As the fourth this year fell on a Saturday, our liberty schedule released us at 1200 on Thursday for a 1200 Monday return. Memories of the less enjoyable parts of WestPac crowded back as I labored to clean up my piece of the squadron and was drawn, despite myself, into the internal imperative to make things better. The curse of all Marines, this drive keeps our noses to the proverbial grindstone in silly little projects well after our reason tells us we are justified in going home. Many hours and one uber-map of the SoCal operating area later, I headed dejectedly out of the squadron for an early bedtime. The next morning I wearily slept in before running some errands and heading up the coast to Dana Point for some sailing with a friend and his brother.
During the drive up, Grace stole upon me like a summer storm. Glimpses of the endless ocean, disappearing into a horizon so sharp clear it might have been drawn by a draftsman, washed slowly into my soul. I drove past the dry rugged hills of Camp Pendleton with delicious recklessness, my speedometer hovering around ninety. Pulling into Dana Point I noticed appreciatively the green grass, cypress and palm trees, and the careful architecture that made it seem like a casual resort town. Orange County, I thought, really is all it's cracked up to be.
The marina was crowded with easy-going boat owners, camped out on their slips for barbecues and beer. The weather was perfect. My friend met me, took me to his brother's boat, and we headed off. The trip ended up being leisurely and informative, with everyone taking a hand at the sails and tiller for instruction in the surprisingly delicate art of sailing. We went nowhere in particular, simply tacking toward and away from shore for several hours. At one point a school of dolphins joined us in a companionable way, sporting about our prow and broaching alongside. There is something so free and easy and joyful about the streamlined way they swim: they seem so perfectly suited for and attuned to their environment. They also deserted a lumbering dolphin-watch tour boat for the visit, which didn't seem fair to those paying customers but seemed right enough to us.
Once back in the marina, my friend and I grabbed some gourmet pizza from a marina shop and headed back down for an early dinner on the boat. Talk about a careless afternoon! Rocking gently on the water in the fine afternoon sun, eating some good, satisfying food, drinking from an abundance of beer, and listening to some Johnny Cash Gospel music on the sound system were all it took to leach the rest of my pre-holiday depression from my body. The fact that it was only Friday and therefore two and a half more days of weekend lay before us no doubt contributed to the mood.
The rest of the night included a crawfish boil, a delightfully barbaric way of eating that involves twisting apart the cooked but very alive-looking bodies of the animal, crushing the head between thumb and forefinger and drinking the softer organs like a shot, and peeling back the tail's exoskeleton in order to pinch out the shrimp-like meat. Spicy and messy in character, it reminded me of fishing off Wake (where, to my initial surprise, we happily killed the fish by clubbing them with a blood-stained aluminum baseball bat and liberally spattered ourselves with gore in the process). Some witty comments to the effect of how lucky crawfish were with all the head-sucking and tail-pinching that was going on. Of course, we washed the whole tasty and interactive meal down with beer and continued on to the pool and the poker. My friend's family is from Louisiana, and the reckless hospitality present that evening was just a little bit of Southern Charm transplanted and thriving on the West Coast. I ended up cheerfully crashed on my friend's mother's couch and needing a ride to my car in the morning. Dignified? sadly not. Somehow, though, I knew it was all OK.
The next morning, despite my hangover and the wicked farmer's tan I'd acquired sailing, I sped back under crystalline skies and over the sun-lit coast to San Diego, where I had an important date: the St. Brigid's Young Adult Picnic. Enterprising youth of more temperate habits than mine had promised to stake out a prime beach location and set up a volleyball court. I made it back by ten in the morning, did some recovery and ate some food, and drove down to the beach at noon fully expecting some painful traffic and strangely unconcerned. But to my growing surprise the streets were comparatively empty. It was surreal--I wondered if I had mistaken the day. Was it really the 3rd? the 5th? normally Pacific Beach is bumper to bumper in the streets and elbow to elbow everywhere else. But after I parked and began the several-block watch to the beach, I noticed that people were concentrated houses, partying in their yards. It dawned on me that the City of San Diego had banned alcohol on city beaches recently, and unwilling to give that up most people just forewent the beach altogether. More room for me! I thought elatedly and continued my merry way. And indeed I was not all that upset. I prefer a somewhat active approach to beach recreation: volleyball, throwing around a frisbee or football, swimming. NOT swilling alcohol. I prefer to save that part of it for the evening. And indeed, I did all of the above at the beach that day, enjoying the perfect sunshine, refreshing water, and excellent company.
Visiting with two old friends from Notre Dame later that afternoon, we all re-discovered a love of literature, and so spent what was for me a glorious hour comparing stories, ideas, and memories through the books we'd each read. The literary nature of our conversation reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, courtesy of C.S. Lewis:
"...[W]e must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book which interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere plowing of the sand and sowing of the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit."
Indeed, that's what my weekend turned out to demonstrate. The sun did look down on friends talking (and laughing) over beers in a boat, friends talking about books read quietly and with great pleasure, families and groups enjoying the gifts of summer over a long weekend--these are the things that America has given us. Our greatest achievement as a nation, perhaps, is the intrinsic respect declared in our founding document that our "inalienable" rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nearly all Americans have a part in this and have labored to build such a land in homes, factories, offices, schools, and in uniform. Thus as the light faded gracefully that night over the clarion Pacific horizon, and the fireworks began, I felt around me the trappings of paradise. I knew there would be a work day soon, and that it would certainly come with enough stress and difficulty to pull me down from my Elysian mood, but I knew that all toil and worry were worth it: in this world, such contentment as I found is only truly this accessible in this land of the free and home of the brave.
