It was 2018 when I last walked on the beach. The Christmas tree was still up, and I had a houseful of guests. Since then the guests have all gone home, the beach has been pounded with high surf as five different storms tried to drown the memory of fires and drought, and I've finally recovered from pneumonia.
Being on the sand today, I felt like a visitor to a strange land. The dredger is in the harbor making noise, and the beach is a tangle of blackened debris--detritus from the the Malibu fire, I guess, and huge pieces of things lay marooned here and there as if flung ashore by the angry hand of some irritable god.
This, I've heard, is a piece of the Ventura pier, washed ashore while I was still coughing and spending the day in my pajamas.
It's encrusted with its history, like all of us, whether we remain in place or are uprooted by force.
The world is brimming with turmoil these days. I feel lucky to be part of it.
