California Sunset

I knew, all along, that this day would come. The sun has set:



on my time off. The shops have closed:



the volleyball courts are empty:



and I got on a plane and flew home.

The weird thing, though, is that I don't miss California. I'm not saying I didn't like it, because I did. I had some good food (one salad was so delicious that I got almost to the bottom of the bowl before I realized that there were green onions in it), and I got to walk a lot on a nice, paved path on the beach. Walking along the ocean in the morning was so soothing that I didn't use my iPod at all, instead just listening to the waves, and in the evening I got to listen to the waves and to the drone of traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway on the other side. It was like walking in a cocoon of white noise, and the temperature was beautiful as long as I walked at dawn or dusk.

I'm under no illusions that I saw the real California, though. One of my friends said that I should get a job out there, so I could live by the beach all the time, but I work in higher education. If I got a job out there, it wouldn't pay enough to live in this version of California:



but it was nice to visit. I think that every time I visit California.

And then I always come home.

Bobby's Funeral

On Sunday I went to a funeral for a stranger.

This was not in my travel plans for the trip to California, but I was here and the funeral was here, so I went ahead and attended the service with about a thousand other people, lined up all along the pier that I've been walking to and from in the mornings and the evenings.

I didn't know Bobby, the man who died, but I was able to gather (and by "gather" I mean, of course, that I eavesdropped on all of the conversations around me) that he was in his mid to late 40's. The numbers that I heard most often were 43 and 47, so I assume that one of them is correct. I know that he died from cancer, although nobody knew or nobody said what kind. I know that he was cremated, and that the reason so many mourners were gathered at the pier is that his ashes were going to be scattered into the ocean on the north side. Someone said that Bobby would find it ironic that the north side was his final resting place, but no one said why. As a stranger, I didn't think it was my place to ask.

The reason so many people were gathered, even strangers, to see Bobby's ashes scattered is that Bobby was also a surfer, and that meant that he had a surf memorial. I'd never seen one, and probably never will again, but here's how it worked.

The mourners/attendees were split into two groups: those on the beach and those on the pier. Those on the pier were all in regular clothing, and many carried flowers or leis. I was surprised to see so few of them in black, but this appears to have been a pretty informal affair, which I can only assume Bobby would have wanted. Those on the beach, including some of Bobby's family, gathered beneath the pier for a prayer and a few words, and then, all of them in wetsuits and carrying their surfboards, they took to the water and began to swim out into the sea:



The man in the front appeared to be a pastor, although someone near me said that he was a church youth group leader and not ordained. Again, I did not feel that I was in a position to ask a lot of questions.

After the leader decided they were far enough out, which was a little tricky because the lifeguard truck announced just before they took to the water that due to the high waves no one should be out further than 200 yards, the surfers began to circle their boards and hold hands:



This is a lot more difficult than it sounds like it should be. I was thinking, "How hard can it be to float into a circle and grab each other?" but due to the waves the circle kept breaking as it tried to form, and sometimes people slipped off of their boards when they didn't mean to, and had to maneuver back into place.

It took about twenty minutes for them to get the whole circle together, with Bobby's family and some close friends in the center:







Once they did, someone in the center of the circle said a few words, they bowed their heads, and then the people on the pier began throwing flowers, leis, and flower petals into the water. The circle pulled in on itself as the people in the center began to scatter Bobby's ashes, and then people started to wish him well:



That was the part that surprised me. The people in the water were cheering, laughing, and clapping as they tried to stay on their boards and threw their own flowers (most of which they had carried in their teeth or tucked into the backs of their wetsuits), and the people on the pier were clapping and yelling back at them.

"So long, Bobby!"

"Bye, Bobby!"

"Safe journey, Bobby!"

I've never been to a funeral where everyone seemed so happy before. It was kind of like Bobby was leaving for a trip, and all of these people showed up at the pier to see him off. I didn't see anyone crying, and for a few minutes it seemed like everyone shared in positive feelings. I felt included in a moment of togetherness and, oddly, hope.

I didn't know Bobby, but I really enjoyed his funeral.

A Chat with Myself on the Beach

Yesterday morning I had a brief chat with myself on the beach, spurred by this statue that I saw:



As is usually the case when I'm not in a hurry and come across a piece of art, I began to walk around it, snapping pictures, while I tried to decide what the best angle and lighting would be.

Oh, that's interesting. Let me get a little closer.



He doesn't have any shorts on. Is he naked?

