Sitting around a picnic table in a dark campground in Big Sur. Masks back on after a take-out meal eaten.
“This isn’t fun.”
We had three separate tents. There was no cracking open of beers, though I had a Topo Chico I was polishing off. Gotta have that seltzer water. We didn’t start a campfire. We didn’t do any of those things. The campgrounds around us were silent.
We’d talk the next morning. The campgrounds felt too close together. The atmosphere of revelry that sometimes happens was missing. Maybe it’s that it wasn’t a cheap state park. The thrill of escaping from it all, just for a night, hadn’t felt like it should have. There were nerves and the clouds of novel coronavirus hanging over it all.
Every surface I touch outside my house feels like a minefield. I couldn’t hug friends I hadn’t seen in more than a year. Moments that necessitated even the barest carpooling felt like a danger, even masks on, even if we’d all tested negative.
The openness of a beach felt better. Not too crowded — maybe how little roadside parking there was. There was a spirit of exploration, finding little nooks, little crannies on the cliffs along the side. There was still a little navigating around people, but a wider berth. Only the stairs to get up and down felt like the claustrophobia of a hiking trail.
It’s been harder to enjoy things, but I always enjoy the beach, the odd calm in the violence of the waves, even as some got near waist level, even as some nearly washed away my shoes.
There’s always the ocean, when the beach isn’t so crowded. There’s still the ability to sit back and feel the right kind of small. A speck. The microcosm of staring out in space. As you look into the ocean, it goes on inconceivably long. There’s no swimming to the other side. Looking at the waves as they crash, they’d pummel you before you could even try.
The way home was the Pacific Coast Highway. The ocean off to the left. I was returning to reality, but in some ways, reality never left me behind. The anxiousness of the campground. The random feelings of anxiety. But those are always there. Never more than an hour without one.
There’s no true escape from reality right now. Reality is full of peril. There are the fleeting moments. Maybe that’s what we need to grasp on to. The crash of the waves when we can.
Links
Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation (NYTimes) — John Lewis’ last words to us all. May we heed them.
Uninteresting Places (Popula)
The Wonderful (and Surprisingly Legal) World of Disney Mockbusters (io9)
Mental Health
It’s been down. Down down down. I’ve been trying to pack to move but stricken with low energy. Been trying to work my way through projects at work, but distracted by how daunting they felt. I’m staring at an apartment full of boxes, but know there are more to pack. I’m at the point of the small things. The worst part of packing. There are things to get rid of — hard during right now. I’m overwhelmed by my home life and work life and underwhelmed by my personal life. I feel bored and lonely and weird and sad and like I don’t know the way out. I should be excited about a move, but I don’t yet feel it. I’ve had a couple moments. I want to feel a way out of it.
Science
I wrote a book about, at some level, how the oldest method of planet finding had never yielded a real planet. But this week, they did find one, and through radio waves none-the-less. Watching a star change position due to a planet is difficult. The Gaia telescope will make it possible, but we may not find any until its next data release.
But we watched a star wobble because of a telescope and that’s pretty cool.
Jams
I did not expect, 20 years after I only kind of liked them that I’d listen to a blink-182 song on repeat, but now we have “Quarantine,” which is an odd little blast of old man punk. Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s nostalgia. But I actually kinda like the song.
If it's that God damned black dog, he is a lying SOB. Breathe....and then don't stop!!!