The view from a street corner in Santa Babs: “The rain will come. The fires will go out. The waves will come. We’ll have jobs and parties and bars again. Cling tightly to that optimism!”

If we just stick around, it’ll get better.

I went down to the beach to check the surf. The wind was already on it.

Too small. Wrong swell angle. Too much wind. Too much wrong.

I sat on a log and watched it a while, under the spell of that strange surfing delusion where we believe if we just stick around, it’ll get better.

I noticed that my toenails needed clipping. It did not get better.

My silly, frivolous town is shut down.

The succession of bars that lines the main street of town sits dark and empty. The wine people have left. Signs on the restaurant windows advertise take-out and toilet paper.

Normally, we have parades and parties for every possible occasion. If there isn’t an occasion, we make one up.

But all the parties are off now, for who knows how long.

People walk their dogs in the park and exchange gossip from a careful six-foot distance. Family-sized clusters dot the beach, passing carefully like ships in a dense fog.

I’ve seen more people outside in a day then I usually do in a week.

It’s a bizarre inverse of the evacuations. Everyone is still here, sheltered in place, stuck, as an invisible inferno passes over us.

We stand in line at the grocery store, which allows fifty households to enter at one time.

There’s not much to buy. I wander the aisles of empty shelves and wonder what everyone is doing with all that flour. Even if I could still buy dried beans, I wouldn’t know what to do with them. The pasta is long gone and forget about toilet paper.

There’s fresh-baked chocolate cake. So I buy that.

A few local restaurants sell groceries now. We’ll have eggs, pasta, bread, and milk for sale on Monday, they say. I ate my last slices of bread for lunch today. I consider going back to the grocery store for more chocolate cake. Instead, I ride to the deli and buy bread, pasta, cheese, a bottle of wine.

I wash my hands when I get back home and swipe my debit card with rubbing alchohol. Maybe it helps. Maybe it doesn’t.

There are, after all, limits to human agency.

I stand on the street corner and drink an espresso from a paper cup.

Cars roll by, desultory. The stores are closed.

Where is there to go? The coffee shop has stayed open, serving from a table set up at the front door.

I order espresso and tip ten dollars.

If we’ve learned anything here from the fires and the floods, it’s how to strive for kindness even when it all feels impossible.

The rain will come. The fires will go out. The waves will come. We’ll have jobs and parties and bars again someday.

Cling tightly to that optimism, and don’t let it go.

If we just stick around, it’ll get better.

I stand on the street corner with my paper cup and watch the clouds blow by.

I imagine a summer day at the beach, all of us there, just hanging around with nothing to do.

A surprise windswell brings us small, playful waves. Sometimes, the unexpected things are actually good.

I slide along through clear water and I watch as the rocks pass below my feet. Silver bait fish flash in the sun. Kelp waves lazily.

I get my share and lie in the warm sand.

Beers crack open. Someone hoots his friend down the line, as though the waves were twice the size.

The details don’t matter.

Just the bright sun and the cold beers and the good friends. The sun drops to the horizon. The water turns orange, then gray. Last call, the light fades.

I stand on the street corner, paper cup in hand, and dream of brighter days.