Santa Cruz to Monterey to Morro Bay

Oily toilet paper. Gross. Thank god that’s not a thing. Hi, hello. Good to be here. Happy day to you. I feel great today. Hope you’re doing well. Tell the kids I say hi. Wife okay? How’ve your parents been?

Most of the time when I start writing I just begin by dumping out nonsensical phrases, if you’re wondering what’s going on here. Sometimes it only lasts for a few words, sometimes the entire blog post becomes a thread of connected madness that all started with a Chinese charcutier board. I wonder what that would look like… a Chinese charcutier board. Just a bunch of noodles sprawled out around a bat. Too soon? How many Chinese bat jokes is the appropriate number of Chinese bat jokes?

I think one is good for today. Maybe we’ll squeeze in another if the universe allows. Anyways, I’m now in Morro Bay with my friend, Dakota. Dakota and I met when we were five years old in the kindergarten playground. I’m surprised I ever met anyone at that age to be honest. I was a weird kid. I guess all kids are pretty weird, though.

It’s interesting to see how people you’ve known change over a long period of time. Dakota was always a bit of a wild child and generally pretty aloof and careless, but always with a heart of gold. He was never the person you’d expect to be settled down with a wife and family in his mid-twenties, but that’s exactly what happened and it’s pretty neat to see. Now I’m the careless one!

Well, I wouldn’t describe myself as careless, but I am definitely free. That’s what I love about this adventure so far, is that I really feel free. I don’t have to be anywhere. I don’t have to report to anyone, I can just live. I’m still a slave to money, but I’ve saved up enough to where I don’t have to worry for a while. I’m interested in learning wilderness and survival skills in order to feel what it would be like to really be free. Modern life gets pretty complicated, so it would be fascinating to experience a world where you’re only responsibility is to simply survive. Get food, get water, don’t die. A simple life.

It’s not something I would want to do long term. I like most of my responsibilities. I like my responsibilities to the people in my life that I love, I like my responsibility to write and tell jokes and make people laugh, I like the responsibility of keeping my car in good shape and taking care of my body and belongings. I guess life is just about finding a good balance of freedom and responsibility.

I’ve seen many people who have way too many responsibilities and are overwhelmed beyond their buttholes, as well as people who have too much freedom and couldn’t get to an important gathering on time if their genitals depended on it. Balance. That’s what I try to implement in my life and everything I do. I’ve always had a tendency to get obsessed with things, and I’m very competitive, but I’m learning how to let go of things more easily. I don’t always have to win. I don’t always have to be the best. I don’t have to take every good idea I come up with and turn it into some grand plan. It’s enough to be healthy, live a life that is meaningful, and enjoy each and every moment for what it is. It’s easy to take things for granted, and often times it’s not until things change when we realize how good we had it.

I would like a family and kids someday, and it’s nice to see some of my friends beginning that journey. It’s also nice to be able to see what that looks like up close and appreciate the freedoms I currently have. Because once you have kids, your priority is no longer yourself, but your children. I want to experience that, but I want to enjoy my personal journey in the present as well. I don’t take this trip for granted and I don’t take my current journey for granted. I’m going to relish every second of it, even when it gets lonely, even when it feels like too much.

As far as my journey went yesterday, I drove from my hotel in Buttholeville, USA aka Salinas, California, to Del Monte Beach in Monterey. The drive was short and pleasant, and I found parking easily in the Del Monte neighborhood. It was nice to see a police car right on the other side of the road and people outside on their balconies. I felt safe leaving my car there. It’s something I have to be cognizant of, considering everything I own is in my all new Subaru Crosstrek with four-wheel suspension.   So I grabbed a pack, stuffed it with a notebook and some pens, and hit the beach. I walked a little ways and then sat down and pulled out my notebook. I wanted to watch this guy surf, which it appeared was what he was there to do, considering he was out in the ocean on a surf board, but no surfing was done. This is what I wrote:

 
 The danger of the waves plays with my emotions
 the moving water brings a sense of calm
 I’m high off the beauty
 sad about things I’ve done in the past
 every break makes a similar sound
 it all kind of comes together
 a never-ending whoosh
 if you listen
 once in a while
 a lull comes to be 
 a split second
 when the music stops 
 my own thoughts find their place between the waves
 like the surfer, waiting
 waiting
 that seems to be all he’s doing
 you know
 I’ve been here for awhile
 waiting for him to catch one
 and I’ve got to say
 I’m quite disappointed
 I don’t know how often this guy surfs
 but once would be nice
 could you surf once, guy? 

I’m still pretty upset about it. I’ll get over it, but sometimes you want to just sit on the beach and watch someone surf, and all you get is a guy lying on a board trying to wedge his wet suit out of his ass crack. That’s life I suppose.

So, I was upset and it was colder than a freezer in a popsicle factory, so I started walking with some kind of pace. Oh I tell you what did I have a pace going. I walked, and I walked… and I walked. All the way down to the pier. At least a couple of miles. I saw so many different things on the shore. Some wood, a lot of large kelp, jelly fish, a lemon, and many rocks with holes in them. The lemon was the most out-of-place item I came across. I don’t know why there was a lemon on the beach.

I made it my goal to get to the pier once I saw it with my dried out eyes. I’m really bad at finishing things and I’ve been trying to make it a point in my life to finish strong. Life keeps presenting me with these opportunities where I have to face this issue head on. I felt a strong pull to turn around about a half-mile away from the pier. It was cold, I was tired, and I was hungry, BUT I’M NOT A LITTLE BITCH. I’m kidding, that wasn’t what it was about. HYPER MASCULINITY, ENGAGE!

The point was that I created a goal and I needed to follow through with it. So, I did. And I felt so much better when I got to the pier. I stood out there and I looked down, and someone surfed a wave right in front of me. It got warmer, the wind died down. I felt at peace. The walk back was amazing. It was a long ways, sure, but it was as if the universe had rewarded me for following through with something. It wasn’t cold like the walk to the pier was. I knew I was hungry but I enjoyed thinking about how tasty a meal would be when I was finished. I was able to soak in the scenery more deeply. It was glorious.

So I hopped in my car and drove to Mundo’s burgers and sandwiches and holy moly when I sunk my teeth into that tri-tip sandwich in the parking lot of CVS I had what was equivalent to at least fifteen orgasms. It was pretty funny, I was making the actual face of having an orgasm with my eyes closed and then looked up and made eye contact with a lady walking away from her car. She looked concerned but also kid of jealous.

Then I drove a couple of hours south to San Luis Obispo and drove through my old college at Cal Poly. They put in a bunch of new stuff that wasn’t there when I attended, but it still brought back a lot of memories. It was especially cool to walk downtown and see people out and about. You still couldn’t go inside and have a drink, but it was nice to just see people’s faces on the town. Dakota and I went into the town of Morro Bay in the evening and it was gorgeous. A shmorgasborg of gorg.

Jason Brendel
Jason Brendel

Jason Brendel is an author, poet, and comedian living in Austin, Texas. Navigate the buttons below to follow him on social media, make a donation, or purchase his collection of laugh-out-loud poetry on Amazon.

2 thoughts on “Santa Cruz to Monterey to Morro Bay

  1. You make me feel like I am there. I want to be there instead of here with the much promoted but not yet materialized snow storm of the century in Cleveland. Thanks for the mental break!

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