Originally Posted Saturday, July 6, 2013
It rained on the way and I was pretty sure I'd made a mistake, but as usual, as I crossed over the river that makes a barrier island of the beach, the skies opened up blue and sweet. It was a nice day after all.
I walked with my Holga thinking I might revive some sort of beach series, but between looking like my dad and not having shot documentary style in a couple of years, I folded it into the shirt I was carrying keeping it from view. Walking a million miles was what I needed. Just keep moving until you are as thin as a rail I kept telling myself. It is the mantra of my life. Movement is everything. Stay still long enough and they will shovel dirt on you.
The beach I had chosen was no particular challenge to my physique. There were fat people with children everywhere.
After walking for a long while, I came back to the car and decided to go to the National Seashore. Now here's a secret that should not be told. I've lived here my entire life and have never paid the entrance fee to go. It is not that I have been sneaking in. That is impossible as there is only one road in and out. No, no. . . shhh. . . I have never been. Today, though, I was going to the nude beach. I have an idea for a large format documentary, but I needed to scout it first. It is a good thing I did. There is nothing much to see.
You must drive to the farthest end of the National Seashore to find the nudists. You know what they are. But parking is so restricted that you come across only a dozen or so naked people in a mile of walking. These are old men and women for the most part in worse shape than I. The beach and dunes are lovely, of course, the same ones a Spaniard would have seen when he landed from his boat. And I could certainly take my own models out there and shoot them naked all day long, but that is stupid. So, thwarted a bit in my dreams of big Nudist Family Outings, I got in my car and headed to. . . a French bakery. I know, I know, but it is the traditional thing to do at this beach, at least for my friends, and I hadn't eaten all day. So I stopped and got a turkey and provolone sandwich with oil and vinegar and a bag of coconut macaroons. I kept feeling my stomach as I ate it in the car (there is only take out) on the way home.
After a nap, I decided to get on my things and go to the gym. I didn't want to go, really. I was ready to backslide on all the plans I made to get skinny walking on the beach. I knew already how it goes. I've made such plans many summers before. But there was nothing else to do and I am tired of cooking up pictures of models, tired of models, really, and of people in general. So I got into my car and made the usual drive, sick of driving (over two hours in the car already) and sick of pinhead drivers. And then it happened. . . again. I will admit that I am an aggressive driver. But people make me so. Two cars driving side by side making no attempt to space themselves so that someone who did not want to drive the church speed of just under the legal speed limit could slip by. Maybe I made a gesture. I don't know. But when I finally got a chance to get by, the fellow I was passing made a hand signal out his window, and me being me, I slowed down and let down the window and drove side by side with him for awhile. I looked over at a young fellow in a wife beater and a hipster goatee who was glaring back at me.
"???"
"Slow down! You drive like a maniac."
I didn't think I had time for my full dissertation on pinheads like him, their malevolence and shit head aggressiveness in driving the Lord's speed, so I said,
"Hey man, did you always want to be a cop? What happened? Did you have a bad credit score? Zimmerman! You're a fucking Zimmerman!!!"
He just looked at me. I'd gotten off a good one. He was processing. . . speechless. And as he stared confused, trying in his dimwit head to think of something clever to say, I resumed my normal speed, put the window up, and turned the music back on. Ho! If life were always so good.
At the gym, I went through my routine without trying too hard, letting my body have its way (which was not to do too much), not stressing, not worrying, then when the lifting was done, stretching out on the floor for half an hour trying to succor my hurting back.
When I walked out and got into my car, the light had turned sweet, that late afternoon light after a day at the beach when you feel blonder and darker and a bit more attractive. And after Whole Foods where I stocked up on a nights worth of Chimay, I began the final drive home. I turned the radio on. It was Marian McPartland interviewing the bassist Ron Carter. I only ever hear this show in parts and pieces as I drive from here to there, but it is always a miracle and I never fail to learn something new. And tonight, they ended the show with Miles Davis's "So What" from "Kind of Blue." There may be no better song ever written. And McPartland, born in 1918, can still play like nobody's business. Jesus, I thought as I drove by the lake's shore as the light turned gold, there is a certain kind of life that one might want. It is gentle and sophisticated and hip and sweet, full of beautiful music and sensuality, of museums full of art and cocktails at beautiful bars with people who are worth knowing. Yes, yes. . . there is that life. I know it. I know.
Just as "Piano Jazz" finished up, I pulled into the granite driveway. There was a cat waiting inside to be fed and pet. There was that and the Chimay to drink and some dinner to make. But that other life. . . man, I have to work my way back.
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