Pacific Coast Highway
It’s a Thursday evening, and I feel an itch in my bones. There’s a stillness in me that’s begun to stir.
My mind dulled from last night’s poor decisions (bars — a lot of them — again — on a Wednesday), I sit sullenly in traffic wondering why it is I never seem to learn.
I strike a match and light the now-stale cigarette I’d stashed away — mentally labeled ‘In Case Anxious’ — and exhale a cloud of regret. A habit I wonder if I’ll ever unlearn.
The Miles Davis Quintet blares through my stereo, and in the distance, I overhear a couple arguing in another car.
(“I can’t trust you if you keep thirst-following all these model hoes on Instagram!”)
I remember why I prefer solitude.
(These days, I spend most of my time alone. Alone, but not lonely. It’s nice.)
Traffic lets up a bit, and before long, I find myself zooming down Pacific Coast Highway. Windows down, stereo on full blast, cigarette smoke and saltwater air flowing through my hair.
Golden hour in Huntington Beach, California.
There’s something about it — the way the setting sun casts a glimmering glare atop still ocean waters, soaking everything in its path with the glow of nostalgia.
I stub out my cigarette, and for a moment, I forget about the hangovers and the anxiety and the poor decisions made under the cover of nightfall.
That’s the thing about encountering beauty when you don’t expect it. It adds a romantic sheen over the 35mm film of your life, the afterglow of a lovely drug-induced high.
And with that, I am reminded — there are worse places to be stuck in traffic.
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