A walk to the ocean

On my first day in Goleta I walked down to the sea. Eucalyptus trees bowed overhead in fragrant alleys, aflame with bright monarchs, their wings rustling like dry skin. Soon though, the track turned west on the edge of an open wilderness and quickly became overgrown, furrowed with rabbit warrens and reclaimed by reeds. In the grass I heard the ocean roar; the suck and paw of the surf, like some great beast tearing into the land, and I felt it measured by my blood. As it came into view I felt it pull at me; felt the roll and the beat of the Pacific, frothing and churning in the distance. Standing atop a cliff I saw that beyond the breakers was an oil platform, an ungainly little creature squatting out in the horizon, nursing a small brood of service buoys - fat black tics on the skin of the sea. Like all things thrown out to the Pacific it will one day erode and wither, battered in the merciless maw of the ocean undercurrents. The sea does not distinguish; rather, it mindlessly throws anything it finds against the land, hammering away at the shore in a pitiless rage. Walking along the beach, I found a running shoe, balls of kelp, beer bottles and a seal’s tooth. In the foam, godwits ran nervously to and fro.

In the sand was a bleached and broken shell, curved like the edge of a child’s ear. Slipping my finger through it, I turned homewards, and took a shortcut through a section of abandoned garden allotments. Nasturtiums had spilled out of their fence wires. I picked a bloom and ate it later, as I placed the shell on the kitchen windowsill.

The beach at Goleta