Sometime around 1965,
in the wee hours of morning,
all nine of us, including my mother,
who rarely joined her children
on forays into nature,
piled into the metallic tan station wagon
with the backseat facing the rear window
and headed for the harbor at San Pedro.
Spilling out of the car
with our requisite straw hats,
Sea & Ski, and dark glasses,
as we called them then,
my younger brothers and I headed straight
for the sea lion pool,
while Dad and John,
our eldest sibling,
launched the Chris-Craft
into the foggy brine.
Catalina bound,
in the days before the island
was built up and overrun by tourists,
it was a child’s delight.
“Twenty-six miles across the sea”
emblazoned itself
into the minds of our generation,
though few actually made the journey.
And if they did,
it was in the safety
of the Big White Steamship,
cruising into Avalon Bay.
Taking my place atop the bow
of the overloaded boat,
one hand on the line cleat,
the other dragging through
the crested blue-gray wake,
few things back then
granted me freedom such as this.
The ocean was the one place
I felt utterly free.
It still is.
We disembarked
on the leeward side of the island
and promptly fell into the clear water,
returning again and again
to sift silver dollars and quarters
from the fine sand beach.
How they arrived
at that little-known shore
remained a mystery
until, decades later,
I came to better understand
time and tides.