This wind is crisp for June. More brisk than any day I can remember for Morro Bay. In the twenty something years of coming to this rock that juts into the skyline, imposing its mass into the heavens as a sanctuary for Peregrine Falcons, I’ve never needed to buy a sweatshirt. And still, the wind brings a shiver to my bones as I wait for the others who meander through the gardens I fell in love with so many years ago. Gardens laced with art. Sculptures inspired by life, by religion, and sometimes by nature itself. Echo’s of the otters and wails from the seals reverberate—lonely calls into the air for something more than this—amongst the gallery’s wooden beams and perfectly placed art. The aquarium only a few steps away caters to those too tired to drive to Long Beach and to those too cheap to stay in Monterey, is a host to sad fish in ancient tanks slapped with a new coat of sea-foam green paint. We walk through. I shake my head and buy a souvenir in hopes the next time it will be different. That maybe, next time, the sea-foam green will change to navy or chartreuse.
I tug my hat down tightly while walking toward the harbor. The others still enamored by the aquarium, I try to find solace in the boats that bob gently in the wake of the incoming tide. These are not the vessels like the ones in San Diego. They do not look as if they cost more than the average home in Beverly Hills. They’re deceptively simple, sailboats with an actual sail and rigging lines that run from mast to mast. Small windows which barely peep over the water’s edge lapping at the hull. Working boats with rods sticking out from the stern as the smell of bait, I can only imagine, wafts off the deck into the cabin corners. Lockers of raw fish which smell, no doubt permeates down through the skin of the working boat’s fisherman. A smell the locals describe as "money".
Eventually the sun starts to lower playing peak-a-boo with the marina layer that stretches wide like a thin veil of surgical gauze. My sunglasses now off as the drive home starts. The car is quiet with contemplation. Two backseat passengers sleep under a blanket of soft, brown synthetic fibers while the third twirls the wheel of the iPod compiling the drive-home playlist. My best friend in the driver’s seat focusing on the big rigs which block both lanes on the 46HWY. She is afraid to pass. There is a reason why the James Dean HWY is also nicknamed Blood Alley. And me? Between the quips and snide comments, between the laughter and arguments I recognize that while this day was fantastic I’m not ready to give up comfortable just yet.
