A Little Lillordag Story About…Not Much

There was basically nothing special about the beach tonight. This post will have no lesson. It’s just a retelling of senses and an experience. I’m pretty sure the last time we made it out to the beach for sunset was the same night as the fated dolphin encounter almost exactly a month ago. As we’re just getting back into the swing of things, lillordag this week kind of felt like any other day.

“Are we trying to go to the beach tonight?” Charles asked me as I walked into the spare bedroom where he works, nearing the end of our 9 to 5ish grind. “If we don’t do that, we’re definitely at least going on a walk.” That’s been our new thing since we’ve been back. Rather than me peeling myself off my desk chair and going to lay in bed for a while before dinner commences, we’ve been strolling the neighborhood instead. Sometimes we see the same people, like the woman with her sweet dog Rooney, a young 10-month old energetic pup of mixed Australian Shepard and German Shepard breed that always seems happy to see us, or rather…anyone.

There’s the house with the hen house along the side that gives us both so much joy. Seeing the chickens, “my ladies” as I call them even though they aren’t mine and they don’t know me, pecking away at the grass trying to find their dinner seemingly.

“I wasn’t planning on going to the beach, so we can just walk,” I said after a thought.

As I settled back into my desk chair, finishing up in my day, I checked the weather by chance, seeing that the sun was setting now just before 7, when mere weeks ago it was 7:30…7:45. It hit me that our post-work Wednesday night sunset escapades were soon not going to be an option anymore.

“I changed my mind. Let’s go to the beach,” I went back in and said to him. He asked me why, I gave him my explanation. “Ah okay, makes sense,” he said. So I went to change into something a bit warmer—it’s always so cold by the water—as Charles finished up some tasks, and off we went.

A quick “which car is the beach blanket in” discussion and we hopped in my SUV to head to the coast.

As we drove, we talked about our days, I told him a few anecdotes from my family’s WhatsApp chat, he regaled me with a story of a conversation he had with his cousin about camera equipment rentals. Riveting stuff to no one else but us. We balked at the traffic headed east that stretched out for nearly the entire stretch of highway…eh freeway…that we drove. I think I said “that’s wild” about three times when I’d look over and see everyone at a standstill. Welcome to LA, friends.

I knew we’d have about 30 minutes before the sun set beneath the shoreline, but it didn’t matter. I just wanted to sit, breathe in the sea breeze, feel the sand under my feet, listening to Charles click click click away on his camera, and that’s just what we did.

At one point, the most fabulous woman likely in her 70s or 80s walked by, stopping a few yards in front of us with a friend to take pictures of the setting sun. She was wearing a shaggy white coat, a holographic pageboy hat, round pink-tinted glasses. She was fantastic, and I became instantly obsessed with her.

“You should go up to her and ask if you could take her photo, Charles,” I suggested. “Why don’t you ask her? You’re the one who wants her photo?” he said back to me. He’s not one for approaching strangers, but I guess neither am I. Instead, we just kept looking at her. A few minutes in, a stranger seated nearby ran up to her with his lady friend and asked to take a photo with her. She loved the idea, her smile stretching ear to ear. For a split second, I wondered if she was “someone,” you know…in terms of Hollywood, but I was actually hoping she wasn’t. Just a woman who has reached at point in her life where she does and wears whatever the heck she wants. “I feel like her name is Edith, and I love her,” I turned to tell Charles. He was busy taking photos of planes overhead. He had moved on from Edith, but I hadn’t.

When she and her friend were done chatting in the spot they had previously picked, they walked back along the sand, away from the water, but not before looking over at me and Charles, smiling and saying an audible hello. What a delight.

The sun set quickly and immediately I was freezing. My ears are always so cold by the water to the point that they hurt enough to whine about it nearly constantly. “We can go, so we can make our way to pick up dinner,” Charles said. He usually wants to stay longer than I do, literally anywhere except for a store, but he seemed genuinely okay with calling it, and heading back home.

I did my usual thing where I stand (with many grunts accompanying the movements), look out onto the water, and say aloud “Bye beach, until next time,” while Charles grabs the blanket and shakes off the sand. I stopped to stare at the ferris wheel near the pier, always some new lights on it. This time it was a heart that started small and got so big it filled the whole wheel until it shrunk back again. And off we went.

We spent more time driving to and from the beach than we did actually at the beach, but no matter. The whole point of lillordag for us is to do something different. As much as our walks around the neighborhood are nice, breaking things up was nice and very welcomed. My walk will still be there tomorrow.

See you tomorrow, FOAS. 🙂