the beach at night
a spontaneous saturday night field trip
We met at the Snug, with one open seat between us at the bar. I asked to borrow his menu, and he kindly obliged. This kicked the door down for easy entrance into conversation. For him to ask what I was going to order (a half-booze whiskey, cherry blossom, and yuzu drink), for me to ask what he was drinking (Hendrick’s and soda).
He asked what I was reading, then laughed at how deffffffinitely not depressing it was to read something called Japanese Death Poems alone at a bar. He asked me what I’d learned (something no one had asked so far), and I gave the spark notes:
It’s very common to reference the season in which the poet died, often in the form of a specific seasonal image of transience (falling leaves in autumn, snowmen in winter, and cherry blossoms in spring, cicadas in summer).
Other common symbols of transience or of impending death include dew, the morning glory, and the cuckoo bird
Poets approach death poems with a mix of moods. Some articulate a readiness for the journey to the other side, some with resignation and regret. Some err very “so it goes,” while others approach it satirically.
I shared some of my favorites with him, like the juxtaposition of these two that were presented consecutively in the book, by Hankai and Hanri in that order. The former, of facing the end of one’s life with no regrets, and the latter, dying full of regret:
-
The year is ending:
I have not left my heart
behind.
-
My life:
echoes of a clucking tongue
above pure waters.
-
and then a couple of humorous ones, by Moriya Sen’an and Sengai, respectively:
-
Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask will leak.
-
If your time to die has come
and you die—very well!
If your time to die has come
and you don’t—
all the better!
-
I could have shared so many more (the tragic ones! The euphonious ones!), but I elected to turn the conversation towards him. I took a sip of my drink and asked, “Do you come here often?” and then practically choked in mortification, realizing I had just asked perhaps the most clichéd thing you could to someone at a bar. We laughed and laughed, and I apologized for my NPC behavior. He joked that I was indeed an NPC as far as he was concerned, and I conceded that perhaps I’m only there to give him a quest.
He answered in the end, saying he’d only been there a couple of times, but that he moved a couple blocks from the bar when he moved back to the city. That he usually goes to some other bar to watch a game (which game? Turns out basically any game). I asked why he chose to come to the Snug tonight specifically though, and he looked away thoughtfully before replying, “I actually don’t know.” I nodded understandingly at him, but inside I thought that maybe he was an NPC too, just going where his programming told him to.
Eventually our conversation landed on our hobbies and interests, with him noting just how many I have. I told him that I used to berate myself for this, thinking of the phrase “Jack of All Trades, but Master of None.” That I worried over wasting my talents or skills or time by bopping around instead of systematically focusing on just a handful of things. But I’ve now landed on being very okay with being a Jack of All Trades.
I think interests float in and out of saliency or intrigue throughout our lives, and it’s okay (preferable, even?) to spend your time on what makes you feel most alive and engaged in any given moment. Sure, there’s something to be said for hard work and dedication, but overall I think that when life is only a sum of all of the moments we step through along journey to death, I don’t see why you should spend it begrudgingly on some hobby just because you had committed to it, when it’s not feeding your soul now.
At this point, maybe 2 hours into our conversation, I realized I didn’t know his name. He insisted on guessing mine, even though I scoffed and said he would never be able to get it. He thought perhaps I was an “Amy.” “Interesting,” I told him, while internally relieved that he didn’t say, “Michelle,” the stereotypical Asian American name that people mistakenly called me growing up. I told him he looked like an “Evan.” We shook hands as we shared our actual names, then returned to the conversation that was flowing.
I shared my current practice of attempting a return to interests I had when I was a kid, like singing, guitar, and jumping in the ocean more. He spoke of how different the ocean was in Florida where he grew up (read: not frigid), and how he thinks we Californians are all kind of crazy for going into the Pacific when it’s freezing.
Then I mentioned a thought that’s been rattling around my brain recently—how there just really are not enough voids around to scream into. But I said that standing by a big body of water when it’s super windy is as good as it gets. The wind is key, so it carries your voice and troubles away with it. He said he thought me quirky, with my speak of death poems and screaming into voids.
I spoke more generally of my love of the ocean, the comfort it provides me. He brought up how he thinks going to the beach at night is simply one of the best things, and I asked him when the last time he did that was. He couldn’t remember.
A spontaneous energy overtook me. “Dude, do you want to?”
A laugh erupted from his mouth. “What?”
“You think I’m joking? I’m not. Wanna go on a field trip?”
And so we did.
We stopped at our respective homes to grab warmer clothes and a blanket. We laughed at how we were probably going to freeze our asses off, and we agreed that as long as we stayed for just 15 minutes, we’d call it a success.
During our drive through the Sunset, we talked about the nature of time—how childhood stretches on forever because your brain is logging so many new experiences. How the older you get, the more quickly life seems to pass you by, as you’re stuck in the monotony of routine, even if they are pleasant routines. That you need to have these weird spontaneous nights every once in a while to punctuate your life, to give you something to hold on to.
We parked at Ocean Beach around 11pm, awkwardly making extended eye contact with someone in another car parked there (hmmm what were they doing in there?). There were a few bonfires in the distance, slowly dwindling, but otherwise we passed only a handful of people. We walked down to the water and stood there for a while, breathing in the salty air.
He pointed out the Big Dipper, and I said something weird, like “Yeah, Big Dipper is dippering, dude.” We talked about how beautiful the California coastline is, wondered what some distant light belonged to. We walked back to the middle of the beach where the sand was dry, but not without me first suddenly running back to the ocean to touch the water with my fingers. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be.
We sat on the blanket, just staring out at the moonlit water, listening to the crashing of the waves and the gentle howl of the wind. We interrupted the silence to talk about love, its joys and sorrows. We talked about people we loved when we were younger, the tenderness we still hold when we think about them. I told him my suspicion—that the tenderness will never really go away, but it’s what reminds us of our capacity for love, and what a beautiful, human thing.
We ended up staying there for about 45 minutes (triple the success!). We drove back through the Richmond, talking about our favorite top-to-bottom albums. His included three early Kanye albums and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, mine Ben Howard’s Every Kingdom (Deluxe Version) and Childish Gambino’s Camp. We discussed how music is a weird thing, that it feels more vulnerable to share a song you like with someone than sharing a book or a film. That it holds memory in a way that other things do not. I asked what song he’s into lately, and he queued up California by The Lagoons. I said how satisfying it was to listen to that while we were driving on California Street, which he didn’t realize we were cruising on. I added it to my June playlist and said, “How fun, now I’ll always think of this OB night with you when I hear this!”
I dropped him back at his place, where we both said how nice it was to have had this weird, spontaneous adventure with a new friend. We thanked each other for helping time slow down a little bit. I texted him to let him know I had gotten home safely, and thanked him for a quirky, memorable night. He replied, “That was not what I was expecting tonight but just what I needed.”
I went to bed satisfied that I too felt like I had gotten just what I needed.