Day 4

I went to the eucalyptus forest at Natural Bridges state park after a lovely breakfast with friends. I visited with the butterflies hanging in massive clumps. Lovely monarchs. My friend seemed to be enjoying a little synthenesia as he swore he could hear their wings flapping. Sadly I was not in such a state and they were quiet. I continued on to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, landmark of my youth.

Here's the empty boardwalk on an early Wednesday night. There's such high contrast here against all my memories of the place. It should be packed with people. There should be cries and laughter and loud music and the thunderous rattle of the two wooden roller coasters. It's dusk and there's a handful of people staring out at the ocean or holding hands and walking along the beach. My graduating high school class had a field trip out here years ago. I've been here on dates and lone wolf journeys, usually in the summer and it's always been packed. I simultaniously felt the empty present and the seasonal inertia of the 100 years it's been here. My own presence a tiny golden thread in its vast rolling tapestry.

Sunsets are such simple things repeated over and over again, every day, everywhere, continuously. Winter has robbed us of long sultry days, but the sunsets are still glorious. It's the clouds that make it for me. I even see god in there sometimes.

There was a little section of the arcade that had classic games. The kind of games that now-a-days come free with a cheap cell phone (if the licenses have run out). Tempest, Ms. PacMan, Frogger, Asteroids, et al. Peak evolutionary coin predators. Like sharks that go straight for your pocket. I had my Nintendo DS in my pocket at the time. With the right software it could simulate all the hardware in those games. What it wouldn't have is the grime and texture from years of hard banging by adults and kids. The controls had a solid feel, a realness that's smoothed over by the brightly colored games these days, the brain training games and collections of micro-games and cooking simulators.

Oh, the hard fought treasures of yesteryear. How they seemed so far away and high above. Spend 20$ on skeet ball to get a 2$ stuffed bear, of course. It's not the prize but the fighting, it's not the destination but the journey. I'm pretty proud that I can walk into any candy shop and buy whatever I like. Not that I would, but I could. That CD alarm clock, I'm not going to spend 2 hours and 30$ racking up 2500 tickets. Sadly that naivety has washed away never to return.

Santa Cruz, United States