Pressed

The many small worries of family and obligations sprout like weeds between the cracks in the concrete.

Winter shrugs its hazy brow, and rain falls often these days. People avoid the slick oiled roads and the peppered spouts of a convivial Calandra. Not often do they see her cry, her tears come capriciously and hardly ever! The January days fleet like old weary soles, the last bit of rubber giving way to the sprinter’s footsteps. The harbor grows quite without the rabble of tourist, and our numbers dwindle with the thickening of cool air. Even in this silence, time eludes the grasp.

The whales slowly enter the harbor as the earth warms at Winter’s turn. The family is growing, though father I am not. Son and brother, uncle and cousin, I am threaded into the fabric of other lives. Not everyone survives the year. People change and grow. We honor them in spring. That’s when they say the savior is risen anyhow! Still there is no time.

Soon the spring sky yields to the grimacing summer. She’s glorious and beautiful, her appearance on Orange County beaches catches the gazes of women and men alike. Fresh off the plane, visionaries, influencers extraordinaire, the money of millionaires flashes and illuminates in the shadows of the ill lit lampposts. Then comes the sightseers, the hobbits that leave their shire in pursuit of their own adventures. People seek nature in want of their own legends. He sees them all at their best and at their worst. The workers that have lived in these parts for years, the saline mist as important as the sunrise—lingering moistly at midnight—they see it too. The days expire quicker than the instagram stories, which are eaten up like the Costco samples sliced by the bevy. The real thing is actually on aisle 5!

Fall brings the last push. The motorcade of foreign tourist, faces from overseas, make their foray towards the coast. There is a particular air, a different feel than the typical crowd. I hear their smiles and intrigues, and from them too, a wisdom lost to our shores. They saunter in their wonder at this thing always taken for granted. It is such a beautiful place. Sometimes I forget the blessing; we walk as giants of the earth. Still the world turns and the weeks fade into oblivion.

Take a breath; Still there times remain, immutable and enduring. A year lost is a year gained, and some where in between I find myself. There is more to be done!