dancing in the moonlight

Someone hit my car in the Moonlight Beach parking lot while I was boogie boarding this afternoon. It was my best day of boogie boarding yet, my sixth time out with my board, I caught the most waves and missed the fewest, better ratio of success than previous days. Also a couple of very fast rushes through and over the ocean. I saw a couple of different people look at me with something that maybe stood for appreciation. That felt cool.

Then I got to my Camry up above in the lot, and the left rear bumper and some of the left rear quarter had clearly been hit by another car, scrapes and paint off in a couple of spots, black lines and a circle of worse than anywhere else. Cosmetic – but, still. No note, no eyewitnesses, no way for justice if something like that merits justice. I flashed on me and my black 2001 Taurus pulling out of the lot behind the 214 Walden House boys facility and scraping the right rear bumper and quarter, 15 years ago, and somehow my mind took me to a place where there was some kind of weird balance.

I know.

I also went for a walk after discovering the bring-down from best yet boarding and on the way back I flashed on “The Fast Times at Ridgemont High” character Spicoli – who I’m identifying with a lot these days, sans the smoking dope – and a conversation he might have with a friend, where the friend says, “Someone hit my car, man”, and Spicoli says, ‘Yeah, but there’s a war in Bosnia, Bro. Which is worse?” That made me feel better too.

So, with practice and repetition I’m a better boogie boarder this Thursday than I was last Thursday. Not a lot, but better. And my car is a little worse for wear this Thursday than it was last Thursday. Not a lot worse, but not quite the visual pleasure of a couple hours earlier.

On the way down to the beach I ran into my new pal Brad who was cruising in his motorized wheel chair and I yelled his name and he swung around and we talked water temp and southerly swells and truly painful breakups from one you love. Then he motored over to his van and I went boogie boarding and someone scraped along my car with their car, and all of it made me feel at one with my 2006 piss-poor cornering at Walden House self, and at one with Spicoli too. I don’t eat much pizza anymore, like him, and I haven’t smoked dope since Reagan’s first. But I am just a bit more of a “middle way” laid-back beach bum these days.

Life being lifey.