San Clemente Pier
Of all the piers in California that I had encountered, San Clemente’s main wooden pier stood out, quite literally and also quite figuratively. It is where my camera finally bit the bullet (and the dirt, mud and small granules of yellow sand) where I took pictures of random lovers staring out into the expanse of the sea, hoping their future would have a never ending horizon as well, watched three hoola hoops swing in fast succession around a smiling girl in a euphoric dance and met two awesome people in my life, couch surfer Jitka and my good friend Claire Bush. A wonderful soul, good hearted, would uproot the very foundations of her life in a brash, spontaneous leap upwards, expecting never to touch the ground again. She is one of the most talented people I have ever met and cannot do anything but succeed. She really has no choice in that matter. We shared some good, deep laughs on this pier, the daylight, IV slow drips into a darker, more night sky, stars glimmering as daylight remembered. It was considerably cold for people of So Cal, but for me the night brought with it a warm breeze, swaying the palm trees, frozen as fuzzy thoughts, looking like watercolored postcards from somewhere tropical and that people only send to make those who see it, envious. Pretty much how I felt when I was staring at them, if only my camera had not R I Ped. Then again, like this picture, my words and descriptions, of moons and breezes, is taste to a heavy smoker, more an presumption than a filler in.