my left coast vacation

I sat next to fat people and thin people and medium people and I never took the elbow rest even though I thought a few times that maybe I deserved it. I figured out a way to drink beer and not get sick. I saw the ocean and swam in a pool which is thoroughly the opposite of what I would expect of myself. I thought a lot about what makes me laugh, and I laughed over and over. I cried a fair bit, though less than usual. I lived in the moments I was in, mostly. I watched a goodly amount of excellent television and a little not so good television. I bought a coat and boots and sweaters and went to cold places twice, on purpose. I ate so many oysters -- so much seafood in general, as if the ocean was working to delight me and it was my job to be delighted. I was. I ate in front of a fireplace and my face and my heart were equally warm. I spent a day in beautiful and strange places I hadn't been, dimly recalling a language I had once been fluent in. I drove past animals and listened to Christian music that I didn't immediately recognize, then turned the radio off in horror and sang all the words to the songs I can still remember from those stretches of California that don't have radio stations. Cole Porter. Eurythmics. I tried to talk to you but you had headphones on. I slept in rooms without curtains, rooms without windows, rooms without heat, rooms without beds. Mostly I slept under quilts. I interacted with pets and generally enjoyed it. I watched someone being eaten alive by a feeling and finally understood that I do the same thing: it's not eating until you're full but eating like a fire that will consume as long as you feed it. I rode back and forth on the ferry and bought neither apples nor pears but was perfectly happy. I saw people I have loved in various intensities and at a range of distances for decades, and loved them more purely and simply and closely than ever. I did so many of my favorite things. I drank up all your wine.