Borrowed | 6 October 2024

These were the nice shoes.  I was not to get them dirty, I know, I know.  But she’d have to forgive me – I could not help myself.

BNR Response

I felt my heels sink into the sand as I shifted my weight.  I’d been drawn to the sea like a magnet, it had been pulling on me for years ever since I’d moved out of state, and now that I was in the West again it had me in its grasp.  “That’s it, I’m fucking going,” I thought to myself, and ran precariously down the steep dune.  Arms out to my sides, like a tightrope walker, I quickly scaled the face and was on the beach.  In the shadow of the sandstone, I realized for the first time in my forty plus years on this stretch of land how perfectly the cliff face mirrored the swells at Mavericks.

There was almost no one around this time of the morning, just a few folks cradling coffee mugs with both hands like a prayer to caffeine, dressed like Californiano Innuits in Uggs and Patagonia, watching the marine layer and their dogs play in equal measure.

Sand had gotten into her Converse – I wasn’t really sure why these were so sacred anyway, but then again, my AirBnB host was an unfamiliar character I would never venture to understand.  I took the sneakers off, carefully emptying them first, then standing on each one as I removed my socks.  I could already feel the cold grit beneath my toes.  I rolled up my sweats as I had done day in day out for years, whether preparing to explore tide pools or to dig for sand crabs or just to wander, as I would today.

I walked to where the ocean met the land and got a quick reminder of just how cold the Pacific is.  Hearing the sound of the ocean now was like going to the live concert of a band whose albums you’d listened to as recordings for too long.  My homecoming.

And then I saw him: shirtless and soaking, throwing a tennis ball for his retriever in the surf.  From afar, he looked like a sailor from days gone by, his rolled-up trousers appearing as seafaring breeches.  He was at one with the water like a merman.  Was this a fever dream brought on by homesickness and heartbreak?

I shook the urge to rub my eyes as I knew that doesn’t actually bring focus, and I took several steps closer (almost embarrassingly close) and plonked myself down in the sand a few yards away from him.

I remember not knowing what I wanted or what I was allowed to want, so I just watched him in a dance with his dog and the waves.  I watched as he ran, chasing the mutt with first a ball then a stick, tossing it into the current and laughing as his dog bounded fearlessly into the water in pursuit.  I watched him dive similarly into the shallow.  He ran and dove, tossed and received over and over – seemingly unbothered by the temperature.  It couldn’t have been more than 65 degrees, and the wind off the water had me tuck my fingers inside my sleeves and fold them over in my palms.  The cold still got in.

He smiled at me, saying something to which I replied with something else.  It was mid-morning on a weekday, where had he put his responsibilities?  I watched him, mesmerized, forgetting he could see me.  He was unbothered.  My mind tried to write his story, where he loaded his dog into the back of his Volvo station wagon, hosed him down on the gray redwood deck before toweling off and going inside where he would take a hot shower to shake the ocean chill that gets in your bones.  Who was in that home?  Were there kids?  Was there a partner?  What was work like?  Would he jump on a conference call after his shower, his colleagues unaware or unperturbed by his morning of beach play?  The more I tried to craft his reality the more the beauty of the moment died. 

I checked my phone, my flight was on time.  I dusted myself off and started to head in.  I put on the stranger’s shoes, borrowed just as I had borrowed someone else’s present tense that sad morning.  He waved from the shore and I waved back reflexively.  Hot tears streamed down my face.  I knew in the deepest part of my belly, as well as I know my own name, that, no matter how hard I might try, I couldn’t hold on to this moment.  Leaving him was like waving goodbye to a dream.  I left my whole heart on the beach that day.