Here Comes Summer

Every now and then I’m compelled to blow a big wet kiss to Laguna. Much as I try to resist, it’s involuntary, a compulsion to confess the great joy and gratitude I feel living here. Oh sure, I bitch about how it could be better, but that’s my job as kibitzer in chief. Laguna’s got me by the ‘nads and knows it. The last few weeks? Forget about it. An ocean so inviting and delicious, so impossibly beautiful, with placid water and thriving sea life, and so relentlessly beckoning as a bracing relief to the crushing heat wave. I never feel so alive as when I’m swimming these waters, tucking into the translucent kelp forests, the golden garibaldi perfectly accenting the green depths. Our fisheries robust. Seven delicious miles of pristine, contoured coastline, with water so clear it has recently taken on a turquoise hue more reminiscent of Jamaica than Laguna. It’s remarkable, all the more so because of the 24 million of us living nearby who consume and excrete massive mounds of matter. But enough of that crap. We got our town back. So when everyone else is heading back to the grindstone, we head to the beach. The crowds have thinned, the water’s warm, and the weather perfect. And even when you complain about not having A/C in your million dollar manse for that one week, you have to admit those sweaty days are mitigated by some balmy, sultry nights when the brine is prime and you can finally enjoy your deck in a slinky sun dress, or shorts, or nothing at all!

Fall is when parents get a break from all the summer schlepping. It’s when our artists andlaborers take a breather. It’s when our firefighters come out to feed the community. Or when Oak St welcomes the whole community. It’s when secret local rituals from the Rads, Aquathoners, Manlies and Brooks St. may or may not happen. Fall is when we might see our first, sustained pedestrian park in downtown. Something for us, the community. Yep, lucky to love Laguna. With a crumbling, chaotic, overpopulated and overheated planet, it’s a sanctuary and a shelter. What brought each and every one of our destinies to this town was, first and foremost, a blessing. What a gift to live this life in this town. And in no other year has it become so important for Laguna to deliver the magic as this year of 2017, when logic, civility, unity, decency and security have been completely upended. When everything we thought we knew was turned on its ear. This has been the year that Laguna assured us it would be just fine. First the rains came. The 25,000 acres of protected open space that buffets us from the world was inundated with blessed rainfall, producing a dazzling display of wildflowers and a blanket of green that brought our parched hills alive again. Everyday was a discovery of purple lupine, orange poppies, and yellow brittle bush. Entire hills engulfed in carpets of yellow. I saw succulents in people’s gardens morphing and flowering in ways none of us had never seen. I discovered my own inner flower child. It made me swoon.

If you were not able to hoof it into our vertiginous open space, perhaps you made it to that delightful manmade confection, Treasure Island? Maybe you had a picnic or brought visitors, or maybe you did a donation based yoga class, just like in Heisler Park. Maybe while you were sun kissed in the fierce Warrior Two pose, your thighs quivering while you try to sink deeper, you notice the crashing ocean, the swaying palm trees, the squealing kids, the amazing succulents framing the ocean, and of course the cosmic purple Pride of Madeiras blooming everywhere. And in that moment you realize you are indeed the luckiest person on earth. More of a duffer than a yogi? Walk no further than just across the street, and down the Aliso arroyo to what we locals call Little Yosemite. Whip those shoes off, like the owner does, and absorb the negative ions as you play a casual round amongst a landscape as dramatic as an Ansel Adams shot, with deer in the gallery and a cold frosty waiting on the 19th hole. Soak in the monumental escarpment of the Aliso range, this spring blanketed by orange nasturtiums. Nature curbs your aggression. That’s what a recent study found with prison populations, when they were shown scenes of nature. “Prisoners who viewed ocean waves, waterfalls, aquariums and other serene images were 26% less likely to be disciplined for violence,” according a study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. By that measure we should be the chillest folks on the planet. Maybe that’s why we have peaceful protests at Main Beach. Let’s hope it stays that way. I will be interviewing members of Orange County’s Socialist Democratic movement, known in some circles as the Antifas. They’ve agreed to come on my radio show, Laguna Talks, this Thursday, September 14, in advance of the next America First demonstration on September 24. If they believe violence is a tool against the opposition, I might offer a stroll into the coastal wilderness.