BODEGA BAY

This poem was written the last time I was in Northern California - we visited Bodega Bay (if you've never been there you should definitely go - especially in a storm) when the waves were huge and the fog was everywhere.

The waves crash against the rocks below us;

you smile at me, so alive with the ocean around you.

You’re wearing my hat and scarf; colourful strips against the misty foggy skies.

The few people around us seem close and

connected somehow – those who have chosen to come here

on this day instead of any other.

We are here because of this stormy weather, not despite of it.

I smile at a family eating lunch in their rain coats.

The air is thick but not heavy; comforting somehow as tiny droplets

get caught in my hair.

The sea is up here with us. It feels like we could

jump

right into it and the air would carry us down, as secure and enveloping as the water itself.

You explain why you love surfing so much; how it feels to be out there

in it,

caught in the rhythm,

completely reliant on its mercy,

tossed and soaring at its will;

and looking out at the bay, the white-tipped waves,

and beyond where the swell is born;

I know what you mean.

I can see myself out there. I am less clumsy in the water.

I wonder if we’ll ever go together; if I’ll ever be brave enough.

I slip on a loose rock and you grab my arm.

If I fell into the sea right now, would you jump in after me?

I say this mostly as a joke.

Yes, you say, of course.

My hair is beginning to fly up, the curls forming and floating in the

misty foggy skies.

You smile at me as the waves crash below us,

so alive with the ocean around you.

The bright peach of my scarf lights up as a ray of sunlight

breaks through

the blanketed sky.