starring
(Jeff) Bridges and (Montgomerey) Clift
After sleeping on the floor of the surfer's closet he lives in (complete with secret loft compartment that Bess enjoying throwing a rubber ball from and destroying the room), eat some bagels and then head to the beach where he knows there's a spot the kids can jump off a cliff.
But I digress. When we first got there it was night, and "vacation" is weird, it felt like we spent forever looking for food, and what can I buy that will fill everyone up and I don't have a kitchen and all our bags are in a lump on Bruce's floor, and I feel homeless.
We drove 6 hours through rolling golden fields, huge, empty lovely mountains, cows, valleys, pea soup places. Our car did not break. My mind wavered, however, since all it is used to is the same little path it keeps running these 15 years. The same sights. In fact I have lived here in this place we live now, the longest I've ever lived anywhere in my life.
So scenery. Wow. And disorientation. Also.
The night we got there, we dumped stuff, got food, wrangled people and hunger to the boardwalk with loud games, rides, movie on big screen on the beach, like being born into a carnival. It was almost 10 at night and why is Bess still up? The only ride they go on is the carousel that you have to try and grab a gold ring and throw it into the clown's tiny hole mouth. The carousel wings you around so fast, and the gold ring pole you reach to get the ring from is like a great way to break your arm off.
We got home to Bruce's and made little nests in the Santa Cruz beach smelling room and Bruce said this is the way his house is supposed to be, full of people strewn around. Being Somewhere Else is hyper confusing, and things like taking a shower and seeing your familiar toothbrush is a good thing.
In the morning we walk along the cliff and find a secret path down to the cove of a beach (where Bruce tells us later is called Grampa's Beach because old men walk around there naked). But it was empty and beautiful. And freezing. We are desert people I guess, because I felt like we were in Vermont with the foggy weather. At our house the goal in summer is to wear as little as possible to get through the day. Here, bundle. We brought all the wrong clothes.
Nathan wants to go surfing but Bruce's back is sore, so we end up on the cliff. One of the things Emma wanted to do this summer was cliff dive. I thought no. Nice idea, but that is just not happening.
Then suddenly we are walking to a cliff. Climmbing OVER a sign that says NO JUMPING. People DROWN here. There's a tally. 99 People. Bruce says here, let me help you over the sign.
We walk to the edge of the cliff.
Here's where I know I am a mother. I am holding them back, just with my voice. With the shiver running all through my guts. Don't go near the edge.
It is a long way down. Stomach churning long. We peer down at the majestic ocean which is whisking into the cove. Where it has beaten a hole in the rock and made little caves and (jeff) bridges out of the rock. Just by being persistent.
Two ten year old boys in thick wetsuits come up next to us, all wet. They're chattering like they're at camp. Like it's no big deal. They pass right by us. Go to the edge. Jump right off.
We peer down. They're swimming to the other side of the rock. The water heaves them up. They climb up the knobby, mussel covered rocks like cats.
I'm gonna do it, Nathan says. I'm gonna go get my wetsuit. He takes the keys to the car.
I don't think they should do it. Inside my stomach is saying is it worth it? The death.
Bruce is no help. He says forget the wetsuit. Just put on your shorts and jump right now.
Nathan comes back with the wetsuit on. He hands one to Emma. She's wrestling into the wetsuit.
I look behind me at the dad in the baseball hat and the sweatshirt who's sitting on the beach chair in the middle of the rock slab behind us. The little boys in the wetsuits belong to him. He is the opposite of me. He is sitting down reading while his kids are flinging themselves off the 40 foot rocks. Repeatedly. Santa Cruz has some laid back parents, man.
While Emma is suiting up, a girl in barely a bathing suit wetsuit comes over with her jr lifeguard friend. At least there's a lifeguard. Or someone with a lifeguard sweatshirt on, which is close enough. I think we jump here. She says. I can't remember. Why am I scared? Just jump, her friend says. She jumps.
The laid back dad has disappeared and I see him on a tiny ledge around the front of the cliff, clinging to the side like people do in movies when they go out a high up window. Except he's very relaxed. One of his wetsuit sons is traipsing along behind him. They look down and see the chorus of seaweed ebbing and flowing like a giant blender below them, the water surging up and fading back.
One. Two. Three. Explosion! He says. One of the boys leaps far out as if exploded from the cliff and plops into the water below.
Where AM I? What IS this Santa Cruz??
My kids are looking down on the other side. All ready to jump. I spend much time looking down for any knobby leg breaking rock jutting out.
The little kids are coming back around. They're 10 years old. I tell one of them okay it's his first time jumping. What should he do. The kid says, wet blonde hair plastered to his head, do it like a pencil dive. Arms at your sides.
The other one says am I bleeding through my wetsuit? He scraped a knee.
Show us how you do it, I say to the first kid. The kid jumps off. The next kid lines up to go.
How does he do it? I ask again, nervous mom.
He looks at me tipping his head up. You just jump, he says.
And he leaps.
Nathan goes to the edge. Cautious not to slip. His strong toes on the edge. I'm holding the camera. He jumps.
He's swimming. He's okay.
Emma sidles up, looking so amazing in a wetsuit, it's like wetsuits were made for her, and Catwoman.
Suddenly she jumps too.
Bess wants to do it. It's so freezing. We don't have her wetsuit. I say can we wait til next year. She knows she can do it. But I can't go in to rescue her. Does it have to be all three. Can't we just stop the death possibility or at least lessen it here.
Nathan climbs out and does it again and again. Emma does a smaller one, one more time, but that's enough for her.
We climb back out over the fence. Take a picture with the danger sign.
Then the drive home. We could stay with Bruce in his little well wooded hovel by the sea, but I don't know how to relax. The drive is waiting for us.
7 hours in the car. Which feels like 7 hours by the way. We're still driving at night and I sit in the way back and I can see all the children, the two big boys in the front driving, the 9 year old with her feet on my lap, the 14 year old cliff jumper with her head on my knees. This is the place I know. I might wish I was a graduate student, or a famous writer, or riding a trail through a creek. Maybe there is time for everything. But this part I know. Being there while they leap. And then afterward. When they sleep.
Regular life and then explosion. And then regular life.
