I was alone. I walked around downtown Long Beach, an adventure behind me. A couple of weeks of coast-to-coast travel. I'd done it, I'd made it and I was ready to go home.
I needed a change of gear but not to stop completely, a warm-down after intense exercise. I was like a sponge soaking up the SoCal street vibe, but I was full, the sponge was sodden, and needed to be squeezed.
I had a pen in my pocket. I always try to have a pen in my pocket. The next store had yellow legal pads for sale. I bought one and a pack of bubblegum flavoured Orbit. And next door to that was a coffee bar. Independent, not 'bucks or Peets.
With my tools ready, coffee and paper and pen all set, I could sit in the aircon chill and breathe. There was so much to come out of me, but it only comes out one word at a time, one letter at a time, one stroke at a time.
So I started to write. And as the pen slipped across the paper, the tension flew from my body and a month's worth of tears rolled down my cheeks. I wrote until I was done and then walked back out into the sunshine to see what Long Beach might have that nowhere else had.
