“Venice beach is poppin’ like live shrimp dropped on a hot walk
Hucksters, hustlers and hawkers set up their boardwalk shops
Home for all the homeless, hopeless, well-heeled and deranged
Still nothing here seems out of place or strange.”
~ Brian Wilson
Venice Beach is oddly devoid of those who are lost. It is a patchwork quilt of sandy, sea-drenched, sun-dried souls; it is tearing around the edges; it is frayed with fading colors; but there is no thread, no square of red corduroy, no patch of pink satin, that is not exactly where it belongs. There is no misplaced stitch in a world where every bolt of thread was unraveled insane.
In this anthill of the Great Eclectic, each insect has their purposeless purpose and their place: the man with five dogs sitting next to the “No Dogs” sign. The guy in gold paint standing stationary and statuesque, waiting to come alive at the drop of a dollar. The vendors selling handmade magic wands and smooth blue moons and light carved sandalwood. The store devoted to toe rings. The “Legalize Pot” sign. The man collecting tie-dye blankets. The sand-streaked concrete. The thousand bright T-shirts, dresses, hats, flapping fake bats that hang from so many colorful stores like caves. The sand sculptures. The breeze from the sea.
Venice Beach is an organism, breathing in and out great waves of tourists who are no more lost than oxygen molecules, its concrete bloodstreams containing bicyclists who whip through the ever-pulsing crowd. People take pictures, and Venice Beach swells to encompass them as their cash clinks into the cups of so many performers, so many artists, the air always thick with incense and song. So many creatures, out of place anywhere else, perfect while here.
And how can you be lost, when you are a place?
Around the edges, there are glimpses. There are miniature breakdowns. There are the dark eyes of the sun-and-sea-worn hippie boys, sitting by their skateboards like silent, shadowed pirates. There is the vendor staring out at the sea as his partner hawks psychedelic soapstone. There is the woman who, more (or less) insane than most, readjusts and readjusts the jewelry she is selling.
There is the woman standing by a stack of hats. Her skirt is long and paisley and her skin is sun-soaked brown, and yet there is a tenseness in her hands. She tries each hat on, over and over, standing on her tip-toes to squint into a translucent pane of glass at the see-through ghost of her reflection.
A mutt trots by, and the air by the “No Dogs” sign explodes into barking. The golden statue sips his coffee, enjoying his break. A guy, quintessential homeless in the attire of his chosen land, holds up cardboard that reads “Need Weed, Please Give;” his coffer is full. The tourists are talking and the skateboarders weave in and out. A man adds marble eyes to his dragon of sand.
This creature that exists of so many component parts is alive in its ancient home, a haven to the denizens of delirium who nerve the bony structure of its shops. All is well; it knows exactly where it is – when the Insane and their spectators are both accepted, it is a being where all belong.
And yet there is one woman, teetering on the edge of a somewhere that is not quite hers, more rooted and desperate than indecisive, on her tiptoes trying on hats. Everything else moves but there is something still about her, trapped in time: a skipping record of thin worried hands picking up, putting down, over and over and over. Her children are calling her, eager to re-enter the swirl and the sunshine, but she does not respond. Hat after hat after hat. She is seeking where others are existing. She is searching for the right one. She is looking for something that fits.
This woman, so alone on this shore of individual togetherness, is standing on her toes, stone-straight, a pinpoint of unhappiness lost amid the misfits who fit in. She peers into an empty pane of glass at something that does not reflect back, trying to complete the emptiness with gently woven straw. Venice Beach coils and uncoils, singing and laughing. She tries on the hats.
Hat after hat after hat.
BB
