Light 13
Zuma Daze United States
Text
zuma beach dazethe marine layer rolls in like a bad decisionyou made at nineteenand never quite shook.you can’t see fifty feet.the lifeguard tower floats in the graylike a ghost with a day job,and somewhere out there the waterkeeps doing what it’s always done,not caring whether you watch.you came here to think ahead.that’s the joke.you drove up PCH with the windows downto figure out the next moveand the fog said no.the fog said today you get ten feetin any direction,take it or leave it.and the breeze, if you can call it that,doesn’t blow so much as lean on you.salt and kelp and somebody’s charcoalfrom a fire pit that died at dawn.it sticks to your arms,your hair,the inside of your head.the surfers sit out there anyway,black shapes on a gray sheet,waiting for something they can’t see coming.maybe that’s the whole instruction manual.you wanted a horizon.you got a wall of soft nothingand the sound of waterhitting sand it’s hita billion times before.sit down.the sand is cold and a little damp.the future is out there past the fog line,same as it ever was,and it’ll still be there at noonwhen the sun burns throughwhether you solved anythingor just sat here,sticky with salt,breathing.that’s the thing about zuma.it doesn’t clear up because you need it to.it clears up when it’s ready.mostly you just wait,and the waiting,it turns out,was the day.
