Screaming Sea

If you don’t look at the ocean on New Year’s day, you’re a huge prick. This thought ran across my brain as a I stared out at the shimmering Pacific with the white winter sun spreading a bright warmth over all gods children ( everyone on Venice Beach). Two women with perfect postures were meditating in an obnoxiously obvious way, legs crossed and hands face up on their knees.  The sun was glowing them golden and it looked like it felt good on their throats to gaze upward, stretching their tanned, sun glinting necks. I was squinting at them, nose dripping, with my hair trying to strangle my face, turning away from the water to gauge what level of nirvana they were at. The ocean slapped close to my feet trying to wake me up from zoning out at two perfectly fine, strangers.  Dogs chased balls. Men chased women. Everyone did their little parade in front of the glossy, foamy void that shouted with crashing waves for everyone to get their shit together. 

The ocean talks to everyone and speaks sternly sometimes, others very softly. But all you have to do is show up in front of it and things change one way or another. Always. So it seems the correct thing to do on New Years is to convene with mother and see what messages she has in store. Note: she is totally fine with corporal punishment and she does not have a Southern accent. If you hear a southern accent voice come out of the ocean, you are irrevocably insane. 

I arrive in the year 2024 with a cautious avoidance of participating in a New Year’s resolution mentality or even the acknowledgement of  a new year.  I am just getting over a respiratory infection that everyone has had so it feels redundant to even mention it. I feel like a poser having contracted it. The last week has been sleepless with a  hacking cough that has strengthened my abs and driven my partner insane. I embraced my illness and found myself wrapped in a delirium of movie watching. I remained on the couch for 5 days, sleeping there day and night in front of the TV where I rediscovered my love for “About Schmidt” and got utterly spanked by the Mike Leigh movie “Another Year” among others. I felt inspired. I felt a tug of desire, a want to be healthy, a want to make more things, tenderness towards myself. The illness left me feeling shinier. A parting gift of 2023.

So then why go to the beach on New Years with an edgy mind, ready to scratch like a cat batting at a lizard, aiming at all the random lovely people with the same idea as me? Where is the sharpness coming from after all the gratitude for my health fumes I’ve been snorting. Perhaps the edge comes out of these times where it feels safer to be hard than soft. Safer to be hot than vulnerable. An idea rather  than a whole. A goal rather than a way or a how. The Ai version. Perhaps, I am opting out of something that I cant define, but will later reveal itself when I am in my 90s and the ocean is screaming at me to get my act together.