Ventura Highway in the Sunshine

 The sun was always shining. It always seemed to be shining....every single day that we were there. Warm sunshine with a light breeze. Temperatures in the high 60's and then the sun would set, going down in a bright pink and orange flame. We would watch, open mouthed. 

Our hotel room had heavy drapes that kept out the sunshine. In the mornings, we would dress and fling them open and then laugh as the brightness spilled all over the room, like orange juice drizzling. We would hurry to grab sweaters to get out into it and then chuckle sheepishly as we realized that we were immediately labeled as tourists. The natives were all shivering in their coats and hats. We tourists were flinging off our sweaters to wrap them around our waists, luxuriating in the soft breeze. Everything tasted better. 

I loved it all. I loved the hunt for a certain coffee singer's house. The visit to Hogwarts. Sitting on beach rocks. But what I loved the most was flying down the highway, the beach on our left, a rocky precipice on our right. It was crowded many times, but once out of the city, we would hit the less traveled bi-ways and suddenly we'd be careening down mountain sides in twisty S turns. The ocean. My god. That ocean. 

I thought of Ventura Highway, even though I was informed by a local that this particular stretch of road is referred to as VenTOURA Highway, not Venchura Highway. I am and always will be an America fan. I will always call it Venchura. 

T drove and I sat back with slitted eyes and watched the ocean go by. I was no longer a sixty year old rather sickly woman. I was eighteen and free. The world was right there in front of me. My legs were strong, my stamina went on forever, and my hair was unpinned. I was sure that I would one day fall madly in love and have the life that I dreamed about. I would live on the beach, write novels that were not best sellers, but critically acclaimed, and there would be two children. A girl and a boy. Maybe a dog. A house right on the beach. My partner was never clearly defined, but he or she would be perfect for me. We would avoid small minded people at all costs and make our own soap and grow our own food. 

Ventura Highway was the first song that I heard that took me some place else. Someplace where I knew that I belonged. I played it over and over and over again. 

Later, I met T and it became our song. One of many. Songs that would come on and we would catch each other's eyes across a room and smile. We claimed them as ours:

Long Ago and Far Away by James Taylor

Our House by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Frederick by Patti Smith

And so many others. But, Ventura Highway was special. And rolling down this highway in California, I breathed in deeply of every bit of air available to me. My soul was begging for it and I was determined to oblige. 

I was right there...chewing on that piece of grass and walking down the road with Ventura Highway in the sunshine. Where the days were longer, the nights stronger than moonshine. 

And I was going to go, I knew. The free wind was blowing in my hair and alligator lizards were in the air. I had made all my wishes already on the falling stars and been hit by purple rain. 

As T and I drove down that twisting highway, I sternly told myself to remember this. Save this for a day when you need it in the future. 

So, I did. It's tucked up in my brain pan where I can pluck it out on a particularly difficult day in the future. 

The ride ended. We arrived at our destination. But the feeling stayed with me. I can't really verbalize it or write it truly, but it is just there. 

I am still that 18 year old girl who had so many dreams. I'm also this 60 year old woman who realized a lot of dreams that I never knew I even wanted until they were sitting right next to me. That 18 year old was so naive. She had no idea what real suffering was yet. But, she was also almost unbearably sweet and I never want to lose her hopeful heart. I kind of like the way she thought she had life figured out when she really didn't know half as much as she thought she did. She was so open to it all. When did I lose that? She was really, really wrong about love. I know that now. Love wasn't some magical elixir that would solve every problem. But, love was a perfect soft place to land, also solid and something to be leaned into when everything else was lost. 

I'm a mix of all of her. 

But, I hear those first chords of Ventura Highway and I can look in that rear view mirror and see her so clearly. 

Then and now.