Visiting

My first visit to the beach since my return. It's nice, in a way. I keep telling myself that this is how things are now, that I only need enough for one. The waves are big today; creeping up on the shore and springing up at the last minute. Some of them turn an oily brown color as they turn over; saturated with seaweed. The color seems out of place from the deep aqua and stark white. It's not very hot today; if I put on my hat, the shade it creates makes me shiver a little. I absentmindedly wish my new bikinis were here already, so I could feel new in an old place.

It's the first place. The first beach I visited. Not far from the last beach I visited. Today there is a drunk bum stumbling around in the sand. He's new; the guy from last summer isn't here. Oddly, I'm not worried; it seems that bums in La Jolla have some sort of manners or maybe dignity and leave the surfer kids and the families alone. He stumbles around in his black jeans, black shoes, and black coat. I can see that his little bottle of cheap whiskey is almost empty and wonder how he isn't hot in so many black clothes. But my bikini is black too.

He pauses for a moment a few feet from me, and I look back to my reading. He falls flat, face first, with a thud that is alarming and pitiful. I look at him carefully from the side of my sunglasses. I have to look away when I see a worn and weathered Livestrong bracelet on his right wrist. Irony. It's really sad, but also funny. I wonder if I'll ever get to where he is. To the point where it is better to stumble around aimlessly in a cloud of whiskey coated breath and sideways beaches than to feel life at its sharpest. It's not so hard to imagine such a place. I suppose I've been there, but the difference between he and I is that I have only visited, while he lives there permanently.