Drive to the Atlantic

His head was against the steering wheel, his hands gripping it on either side and he listened to the radio until the song had finished.  For him it was like some signal, some reminder and he just wanted to let it play out until he pulled the lever out of Park and started the drive.

With his eyes closed he remembered how she looked when she turned from him the last time.  In between now and then they had held some conversations, snippets he would call them.  Lovely sentences and sometimes a laugh.  But then he had wanted to see her, the way you unleash a craving and when it awoke inside of him he knew that he would have to make the drive.

But that craving had come after he had stowed away a martini or two, and he knew that there was no way he was going to be able to make the drive...so he went out to the car, climbed in and tilted the seat back so he could sleep.  It was a summer night and with the windows down the breeze came in and he closed his eyes and waited.

In a dream and falling he stirred and woke up with a jolt.  Blinking he rubbed his eyes and took a few breaths...he felt okay, but wasn't sure.  He started the car and the radio came on and so did the song...and he laid his head against the steering wheel as it played.

It ended and he started the drive.

The interstate was barren, devoid of all cars and mostly just long-haul truckers high on speed and Red-Bulls so he made amazing time.  He wasn't sure what her reaction would be...an illicit invasion and he wasn't even sure how to find her...maybe a text...maybe an email.  No call.

He just knew she was at the ocean.

He hit the Bay Bridge at dawn, when the east was melting away the prior night's blues...he crossed with the full orange and yellows in front of him and pitch black behind him.  A seagull hung beside him, high in the air until it spiraled off.  The windows were still down and the scent of the sea came roiling through...salty, humid...fresh in the morning.

Another reminder song came on, and he turned up the volume, slightly singing along as the day started climbing higher in the sky.  He wondered if she was still sleeping, sprawled out across the bed, her hair slightly covering her face.  He wondered if she might be awake, padding across the floor in her sleepwear, tussled and yawning and listening for the first drips of coffee.  Maybe she was awake and drinking a cup on the porch, looking at the same exact colors as he saw.  He decided he preferred that last image and pretended they were staring exactly at the same sun at the same time.

The song ended and commercials played...he sped up as he descended down the slope of the bridge, angling faster and moving straight east to a place where he knew she would be and he couldn't get there fast enough.

Night

He let the door swing gently open in front of him, the screen slightly protesting on its old hinges as he stepped out onto the porch.  The frogs were in full throat, the fireflies alighting across the deep dark lawn and a few moths stirred and danced against the porch light.

He held a cigar in his right hand to stave off the mosquitos and in his left hand was a double pour of bourbon with no ice to dampen the taste.

Right now she was in a perfectly pressurized airplane hurtling across the Atlantic, much closer to the stars then he was, her arc away from him, just a red-blinking streamlined piece of metal flying at 38,000 feet above a coal black ocean.  He imagined she was sleeping.

He hoped she was, pulling a sip from his drink and then inhaling a bit of the cigar to keep the bugs away.

Somewhere Pandora was playing...a Chris Botti radio station that he had hoped she would like...she had enjoyed one song but he wasn't ready to declare victory yet.

Instead he just watched the high contrails of blinking lights above him, wondering where the people were flying.  Heading away.

He enjoyed this time of the evening, when it was relatively still...his mind a calm room...a thought of her could walk in like somebody exiting a shower in a towel...a pleasant disruption.  A surprise.  Strolling languidly around, he narrowed his thoughts to just such an image...just murmuring of conversations...nothing heavy.  All light.

He tried to think about how far away she was from him, the speed of the airplane and the curvature of the earth and realized the math was too hard.  Super far was where he landed on an answer.  He wondered if she could see outside or if it was jet black.  

Probably sleeping he hoped again.

He returned to the thought of her walking around in his mind again and closed his eyes, the frogs and the crickets and the trumpet music soothing him as his cigar gently glared orange and his bourbon swirled brown in his glass, a color of her eyes and yet another reminder of her on this perfect summer night.

Passeggiata...a little walk

He didn't know how to speak Italian, but it was on his list of amazing things still left to do.  He had been there before, and was familiar with the concept of around sunset when young lovers would walk and converse...early stage romance when the jousting was designed to get to know one another, a laugh, a slight glance of a hand against a hand, the close-in streets purposefully pushing them together.

