one man’s beach C O M M E N TA R Y • B Y M A T T L O V E
Paying penance
Columnist Matt Love
Monday. A few minutes into first light. Hearty fog envelops the beach at low tide. Drizzle here and there. Everything gray. Rain imminent. Today’s forecast in the Willamette Valley calls for a high of 95 degrees. Must be July on the Oregon Coast. I step onto the sand and startle a young man crossing the creek approximately ten feet to my left. He has short hair, wears baggy red basketball shorts, white high top sneakers and a black hoodie. I can’t make out much of his face except that it’s clean shaven. He doesn’t seem like a local to me. “Good morning,” I say. “How’s it going?” Sonny the husky comes up behind me. She sizes up the man. He turns slightly toward me. I see all of his face now and recognize the unmistakable dazed and distressed appearance of someone with a formidable hangover. And here he is at dawn taking the cure. I’ve been there a few times in my life. I’ve actually dived into the ocean to dry out. It doesn’t work— physically. The succor comes from the pure existentialism of the plunge. “Hey,” he says in an exhausted monotone. That’s it. He trudges north and I head west to investigate a sand castle festooned with gull feathers. It’s been over 40 years since I’ve built a sand castle. I’m more of a driftwood fort man these days. Jimi Hendrix once sang: “And so castles made of sand melt into the sea, eventually,” but I don’t think he meant that pejoratively. I suppose pleasure and value can exist in the spontaneous building of things of an impermanent nature. It’s probably a useful metaphor to employ every now and then. Perhaps all the time. I watch the man stagger over to the remains of a campfire. He picks up a driftwood plank approxi-
mately six feet long and four inches thick. It must weigh a hundred pounds. No doubt rusty nails protrude at wicked angles. He shoulders the plank reminiscent of Jesus Christ on the road to Calvary, a Puritan sinner in the stocks, a professional golfer who’s just shanked a three iron out of bounds in the final round of the Master’s. I tell Sonny to“take a look at this!” She does. The man starts carrying the plank down the beach. This is no workout. Something is going on with him. I know what it is: penance, he’s doing penance. It’s as obvious as the clear gray sky. Was it his idea or someone else’s? There’s a story here. I live for these moments on the beach. At least the man isn’t walking into the ocean. That might compel me to intervene. If he suddenly steers westward, I am ready, however. The first thing I’ll say is, “Brother, tell me the transgression that brought you to this despair and I’ll tell you one of mine that easily tops it.” Then, I’ll invite him to a bar for a double bloody mary, a hair of the dog, and
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6 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • july 12, 2013
give him a dose of Freud’s talking cure. He’ll take it because I know how to listen. I follow the man and whip out a cheap digital camera, the model without a viewfinder, meaning I can’t get my one good eye focused on a dominant subject. I loathe cameras like this, but mysteriously seem to own a half dozen or so. Is this ethical? Who knows? I can sort it out later. He’s picking up the pace. I begin to jog, Sonny right behind me. I’m losing the shot. I can’t see anything in the gray and drizzle through this camera’s fogged in two-inch display, so I just fire away on multiple settings and perspectives in hope that something shows up on the computer screen later. It does. Good luck friend. I wonder if I should have come up to you and said something. Paying penance doesn’t have to be done in silence. Matt Love lives in South Beach with his husky, Sonny. His latest book, Of Walking in Rain, is available at nestuccaspitpress.com and coastal bookstores. He can be reached at lovematt100@yahoo.com.
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