No, he's not naked. You've seen like 500 surfers in the past three days. They wear wetsuits. He's wearing a wetsuit.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.



That's a nipple. Why does his wetsuit have nipples?

Are you sure? Oh, wait, yeah, that's totally a nipple.

Maybe it's like in that Batman movie? The one where the Batsuit had nipples?

Jesus, that movie was awful.

Yeah. Hey, wait...



I can see his junk.

Yeah, that's not a wetsuit. He's naked.

...

Better get a photo.

The OC

After leaving Kansas City a few of us went home and a few of us flew onward, into the golden west. We have a second conference this week in California, and rather than fly back to Tennessee and then fly out again we flew straight here, and are paying for our own hotel rooms for the couple of nights in between. It's like a little mini vacation, and boy, has it been vacation-ish so far. Even though I've woken up at 4 AM local time for the second day in a row I feel totally relaxed, and I'm impatiently waiting for the sun to come up so that I can go walk again. Yesterday I walked over 20,000 steps, a personal best for me. That's 10 miles of walking in one day, and rather than laying around and moaning in pain like I did in March when I walked a similar distance I'm watching the sky out of my hotel room window for the first sign that I can walk some more.

Why?

Because of the beach.



Oh, God, the beach.



I don't even really like beaches that much. You get sand in your shoes and there's glass and trash and dirty needles and sometimes feet washing up on them all the time and there's no way in hell I'm getting in that slimy salty shark-infested water, especially if it means I have to take my shirt off in public or zip into a form-fitting wetsuit. Nope. Not a fan of the beach.

Except that here, I suddenly like it.

I walked down to the beach on our first night here, just as the sun was setting.



Our hotel has a bridge that crosses the Pacific Coast Highway, and then there's a paved walking path all along the beach down to a pier:



The first night it all seemed nice, but I hadn't really formed any impressions beyond that. There are a lot of people, but they're mostly polite (no one bumped into me or picked my pocket; I guess my standards for "polite" are pretty low), and there's a constant breeze off of the water. I thought it was kind of hilarious that I was walking around in a t-shirt thinking about how great the weather here is while the locals were bundling up in jackets, hats, and gloves and the hotel was putting warmers out on the patio, but I guess it's relative to what you're used to.

Yesterday morning is when I started to really like it here. I woke up, got my walking clothes on, and waited for daylight. And waited. And waited some more.

Stupid time zones.

When it was finally light, I headed toward our bridge, where the hotel's "Beach Amenities" stand was setting up. It was closed the night before, but yesterday morning it was open to hand out towels, chairs, umbrellas, and whatever other amenities are behind the desk that I couldn't see. The kid working it looks straight out of "Orange County Central Casting": tall, tan, lanky, deep-voiced, with long, naturally-streaked blond hair. He looked exactly like the kind of person you'd expect to see working a beach stand, and I wondered if the hotel assigned him there on purpose, but didn't want to ask. Instead, I wanted to get to the beach.



People were walking, running, jogging, rollerblading, and biking all along the path and, in some cases, in the sand. I passed a sunrise prayer service and a morning yoga session, and down by the pier there was some kind of awful training session going on where people were sprinting up and down the steps while a trainer yelled at them to do it faster. It seemed kind of awful, so I hung out on the pier for a while to watch the surfers instead.

Huntington Beach is home to the Surfing Walk of Fame, a collection of sidewalk plaques in the general area of the statue of Duke Kahanamoku:



Olympic swimming gold medalist and, according to the plaque at the base of the statue, the father of modern surfing.

The surfers swim out from the shore:





and when they get a little ways from shore they wait:



for the ways to come in. When they do, the surfers surf:









When I got tired of watching them, I watched the pelicans, which are completely unafraid of people and walk up and down the pier while the people fishing throw them scraps of bait:







Beyond that, I did the kinds of things I always do when I have free time in a strange place. I walked around and looked at things:













had some food (in this case, oatmeal at the hotel):



and I went to a little tent market down by the pier. I bought one of the reusable tote bags in this photo, for taking to the Farmer's Market and carrying books to and from McKay's, and because I wanted a souvenir that wasn't from a souvenir store:



I watched some beach volleyball for a while:



or, more technically correct, I watched some guys play beach volleyball for a while, which was like watching "Top Gun" with all of the boring airplane parts cut out. Later, even though I was already at 7 miles for the day, I walked down to the pier again:



to watch the sunset on the beach:



and to think about how many steps I can get in before the conference starts.

I'm dressed and ready to go, and I'll be out there as soon as the sun comes up.