He remembered the scent of an Italian evening, the light humidity and the slight air of garlic and tomatoes and the lingering glaze of forever...the streets and the buildings seemed to have been there forever, so long ago that it was mind-numbing to consider.  It wasn't an old smell...rather, it was like the scent of a bookstore attic, where time passed so very slowly and we were just passers-by.

He remembered the noise from an Italian evening, the din of silverware against plates, the clank of glasses raised in toasts, the murmuring...the dialogue and the debate.  Italians gesticulated with their hands as they punctuated the evening air with emphasis...there was passion in the discussion, both sides weighing in...sometimes quietly, sometimes and more often than not loudly.  But mostly the echo of supper and food being shared, and conversation flowing as non-stop as the liquor in the glasses.

He remembered seeing the lovers, the ones slow walking, pausing often...mostly to turn and full-face each other.  The older couples walked beside each other, talking and barely turning...but the new loves were unable to glance at each other sideways...they had to turn and see the fullness of the other, the full-throated glimpse of somebody in front of them in an evening...blessed to be in this street, at this time, beneath a sky mottling in an evening.

The world was speeding by them, on Vespas and bicycles and activities and colors...the internet was pulsating in their pockets and reminding them of tomorrow's efforts and the weather and the scores in sports.  But in this street, this square thousands of years old they held a brief stare that felt like only a moment but mirrored a billion emotions bottled up from many years ago.

The ice in his glass was melting, the condensation wet and seeping off his drink and onto the table.  He wasn't in Italy.

But he thought about the full-face turn and the view of her and he was reminded of all those things that had been bottled up inside of him...not for one thousand years, but definitely feeling like something quite close to that.

Piers and Lighthouses

There are times that I am unmoored, adrift and stolen by some tides, lunar or otherwise that nudge around the days...around the nights in a blackened evening with very little shapes to guide me towards a horizon.

You blink at me like some far off lighthouse...the quick flash in an evening that I may miss if not looking carefully.

I have been in the rain at sea, when the water matches the color of the sky and the drops and it blends and obscures.  It hides and there is no land and it is hard to see a horizon at all.

I have been in the rain on a street, a sudden gust that has captured us unaware, and your hair slick wet and darkening and your eyes guiding me across to safety, a place to find cover.

I find that if I can be tied against you with some salt-laden ropes and some fine sailor's knot that I can survive any storm, be buffeted against by the most tropical depressions...that you still me with your hand and you ground me in a smile.

Lighthouses were built to warn, to stave off the approach and prevent being grounded up the rocks.  Your lighthouse eyes are beacons however, inviting and asking to come closer.

I pull in the water to drift your way, to glide or sail or paddle...to have you bring me in and let me sidle up and find my haven.

Slivers

A cut in the sky, low to the horizon and rising slowly in a Springtime dusk...the fingernail moon slides upward and posts its wry smile in a evening that is ending.

A slight reveal against the black plane of space and night sky.  It is so different than the full moon, completely unrelated...a different emotional planet.

A sliver.  A hint of things to come, lightness to reveal.  Almost like a wink.  It rises over the shadow black limbs of trees, it is a gray glimpse.

In the morning it washes out completely, the dawn erasing it like a smudge leftover from the night before.

Slivers...like tiny shapes that get under your skin, bits of wood, the fingernail moon is piercing a slight etching in the sky.

In the waning of a light it is the only color I can see.  The only contrast that I can detect.

But it is so far away, it is barely there.  It is almost like a reminder.  A memory.

It is like a bit of wood, piercing me, reminding me.

A memory.

Stay

The sound stayed hypnotic...the rhythm of beach waves, the spray of surf...in the evening ending in a nautical twilight the ocean became her heartbeat...it was a roar inside of her, a sensation she felt as the afternoon ended and the people plucked up their blankets and headed back into homes and hotels, routines and norms.

She stayed.

She loved the water...loved the wind and its scented breath.  She measured in moments, tiny spoon-filled portions that were different.  She stopped thinking for a bit...let the earth consume her. She found a peace that she rarely ever felt...her mind clogged with the grind of work, sand in gears of stress and deadlines.

In the moments by the water she felt a rupture, an unleashing...letting go.  So she stayed.

