. I love going left. I love spliffs in my car too, all tired, and still breathing hard.
I made it through Santa Barbara just before 4:00.
Long Cold Winter
With the South winds that carry all the lost, uncivil, un-battoned down brevity, picked up in the dry desert air, freed of mind and all-do responsibility to the future, to structure, and to stationary living, I'm pulled North on short sails, forests, and four wheels, crisp mountain air by the sea. Santa Cruz. Your scent precedes you.
I was just going to help Mike and Monster move out of the Western house and into the new place on Grandview, just across the 1 from the 7-Eleven, into a two bedroom, two bath, ground floor flat with a porch that opened out onto the wide patch of grass that ran the length of the building between it, and the sidewalk and the street.
Oh, the memories.
[stop]
I started taking a lot of pictures that year. I'd take Monster's camera out for a bike ride down Swift Street to West Cliff. Past Getchell's and Mitchell's and the beach in the cove just north of the lighthouse. Usually it was just to check the surf. Get a bike ride in and warm the legs up. But bringing Monster's camera along was always nice. Something about riding up and down a cliffside bike path, seeing things I'd seen a hundred times before, but seeing this tree different this time. Or that rocky outcrop. Or the sand that only showed at low tide. And of course, the clouds. There's nothing more fleeting than cloud formations. They're always different. Never the same or in the same place, or with the same sunlight. They're what keep the same place always new and interesting and freshly beautiful. Sadly, not many people care too much for clouds. Unless it's at sunset. And even then, most times they just see the sky and the colors, and not what fills them.
It's the clouds that keep me going. Still, to this day. And on low days, if there're clouds in the sky - just clouds, mind you, not rain, because fuck the rain - they can turn everything around for me. I just look up in wonder and feel the soul fill with the white puffs and swirling heavens.
I had taken an intro course in photography at Santa Monica College before transferring to Santa Cruz for my last two years of university. When I say it like that, it doesn't sound like much, I just learned the basics. But with something like photography, the basics are all you really need to know anyways. It's like writing in a way. Except I'd had much more practice with the latter. And it doesn't come so easy.
[stop]
