Lots of people had the same idea. Anticipating crowds of curious but incautious tourists, the ever-vigilant Police Department and Public Works men had closed vehicle access to certain low-lying segments of the scenic drive that skirts the city's coast. Sure to flood in storms like this, the road is especially vulnerable at high tide when a 20- or 30-foot wave will run up the shallow beaches, overcome retaining walls and swamp the adjacent street. Those curious enough to brave the gusting winds were walking beyond the barricades along the roadway, so I set off on foot, too.
A man stood near a row of cars parked along the road. He had a large camera with a telephoto lens and a monopod to steady it. He smiled distractedly, but his eyes had a certain look, like he was discovering some magic. He was charmed, entranced. His little son, Malcolm, walked past us as we talked. He looked muddy and distracted, too; he appeared to be listening, but not to his father. Later, when I looked over at him, he was hoisting himself up off the ground after having licked a puddle like a dog. The man was trying to monitor Malcolm (obviously without much luck) and at the same time keep his eye on two surfers out beyond the shorebreak in the next line-up about 300 yards out, hoping for something special to happen. Out where they were, a few sea lions and a sea otter were among the surfers, dark sleek figures in the surging chop.
The wind was blowing from the southwest and the swell was coming in from the west. When the waves come in from that direction, they hit Asilomar head-on. The swell wraps around Pt Pinos, bending southeast and then steams into the bay, smashing up against walls and rocks. The surf is taking a point-blank approach to the Marina and Seaside shorelines east of here, the far eastern curve of Monterey Bay. With a steady high wind like we have now, the waves get blown back as they crest; they continue steadily and powerfully to the beach and form wild manes of spray that are swept away in a dramatic and beautiful plume.
I walked on west and saw a young woman parking her car along the way. She was jumping out for pictures at each pullout, and her eyes were wide with excitement - like everyone's. She caught my eye and laughed, "It's a smack-down by Nature today." A neurotic flicker of lightning in the distance was the harbinger of a gathering rain cell, approaching quickly. Thunder boomed right behind the flash of white electrical light; the storm was brewing and thrashing all around us, building momentum.
An old man in shirt sleeves and slacks, exposed to the cold wind, crossed the road from his car clutching a camera, walking with a stiff, stubbling gait. His face had a fixed, wide-eyed stare, half-grimace, half-smile. He looked mesmerized, pulled closer to the waves as if by a magnet. The rain was going to soak him, maybe pound him with hail in a few minutes. The old man, exactly like little puddle-licking, mud-splattered Malcolm, was held in thrall by the spectacle so close at hand.
I'm used to seeing people at the water's edge, walking or riding parallel to the shore, occasionally glancing up at the distant water or shorebirds. They usually appear softened and mellowed by the experience, introspective, contemplative. Today, because the whole marine system was big, galloping and wild, and because the wind was gusting, the sky darkening rapidly, people were transfixed, spellbound, undone.
There is a knob of land that sticks out at the very corner of the south side of Monterey Bay called Pt Pinos (pee-nose in this case, not peen-yose). It is said by some that 11 deadly currents spin and swirl around it, but who could count them? I know that it's where I go to watch the intersection of waves and currents when a high pounding surf comes in. Today, I stood there, seeing the impending curtain of cold rain approaching, and felt the air, watched the white-paint-chip gulls circling aimlessly against the backdrop of slate gray in the distance, and I heard the waves frothing, thumping, rushing in. Cold looming swells were lined up to the horizon, faces laced with foaming white, the sea a million shades of gray and silver. Just briefly, the sun glanced off the surfaces of water and struck them a molten silver, shining brilliantly, all gone dark again in an instant.
I walked all the way back to my car with the rain at my back and the surf line off to my left. The roads were empty, cars chased off by the downpour. All I heard was the incessant rumble of the tide, waves rearing up when they reached shallower depths after days and days, having traveled as an energy impulse across vast distances of open ocean, tumbling and surging on and on and on. We who watched at the water's edge today saw the rolling breakers hitting seawalls, granite outcrops and beaches, expending their forward impulse, sighing backward to rejoin the deep once again.
The whole rest of the world becomes inconsequential and unimportant when you stand on what you have been told is solid ground with waves pounding the shore. The trembling earth below your feet informs you of creation, puts your ego in proportion to all time and eternity - a one-to-infinity ratio, in case you, silly human, had any other notion - and it seems so grand while you seem so very small.
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