She took a short tip up the shoreline, letting the waves collect at her feet and draw her in.  She felt the sand, the coarseness, the slight sting if a shell glanced against her toe...her hair was in a breeze, cascading around her, her top pulled by the wind and warm...her feet cooler in the water.

She felt the tug of the ocean, the tug of the gulf.  She felt what sometimes her heart felt when it was pulled and plucked...she felt the draw, the curve and the slight movement towards the tide.  She balanced all that she could on that slight slope of the shoreline.  She was between the earth and the sea.  Between one world and another.

She came upon a group of pilings, driven deep into the sand, the pier they had supported long gone.  A walkway disappeared.  A feature altered.  Changed.

These pathways that took people to places they had never seen. Adventure, or at least something different.

Those had washed away, empty attempts.  Anyone could venture down the pier.

But the pilings stayed.  Driven deep.  She remarked upon them, noticing their perfect balance, against the earth and the sea.  Reminders.

Reminders of things that stayed stuck.  Things that held on.  Driven deep into the sand against storms and tides.

Accepted them.  Withstood them.

She walked amongst the pilings, feeling quite familiar with them.

Hey Pool Boy

There seemed to be, on the breeze, the scent of lavender, like the Pacific was exhaling a breath of warm wind that cascaded past the flowering cactus and past the blooming vines...it was what you might call Summer if it could be described.  It was clean.  Pristine.

He extended the full length of the pool net, a full 12-feet and calmly swept the pool to collect the leaves.  There were few.  He withdrew the net and let it drip as he flipped it over the fence to the steep drop-off next to the pool.  His back was turned when she emerged.

She stole in like a cat.

Legged, brunette and casual.  She didn't glance his way, rather focusing on the lounge chair of choice.  A quick glance at the sun to draw an angle that was best for sunning.  She had a broad hat on and a robe that was as white as the cement of the pool.

He turned and regarded her with a bit of a nod.  She didn't return it.

She peeled off the robe and flung it upon the chair next to hers.  She placed the hat there as well.

She sat on the lounge and pulled something from the robe.  A bottle of sunscreen.  She shook it slightly and then turned towards him.  He pretended to be skimming the clear blue water of the pool despite nothing was floating on it.  He went back and forth like a metronome.

She squeezed out some of the white liquid as it pooled in her hand, a small glob in her perfect grip.

She briskly rubbed her hands together, and starting at her perfectly painted coral toes she smeared the liquid upon her.

He pulled the net up and placed the long aluminum pole in its place on the fence.  He was controlling his breathing like somebody caught in a fire.

He walked over to the towel barn and found two heavy-cotton towels.  Her initials were upon them in a slight blue against the white.  They looked like a tattoo that he might get.  He wasn't sure.

They were already upon him though.  Those initials.  Perfectly etched.  Well maybe not perfect but definitely hers.

He slowly walked towards her, she was placing more lotion on her shoulders.

Could you please put some of this on my back?  It really wasn't a question but rather permission.

He took the bottle from her hand, a faint glance against her and spilled some into his hands.  He rubbed it til it was warm and then started on the high of her back.  Her skin was just coming from a winter and he made sure he covered her smoothly.  He made sure no residue or lines existed.

He moved lower, towards the small of her back...the slight blondish hairs just above her bathing suit bottoms.  He stayed well above that.

Please make sure you get the lower back.  

Again the bottle, again warming it with his hands.  He nestled just above the hem of her suit, feeling her skin give way beneath his touch.  He used his hands versus his fingers, wanting to just form her like a clay.  He stood up when he was done.

You have very good hands.  

He regarded her, reached down and tilted her chin in his hands, upturning her face to his.  Behind him the Pacific burned in a effigy of dimes, sparkles that lit up the sea and reflected into the blue sky, a lighter color than the ocean but almost the color of the pool.  Her eyes were brown, the color of the earth and the color of rivers that ran in sweet streams in his mind.  She was the land, behind him was the sea.  He connected the both of them.

He kissed her.  In a way that revealed.  The way you knew it wasn't the first and not the last, and that there had been some before...in quiet dark rooms and places far from outside by the pool.

He tasted her and it reminded him of the jasmine and the breeze coming off the Pacific. It was hers and hers alone.

He parted from her, and went back to pick up the brush to begin scrubbing the tile of the pool.  She settled onto a towel behind him, burning into his back with a stare that felt like wildfires.