By Susan Spencer
I go back to that morning every time I think of minus tide, when the sun and moon are aligned. The street was vacant when my older brother James and I first arrived at BLKdot Coffee. It was much too early for tourists and holiday shoppers. A thick marine layer brought in a brisk December chill, the sun undecided about showing up. It was Christmas Eve and the final day of a staycation in Laguna Beach. Both of us just past mid-life, we met up at the sea to celebrate the holiday. Through the years, it had become our tradition. He and I were the California siblings, the lone family out West and we had fun together. Exploring the tidepools of Crescent Bay was a favorite pastime of his, and what he did, I did.
We had left the inn in search of strong hot black coffee before our planned exploration at the deep creviced shoreline. The coffee sustained us as we sipped and lingered for a while. Always the engineer with a sharp eye for detail, James went on excitedly about the red and purple sea urchins, hermit crabs, snails, orange sea stars and buried hidden caves one could find combing the pools. I indulged him and as he spoke, a curious hippie fella with a swirled topknot and a long wizardly beard mysteriously appeared and leaned against a lamppost, seemingly deep in thought. He kept an eye on my brother and his constant chatter about minus tide, the time when life at the shore revealed itself. His presence gave me a bit of a shudder. I dismissed my unease and soon we were off to cross PCH to descend the rocky cliff to the tide pools.
In the remaining hours of the morning, high tide would recede to minus tide, revealing those purple sea urchins and orange sea stars clinging to rocks as their home, and where tiny octopus and crabs crept in and out of water pockets. My brother studied survival in those foamy, rocky tide pools. He moved quickly before the waves would swell and the little pools would fill up again. And just like that, the minus tide would be over. We ascended the cliff back to the inn and finally hit the road in search of a good meal, the sustenance of the early morning coffee long depleted.
Nowadays, I return to BLKdot to sip coffee without James. That Christmas Eve at Crescent Bay was his last, and after a long battle with cancer, he left us within the coming New Year.
Susan Spencer is a retired educator and serves as co-chair of the Pas de Deux Chapter of the Guilds of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Her love of travel inspires her writing.
