I had been travelling for seven hours, awake for sixteen, having worked a half a day and only snacked on two bags of peanuts and some pretzels, slurped down two screwdrivers; by all accounts I should have been pretty bleary-eyed, weary and beyond noticing.
But as the plane turned, I stared out the window to my left in silence and watched as the sun slunk to the sea. The sea, the only thing visible; the land, but a curtain holding back the sea. The sea, the sky, a riot of colors, blurred and morphed by their meeting.
As it turned out, that first glimpse of the Pacific along California would be echoed throughout my five days there.
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I was there to celebrate a birthday with this lady, my partner in crime since we were over a decade younger in a place much colder and more central that where either of us live now.
The original plan involved New York, Central Park, and city wandering in sweaters and hats. But I'm so glad the hotels there were too expensive.
Before she and her mother arrived, though, I visited with a California native, another Margaret, who I met in NC and inspired me to take up distance running four years ago.
She now lives back in CA, in Pacific Grove, and graciously picked me up, took me to a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint with her fiance, and then drove me south, teaching me about the land we drove through in the dark, then fed me information about where to run in the morning and tucked me into a foot of bed coverings to ward off the area's damp chill.
I fell asleep almost instantly under the weight of the numerous sheets, blankets, and comforters and did not stir until dawn.
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And dawn came cold, damp, and gray. I shivered as I dressed and prepared for a run. At Margaret's urging, I took my phone in the event of getting lost. Turns out I did just fine navigating down Buena Vista to David to Congress to Sunset to the ocean.
But I'm still glad I had my phone.
After meeting the ocean with a stupid gleeful smile on my face, I ran north along the Asilomar Trail and hugged the shore towards Monterey. Past seals, sea gulls, and endless gray mist; past photographers shooting seals, other runners, and bright colorful bursts of strange fauna.
The miles ticked away and I turned around; heading back on the same path but, as Margaret promised, seeing something completely different.
Craggy rock beat by pounding surf; bold lines of new homes facing this ceaseless barrage of salt and water and wind.
As I trudged back up Sunset onto Congress, a labor slightly lessened by the carpet of pine needles beneath my feet, I thought about the bursting red and yellow of unknown flowers; of the basking seals perked on rocks; of the heavy odor of salt and sealife; of a beautiful life inside this gray.
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When I returned, I rambled excitedly about what I saw to Margaret - native Californian, mind you, and now a year under her belt as a resident of Pacific Grove - and its strange beauty. She humored me, listening, then let me shower to take off the chill, and made me a cappucino and gave me a drip coffee. Bless you, woman.
Later still, freshly showered and caffeinated, we lunched near Pebble Beach, talking about her upcoming nuptials (me still gushing about my run) and regarding the misty sea.
"But you watch," she said. "When we go into Monterey, the sun will come out."
And so it did.
She took me on the express tour of downtown Monterey, driving through the hustle and bustle of Cannery Row, past the Monterey Bay Aquarium, to Fisherman's Wharf. The sun was out, the crowds thick with tourists of all kinds, and we walked speedily through it.
"Don't worry," I told her. "I'm coming back here someday soon, for at least a week."
"I thought you might say that," she smiled.
Later we headed north to pick up her friend Kelly to embark on some giggling girl time involving wine and blow-outs and final dress fittings. We laughed and gushed and I thought about how lucky I was to have found a friend in Margaret.
Later still she drove me further to South San Francisco where Meg and her mother Cathy awaited. We five ladies went to dinner at Buon Gusto and laughed about the things only five women eating Italian food and drinking wine can laugh about.
Somewhere between eating my last bite of gnocchi and drinking the complimentary post-dinner Moscato I paused for a moment when I realized:
I had only been in California for 24 hours.
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