WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING LEASHES
I am running, nearly out of breath, my lungs filled with the smells I love and know so well of sea water and rotting kelp. The sand gives way beneath my feet and each step reverberates up to my heart thumping it just a little bit harder, bursting it open just a tiny bit further with joy.
I pass the fallow field. The same field I fought so hard and diligently to keep filled with happy tail-wagging dogs and their smiling owners. Dogs chasing balls and frisbees and each other off-leash. Dogs communing. Dogs being dogs.
The field is empty and sorry and sad. Trash billows against tree trunks and no one even ventures to cross.
It is a wasteland of used condoms, discarded syringe needles and taco bell wrappers. It is a loss to everyone, but mostly to the dogs that I now pass tethered to leashes, pulling towards the ocean, longing to run free.
If I lived here, now, surely I'd be an outlaw. My dogs don't live at the end of a leash. Neither do I.
GOOD VIBRATIONSI've landed on the planet Saturn for lunch. Not truly, but it might feel that way to the casual observer. It certainly feels that way to my two BFF's who have never eaten at this all vegan restaurant before and have agreed to meet me here for lunch because if I'm in Santa Cruz, I'm going to eat a Cowgirl Blues Salad at least once, if not twice.
I'm so happy to see them and they're both already tucked in to beers and sweet potato french fries having learned that the menu is void of any meat at all. Courage, they said. For the non-meat food items. I love both of these women more than I can possibly ever express to either of them, but I do my best and we spend the entire lunch laughing loudly (oh boy do I laugh loudly) and sharing deep and emotional and heart-felt secrets of the sorts that you can only share with the friends who have known you forever and a day plus one.
The lunch lingers and I don't want to say goodbye. I never want to say goodbye. I'm terrible at the goodbye. I assure them I'll be back soon, perhaps even in two weeks and maybe we can squeeze in hugs and kisses and a hello when I'm here? Life is so full of hellos and goodbyes and some days. I linger on the sidewalk, not wanting them to go, knowing we have to leave Saturn and return to our lives on Earth.
Lives on Earth. Lives that don't come with batteries included. Lives that instead of ending in goodbye ended with the three of us discussing the various best and worst attributes of twenty different kinds of vibrators in one of Santa Cruz's only adult sex toy stores. Lives that celebrated my BFF's purchase of her very first vibrator. Because, well, sometimes life needs some vibration. Or a lot of vibration. Along with the love vibrations of your very best friends.
FISH FULL OF LOVEThere's a spider web, made from white crepe paper, carefully woven on the ceiling. The first time I ate at this sushi restaurant, I had to stand in the pouring rain, outside, waiting for one of the twelve available seats at the bar. That was it. The bar. It was all that was available. Now, the restaurant has blown through walls on both sides, sports two different sushi bars, and seating for what feels like the entire town of Santa Cruz. It is overwhelming, but the same waitress I have always had is still here and so I don't even have to explain my allergy to avocado, I barely even have to order, I just smile and basque in the love of my friends who will always be glad to join me at a table here. Always.
We're noisy, full of laughter, sharing stories about this, that, oh and yes, that too. I can not believe how very blessed and loved I truly am. I live thousands of miles away from this small hamlet by the sea in a city that has, I will admit, wrapped its tendrils around my heart is holding it gently and steady. I am loved now in Salt Lake, and I am loving Salt Lake right back. With all my heart. I am also so very well loved here. Santa Cruz wraps its arms around me, squeezes me very tight, tucks me in its bed at night, kisses my cheek and wishes me only the sweetest of dreams. Those dreams? They're very sweet, indeed.
