By Barry Schweiger
Alone. My first Christmas in Laguna Beach. But not lonely. Well… sometimes, for my angel of 26 years died suddenly a few months ago. I moved here as I love this town and the ocean, and at times I relive the intimate memories that we shared wandering around downtown and the beaches before returning home in the evening to Los Angeles.
As a teen during summer break, driving with friends from Pasadena to enjoy our new licenses and our freedom, Laguna Beach became our go-to town. It was a time of surf, sunburns, being away from the adult world, and of course, trying to hook up. Simple and free days. Now, decades later, I’ve returned, no longer surfing nor laying in the sand (but hooking up may be on the table).
Here, I spend my first Christmas in this calm town marveling at sidewalks clear of shopping carts stacked with junk, tents and their inhabitants, and graffiti. I choose not to walk downtown for the season’s festivities, for there is no longer a warm waist to wrap my arm around while enjoying the celebrations. Should those intimate, comforting moments of sharing special events return, great. But now, sheltered in my new home, enjoying quiet evenings remains okay. For I am happy here in Laguna with new friends and neighbors, all excellent people.
Merry Christmas all and to all a fun and loving life.
During Barry’s seven decades, he’s loved, argued, fought, inquired, learned and accepted a whole lot and of those, loving is the most fulfilling.
Dear Barry…
How lucky you are to be in my town, to avoid seeing tents and their “inhabitants”…I assume you are referring to the homeless people…”shopping carts filled with junk, and graffiti.”
Yes, it is heartbreaking. Those “inhabitants” go without food, a hot shower, hopelessly lost. In those “shopping carts,” it is possible that a life full of memories are stored, perhaps a discarded water bottle, a torn box of old books, pencils.
Yes, Barry, you are lucky that “hooking up” may be on your table. What I wish is that lost souls in those tents, which disturb your sensibilities, find their own tables. To put in their affordable housing, and may those tables hold food and all the good things that homeless people might only dream off.