I read tonight at Cal State Long Beach, to a big and warm audience, and I was welcomed by a great bunch of writer-hosts, including Patty Seburn, Lisa Glatt, Suzanne Greenberg and Charles Harper Webb. I'm so grateful that they housed me down the road in a hotel in Seal Beach, so this afternoon after I arrived there was just time to walk out onto the long pier here before sundown. Seal Beach is like an old-fashioned Jersey Shore town, but with eucalyptus trees. There were Christmas decorations on the lampposts along the pier, and the lights came on just as the sun went down. Down in the Pacific, surfers in the water -- something an east coaster never tires of seeing in December. Isn't it winter?
The pier is quite high up in the air, so you look down onto the beach from some distance above. Two little girls in long greenish princess skirts were carrying a red velvet armchair down near the shoreline. There were two adult women with them, taking pictures I think. Something wonderful about the image of the elaborate chair beside the sea, and the girls in their party clothes: a festive little flash of surrealism.
5 comments:
Ummm, if you're still there, have a meal at Cafe Lafayette on the main street. Or there is a great breakfast place that does delicious breakfast burritos, also right on the one little main street.
I miss Seal Beach.
Gorgeous photos!
Brings back memories of my days as an undergrad at CSULB, long before any kind of MFA program in Creative Writing existed. And living in Seal Beach in the summer in my 20s: a lark! Soaking in the sun on the beach all day, then waiting tables at the Chart House at the Long Beach Marina by night. Was life ever so uncomplicated, and were we ever so young?
I particularly love the top photograph.
I saw your reading at CSULB, well done. :-)
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