Surf City, USA revised

And here it is revised:

I grew up in Huntington Beach. Surf City. The waves are consistent and the tans impeccable. There is a certain smell of salt and a hint of fish around the city, and the wind seems to blow the same way every day. The sun shines about 360 days out of the year, and the rain on the other five days is so refreshing. Its like rubbing chilled aloe on a sunburn; the rain amidst so much sunshine.

The sun would rise early, burning off the dew on the grass and leaving a smell the color of clear mixed with the chirping of the early bird. It would shine through the large, deep emerald leaves of our avocado tree and straight into my bedroom window and heated my pillow. I would watch the tiny, brown sparrows land on the thick telephone wire directly in my sight.

By the time I crawled out of bed and finally made it outside, the air was heavy with the stench of salty smog. The sun shone so clearly in the cloudless, baby blue sky that the only option seemed to be spending the entire day amongst the dirty, yellow, sandy beach watching the aggressive waves crash repeatedly on shore. So, off on my bike I rode!

It was a straight shot to the beach, on my bike. Mostly a warm and breezy, downhill ride, until the ride home, of course. But that was never a thought until the hill started to burn my calves and make my thighs feel like they were popping straight out of my skin. There was rarely much traffic along the ride to the sand, so it made the trip very solemn and introspective. I was able to really think, with the start of a sunburn on my skin and the soft swell of wind due to the speed of my bike blowing through my hair.

Once I arrived at the beach and locked my bike on a dull metal rack among a rocky parking lot, I was at home. The bright yellow sun mixed with the clear blue sky seemed a Crayola yellow-green hue against the deep blue, infinite ocean. The sweaty, gritty volleyball players littered the beach like popcorn crumbs litter the rows of a theater whose lights just came up after the credits. The air now reeked of the burned skin of a hotdog mixed with the charred grit of ground beef.

This is when I felt most at home. The smell of roasting beef with the heat of an iron on my back. I would lay my towel awkwardly on the grainy, white sand, because every time I try to lay it straight, a tiny whiff of wind would spark two corners and sand would settle on top as if it were the one laying out for a tan. But I laid on the sand anyway, because after five minutes of baking in this oven, I would be covered in it. I would sleep while the determined seagulls and matted pigeons would fight over the food wrappers that sailed helplessly from the garbage cans and littered the beach between the sunbathers. I would dream about being somewhere tropical. Somewhere there was a careless freedom of no responsibility mixed with tropical scents and an option of a no-limit nap.

When I awoke, I was the shade of a lobster. The barbecue grill smell was replaced by smoke and coal, as most people left on the beach were beginning their nights with bonfires. The sky was the color of ruby grapefruit mixed with blueberry all against a pitch black ocean, still slamming heavily like a judge’s gavel. The volleyball courts were empty, as if it were under quarantine, though there were still some people floating in the water. There was a faint sound of bass in the air, the compilation of tens of groups of young people gathered, almost spiritually around the grimy bonfire pits, pumping music through the minute speakers of individual boom boxes. That, mixed with the incessant slamming of waves, and the spurts of screams and talk, made for an almost gentle hum. The kind of hum that, if you had the time, could rock you into soft daydream where time would lose validity and only the resurrection of the sun could ignite playful energy back into you. I knew that if I didn’t leave soon, not only would I be reprimanded like a toddler screaming incoherently in public, I might also get lost in the hum.

So onto the mileage back home. I would gather my now hot bicycle from the gravely rack. It was warm from spending all day baking in the sun, like a turkey roasting for hours in the warm oven on Thanksgiving. I would mount the bike and mentally prepare my mind for the uphill climb, that lost its importance the opposite direction from the excitement of the anticipation of the beach and the easy downhill motion. Immediately, there’s a fire that travels from my feet all the way to my hips, making me imagine for a moment that there was another easier method homeward, until the blinding, white lights of the now vehicle littered streets woke my imagination into reality.

As ascended the top of the last hill, I sighed with relief that I made it home. My once burning legs had numbed, and I knew they would ache the next morning when the peaceful journey would begin again. The sky was now a deep indigo, still warm from the twelve hours of beating sunlight, with one or two tiny white stars in view. The tract homes set dark and methodically against the deep purple sky. And the only hint of life were the lit bulbs on the bustling cars and trucks. It was time to rest my head on the same soft, foamy pillow in which the chirping sparrows and the early yawns of the sun awoke me hours earlier. I couldn’t