There are places I remember

When I was 17, a really good friend showed me a spot on the coast. His spot. A safe place where he would go ever since he'd gotten his drivers license. Sometimes every night. Sometimes less often, but never less than once a month, for years.

We lived in the suburbs of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley. He had a 1969 El Camino, with a loose steering box that made him have to continuously steer back and forth to maintain a straight line.

He introduced me to '80s bands like Squeeze and Split Enz and Madness and some far more obscure ones I'd never heard of anywhere before or since.

There are lots of things, sad things I choose not to remember about him, though they are easily enough called to mind. But I choose to recall the mentorship he showed me. The special places he let me know about, places he could go to be alone with his thoughts. Physically, and mentally. And he gave some of them to me. This is a story of one of those places.

It was a 42 mile journey. About 25 miles from North Hollywood to PCH - Highway 1 - and about 17 miles further from there. But it depended on which canyon you drove too.

I remember the first time we drove out there. The twisting canyons that I would later consider my own, leading up out of the dingy Valley, over the hills, and down to the sea. I rode along like some sort of apprentice, listening to his stories, in that old Chevy, with the premium stereo blasting out some of the more trendy New Wave and Punk and Progressive and Metal sounds he was into at the time.

He didn't like being trendy; his style was his own, and people just naturally copied it because they wanted to be like him. He didn't invent wearing popped collars with Levi's jackets and penny loafers, but he made the style his own. We drove up the coast to a beach I'd heard of but never ventured to: Zuma, but veered off just before reaching it. I was confused.

He'd told me of the place before. A place where the beach ended. There was a beautiful rock promontory jutting out into the waves, separating the regular beach from a special private cove where, as I'd heard it rumored before, people didn't wear clothes. But the beach on the other side was for another time, perhaps.

We parked and hiked along the surf toward the rocks. No one was around. It was 9 o'clock at night, so of course it was deserted. But he told me, no one ever comes around here. That's not so true anymore, but I'm getting ahead of myself. He described a flat spot on top of those rocks. About 30 or so feet up, where there was a place to sit - he said a bench was there. And he would sit up there for hours and watch the waves roll around at his feet. Listening. Listening and watching. He hadn't been back for a while. Since the previous summer. He didn't say why, though I understand now. He was excited to be back - he tried to hide it, but I could tell he was bristling with energy - to go up and see his space.

He bade me wait a few minutes while he went up to check it out. To make sure no one was up there "doing anything." He ascended almost gingerly, as if his feet and hands didn't actually need to touch all the knobs and pits that were necessary for a neophyte, and before I knew it he'd floated up out of sight. I was OK to stay behind, being, as he perceived, still a bit innocent at the time. There might be drugs or sex or something else, and I might not know how to be cool. This was his sacred spot, and being cool was beyond a simple requirement.

The waves roared in my ears. I was splashed with gentle spray again and again. Like the ocean was saying "Hello. Welcome. Come play?" It seemed like an hour passed, or more. By my watch it was closer to 10-15 minutes. His descent was a bit rough, noisy, clumsy, compared to the way up. I didn't have to ask what was up. He wasn't crying. Not on the outside anyway. He was silent. He jumped the last 4 feet off the rock, landing solidly, looked at me with a question on his face. Then he turned to the sea. "Let's go" he said "I don't belong here anymore. It isn't mine anymore. The ocean doesn't want me here." The waves rushed up unexpectedly to us. He reacted as if they were attacking him.

And we walked silently along the shore for a few minutes.

He told me on the drive home that the bench was gone. It hadn't been "uninstalled" but rather it was clear that the sea had ripped it from it's moorings. His spot was gone. There was literally no place left for him there anymore. It didn't want him. It had released him while he was away.

My curiosity was inspired. I started going back there. Maybe once a month. Sometimes more often. Sometimes I'd climb the rock and try to figure out where the bench had been. There was, in fact, no where to sit. But from that rock, I was at the edge of the world. Everything was possibility spread out in front of me. And any hurt could be considered at it's end when I brought it here, to the end of the world.

From time to time, I'd drive out there with a good friend and show him or her the magic in the deafening roar, in the spray, and in the silence of the space between the waves crashing. For me, the sacred place wasn't on top of the rock, though. It was standing at the end of the beach, knowing an entirely different world was available if one just ventured a bit further in any direction.

I never knew his sacred space the way he knew it. In his mind, he'd brought it to me broken, and unwelcoming. But the magic remained, and was something new, for me.

It's been over 20 years since I called that a sacred space where I could go. When I visit now, there are always people on that beach. And sometimes I'll spot a figure standing up on the rocks. It's no longer a quiet, unknown secret. Did I have something to do with that? Maybe. Perhaps I freed it a little. Perhaps folks just started to discover it on their own, and I am one of the last to know it the way I did. They know their own magic there. But the magic I found there has been passed along too. It is mine. It is inside me. In my memories. In my cells. In me. It is me.

I still love that place, though it is different now. Back then, I needed it, exactly as it was. But now it is not what I need. I am blessed by the time I had there, and by the ability to hold what I felt then in my memory.

There are times when we don't get to experience the magic someone else has had, but instead we get to experience our own. The experience passes through us as we pass through it. We are changed by it, and we change it. And the world spins on.