The Independent Abandon on the Sunday Before Monday
(title dedicated to a Mr. Joe James Inoue–the only person I know that fancies absurdly long titles for things)
The exhilaration of your car on a bridge that charges seven dollars for a crossing. (Is this actually highway robbery?) The bridge is red, and when the sky is blue you wonder what it would feel like to stay on the bridge, in the middle lane, all day. Going straight towards nowhere forever.
A veer right and a turn left leads you down windy roads, (that make me question the choice to do this alone).
Blind mountain corners, and the wrong song playing, but it is not wise to attempt to change the tune let alone look at where I am supposed to be going.
“Sooner or later one of us must know”
(shut up Bob!)
“I never get lonesome, never in the day”
(lies, Arthur, lies!)
Four miles felt like 40.
The descent invited low hanging clouds and the dread of sleeping in on a weekend, because
“If it had been earlier, If I had woken up earlier, If only if only if only” she thinks.
Steep Ravine (the trail) was on my right and the campsite of the same name was to my left.
I parked and got out looking for any blue sky peaking out.
The trail was overgrown and looked as though the chances for a suntan were minimal at best.
A jaunt down to the campsite and another trail head that would take me back up to the highway was taken with the least resistance.
Hiking alone goes fast.
No lolly gagging.
Just the crunch of gravel and faded tones of waves crashing, plus birds.
The cliff sides here are different from the crumbling desert ones I grew up balancing on.
Different from those sharp Big Sur ones too.
These ones are rocky and green and blonde and have Granite perches that make you look down even though you have never stood so tall. All together at once tall and small and just something somewhere on a Sunday.
The fog began to melt and Stinson Beach looked like the blonde streak I would gravitate towards eventually. (California and blondes just make sense and I am just a girl with a weakness for them).
The story became about bronzing skin on some Californian sand, while cherry pits got fished out of my mouth. The pits landed in the sand and the whole act is reminiscent of table manners and biodegradable things–like watermelon rinds and orange peels.
Stinson Beach offered little to no surf, (conditions poor)
yet, there were a few people on surfboards (probably the rented kind).
Cherries pitted and piled (or rather scattered) in the sand, stems too.
An ocean dip was mandatory and happened to not be that bone chilling, leading to two more.
Going to the beach in Northern California features a lot more sun protection. People have tents and I think it is tacky and ugly, but I guess I do not know what I am missing out on. These tent people however are missing tan lines. I’d do many things to attain the white stamped outline of a bikini over my chest and hips. These pale triangles that mark my body make their presence known in brief moments, like toweling off fresh out of the shower.
An older German couple stretched not that far from my left. They fell asleep on their sides facing each other. The wife facing southbound (and I trust you can imagine how her husband looked). Unfortunately, a foursome made up of two men and two women landed on my right. Making their initial presence known because one guy (let’s call him Kyle) said to the other guy (let’s call him Chad)
“Did you ever hacky sack at Stanford?”
Chad said he had been known to “hack the sack” (whatever that means, it sounds like a euphemism, oh how I wish I did not have to write this!)
That being said, the foursome showed up to the beach in socks and shoes and talked about New Balances, but called them “New Bs” This comment led me to infer that if they went to Stanford and called New Balances “New Bs” they must live in the Marina. My hypothesis proved correct.
Maybe not that ironically, but in between the second and third salt water plunge, Chad declared with much fervor (and volume) “I love chipotle aioli.” A preference I have determined is a personality trait because the people that love it, make it known and are the type of people called Chad (or Alison, Allison, or Alyson). Then there was discussion of air fryers, gym memberships, steak, Stanford (again), and talking about living in San Francisco after Stanford. How original. All of which set me over the edge, it was the invasiveness of it all. Not only was this the most pointless discussion ever had, but it was so loud I could not read and thus had to tune in. It became clear I would be the only one on this beach subject to overhear my nightmare of a double date and think about how ludicrously hilarious it all was.
The sun was almost at eye level when the clock struck six something (pm). It is the time of year now when the sun won’t lay to rest till eight thirty and I had an hour till home (only 14 miles mind you, there is no traffic, just two windy lanes for 6 miles, plus a Robin Williams tunnel and the red bridge again).
The drive back on a stretch of coast I hadn’t seen until now (this Sunday before Monday) was what you’d expect.
California’s edge turned gold and green and extra pretty and very Pacific, what felt like just for me. And in some ways it was just for me, because I sat behind the wheel and a sandy beach towel wrapped around a damp bikini sat unbuckled in my passenger seat with the window rolled down. I figured on a weekend where everyone I knew was out of town or busy, I must get used to this arrangement. It is a good one especially when a retreat is the sunny sandy kind.
5 miles before the red seven dollar passageway, the Farrallon Islands stood proud and so did Sutro Tower. Silhouettes that keep me company, incapable of moving or blinking, but sometimes they tuck behind fog and will greet you if you are lucky and looking.
The soundtrack on the pilgrimage back to the city featured:
“All I'm saying is I'm not ready for any person
Place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me”
(Yes and No)
“One day they were cutting flowers for something to do”
(loves me, loves me not; I remember you/I remember me)
“And it feels like I've got something to prove
But in some ways, it's just something to do”
(The agenda of a Sunday before Monday)
Driving an hour, hiking, turning around, tanning, reading, swimming, eavesdropping, de-pitting cherries with your own teeth can eat up a Sunday, especially the kind that are followed by Monday.
