The Last Years of Long Beach
Passing the lagoon, I see a woman bent with time park her car and slowly lower herself into the water for a solitary swim. It feels like witnessing this ritual makes me part of something sacred. A coyote prancing down the sidewalk midday. People stop to stare and I, in momentary confusion, shout, "Is that your dog?" Every Friday night there is a car chase somewhere in LA and now that we have all the tv channels, we can usually find it to watch. Once in awhile it ends somewhere near and we hear the helicopters hovering overhead for hours. Wandering walks. The light hits just the right way and the air is dense and the day feels both unspecial and extraordinary. I look down at my hand and have a profound experience. Hard to explain. My hand suddenly seems to me entirely unfamiliar. These prints and lines, with me all my life but changing too, seem so much a part and so fundamentally separate from me in this moment, that it temporarily stops me in my tracks. Hard to ...