No Loss
Greetings from San Diego, California!
It's beautiful here. The light is soft and I cannot get over how QUIET everything is. Right now, all I hear is the whir of the computer running its quiet engines. In New York, I'd either be besieged by car alarms, or our neighbors having their morning screaming match. I look outside and I literally see a palm tree. I have been coming to San Diego and Coronado my whole life and everytime I am overwhelmed with feelings at the sight of the light and the military bases, and the 1930's architecture. Last night, during the wedding rehearsal, I walked along the Hotel Del Coronado--probably one of the most beautiful hotels anywhere and I thought about my grandmother who used to give me history lessons about Coronado, and how I still know things about that island that she told me on long evening walks through the neighborhoods and by the Del. I wanted to write it all down, but I didn't have anything with me. Part of me wonders if this is good sometimes, to just experience something for what it is in that moment, as opposed to my constant need to record, to put down, to CAPTURE moments that mean something to me. So instead, I walked along the beach path, and stopped to watch the sunset, and drank in that peaceful gloaming. I saw to my left the distant lights of Mexico, and to my right the lights of the jet runway for the Airforce Base. I watched the wedding party far down the beach try rehearse their parts for the wedding tonight. They looked not unlike the flocks of seagulls that gather on the beach and disperse, only to gather again.
It's ironic to me that I have met a man that has family in San Diego too. As a result, I've been here more in the last two years than I had in the 6 years beforehand. I am struck every time I come, by the echo of all the times I would come here and be with my cousins, and what remains now. When I am standing on that beach, I could swear to you that my grandmother is still alive, only a few blocks away, in reach. And yet, as I passed the old honeymoon cottage of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, relocated from the quiet street blocks away, and remodeled as part of the Hotel Del, I know that time has gone on, and that my history has been uprooted as well, and changed with time.
It was so hard for me to just stand there and take all of that in, without making it into something, that I can take with me, like a drawing, or a journal entry. Yet, this is necessary too--to just be quiet with it all and feel it all pass through , and know I haven't lost anything.
It's beautiful here. The light is soft and I cannot get over how QUIET everything is. Right now, all I hear is the whir of the computer running its quiet engines. In New York, I'd either be besieged by car alarms, or our neighbors having their morning screaming match. I look outside and I literally see a palm tree. I have been coming to San Diego and Coronado my whole life and everytime I am overwhelmed with feelings at the sight of the light and the military bases, and the 1930's architecture. Last night, during the wedding rehearsal, I walked along the Hotel Del Coronado--probably one of the most beautiful hotels anywhere and I thought about my grandmother who used to give me history lessons about Coronado, and how I still know things about that island that she told me on long evening walks through the neighborhoods and by the Del. I wanted to write it all down, but I didn't have anything with me. Part of me wonders if this is good sometimes, to just experience something for what it is in that moment, as opposed to my constant need to record, to put down, to CAPTURE moments that mean something to me. So instead, I walked along the beach path, and stopped to watch the sunset, and drank in that peaceful gloaming. I saw to my left the distant lights of Mexico, and to my right the lights of the jet runway for the Airforce Base. I watched the wedding party far down the beach try rehearse their parts for the wedding tonight. They looked not unlike the flocks of seagulls that gather on the beach and disperse, only to gather again.
It's ironic to me that I have met a man that has family in San Diego too. As a result, I've been here more in the last two years than I had in the 6 years beforehand. I am struck every time I come, by the echo of all the times I would come here and be with my cousins, and what remains now. When I am standing on that beach, I could swear to you that my grandmother is still alive, only a few blocks away, in reach. And yet, as I passed the old honeymoon cottage of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, relocated from the quiet street blocks away, and remodeled as part of the Hotel Del, I know that time has gone on, and that my history has been uprooted as well, and changed with time.
It was so hard for me to just stand there and take all of that in, without making it into something, that I can take with me, like a drawing, or a journal entry. Yet, this is necessary too--to just be quiet with it all and feel it all pass through , and know I haven't lost anything.
posted by Summer Pierre at
3:23 PM
1 Comments:
Such good writing, I just experienced it all in my mind, just like a memory or a movie, thanks for posting, I feel all dreamy and sort of melancholy.
Brenda
Enjoy California and all the rest!
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