Driving North -homeward-

SWR report
June 17, 2008

Kerouac talked about running down the mountain. How it set him free - how it was so much easier to go down than up. He let his arms span wide, balanced his body, and let his body free fall down the mountain.

We return - and it is much faster than I would like, less glorious, a dwindling of spirit. We are fed by our spirits on the way home - we have fed our spirits to the brim, and now, we eat off the reserve.

We leave from the south of San O'nofre: the power plant that holds steady in the cobblestone floor that reaches out in one wide point; we leave those ten foot waves cheering each new rider, we leave Chris with his new barbeque and 6' foam board that carved its name in those faces; we head up pass Mission Viejo and San Clemente, where I miss Cameron and Theresa; we leave Huntington, home of Sunset Cliffs and Bolsa Chica and Larry and Trish and the yellow room, we leave Tony and we leave Mothers' miso soup.

We pass all the highways going north that seem to carve their names indelibly on our souls until our return. Especially the south bay of LA - my youth framed in highway signs: Rosecrans Ave; Manhattan Ave; El Segundo Bld., Grand Avenue - where I first learned to surf with the green Vardeman surfboard; LAX; Washington Blvd., Venice - where Tahm takes his daily strolls to the water and surfs the small peaks of his home break - where Peter is left writing his projects in the sundrenched apartments of Santa Monica; we leave Ventura in all its picture perfect points - in fact we stop to look at the glass and the nose riders and the latest models of bikinis; and we pass the homes of Tim Coonan and Craig Montgomery and their kindness; and on to Santa Barbara.

But we can't keep going and visit Isla Vista and quickly change into wet suits for one last surf at a spot we hadn't touched yet: Campus Point. There we paddled north into the funnest little peak that had juice behind it enough to spit a small hollow curl out into an extended glassy shoulder. The sun was warm. the wave was welcoming, the water was turqoise (no kidding), the sand copper, the cliffs were tumbling green vegetation and flowers fell like cataracts down to the brown rocks.

We pass my favorite stretch of California, from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria - I swear I could live in these golden folds of oak forests and rolling foothills where the land looks dry yet fertile and rich and thick - where a river runs through it - where Steinbeck rested his head on a small outcrop in the sun, felt the intoxicating tradewind from nearby Goleta, and dreamt.

We finally fall into the valley just in from where 101 careens northeast about ten miles, into San Luis Obispo. There we sleep before we part and Joe heads north to home in Sebastopol from where we first began our journey. Here, I continue my journey.

It was sad to see Joe go. For two weeks we followed summer wedded and committed to waves, sun, disc golf, coffee shops, camping, telling stories, reading stories, guitars, surfboards, wax, wet suits, gas prices, meeting new people, mexican food, spelt scones, and all things travel on the road brings to it. Most of all, we shared the many waves, the water - always back to the water, the splash of blue on our faces as we paddled over and over and over, baptized each time with the hope of grace, the hope of dance, the hope of walking on water, the hope of dreams.