Long shadows today.
Walking to my car and I could see my shadow stretch. I looked like some long legged alien animal striding across the freshly resurfaced and freshly painted blacktop.
So stopped to take a picture.
But as soon as I got the camera out a cloud passed in front of the sun and my shadow disappeared.
It was a little cloud. Passing slowly. So I waited. I leaned against my truck and gave it a few minutes. I watched people come and go from the Big Box Store.
Lots of people out today. The season is changing. And it’s a holiday. That brings the people out into the world.
It took about 5 minutes, but the cloud passed and the long shadows returned. And I got the picture of my shadow in the low winter sun.
Low winter sun does that. It’s not winter yet, but the long shadows and low sun tell me winter is coming—just like it does every year (every year around here anyway…)
It seems like time is moving faster. Just speeding along.
When I lived in LA time seemed to stop. There are no seasons to remind you of the passage of time. I mean, there are seasons, but it’s subtle.
There’s always that one day of the year when it gets cold enough to wear a coat. It usually happens around Christmas.
One year we were driving back to Santa Monica from a Christmas party in The Valley. Wife’s coworker. Nice house. She’d just gotten married. They invited us to their new place in Woodland Hills.
Lovely little house. Lovely people.
I remember it was cold. It was that one day of the year when it gets cold in LA.
I remember it was cold because that night I’d worn my peacoat I’d gotten at an army surplus store in Berkeley. It was a good coat for the Bay Area, but I rarely wore it in LA. Rarely had the need.
I remember wearing that coat because I remember the hostess complimenting me about it. She was a costume designer, so her fashion compliments carried extra weight. She was also remarkably beautiful—tall and thin and graceful with long blonde hair—and that carried extra weight too.
After the party we drove home through Topanga. I’d been drinking—just like I was always drinking. Or maybe I wasn’t drinking so much then. Maybe it was when I had the drinking under control. Or maybe I was under the illusion I had it under control.
It must have been after midnight. We were coming down the hill on the ocean side of Topanga. I could see the black calm Pacific ahead. No reflection on the waves. No shimmer. Just blackness out to the horizon.
And then I saw it. I saw it reflecting in the headlights.
I saw snow.