West of the West

I visited Ventura last week.

It was a trip listening to Feelin’ Fine while I cruised up the PCH from the airport.

The Pacific sparkled under the rising sun and threw itself against the Santa Monica Mountains. Cars buzzed around like ants. City workers put new bags in the garbage cans on the beaches. A film crew loaded in.

We passed the cliff that Meet Me in Malibu references.

Still there.    

I thought back to when I left for Oz. Winging it. Pulling into Ventura. Playing music at the bar. Getting by. New friends. A girl. Excitement. Confusion. Heartbreak.

I experienced so many emotions in this place. Many things happened. And continue to. Yet that cliff still looms above the break with someone else sitting on its edge staring out at the sea. What’s he thinking about?

We change. Places remain. They nurture or ruin us. Or both. A place stores our memories and helps us make new ones.

Life is strange.

I immediately jumped on my friend’s boat and we sailed West of the West. To the Channel Islands. A chain of islands that float a little over twenty miles off the coast of Ventura.

There’s no service out there. I turned my phone off and left it in my luggage for four days. I might as well have been one of the sixteenth-century Spanish explorers that brought guns, glory, and Gospel to those wild waters.

We looked for waves, but there was no swell. So we explored, landing ashore. We anchored in coves I won’t share the coordinates of.

I finished reading a novel. Journaled. Soaked in the sun. Caught up with friends.

It was a perfect environment to decompress from the last few months and gear up for the fall.

I didn’t take a single photo. I pulled my camera out, but the battery was dead. Oh, well. I’ll share a couple photos from previous treks below.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you for now.

Thank you for listening to and sharing Feelin’ Fine. And for reading these letters (if you’ve read this far).

I’m slowly but surely putting a band together down here in Austin to start playing shows.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

Until next time,

CLO