The Luck

Eating sushi on a veranda watching the people hurry by. The rain lets up, then stops altogether. Young girls and boys gather on the sidewalk. It is Friday night, movie night. Parents drop them off by the van full. Well, Lexus R 350s full. They flitter and shimmer across the sidewalk, their laughter the sound of charm bracelets tinkling. The girls. The boys sound like baby donkeys. They move so differently, boys and girls, the boys so quickly, jerking this way and that, eyes jumping back and forth, up and down. The girls move more slowly, serenely and smoothly, leaving graceful arcs with their arms, parabolas with their heads. They are thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and left alone and command attention. Everyone else looks like an extra on the Disney Channel. I want to photograph it all, to make a document, but even my recent and surprising success at public photography won't suggest that I can. I couldn't photograph this with a court order. I should not dine here on the weekend, I think.

I am eating after another day at the beach. Somehow, though I woke at five, I didn't leave the house until late in the day. Driving over, I thought, "There will be no photography today. It is too late. There will be nothing." But I park my car on the beach and load the little Holga with film and begin to walk toward the jetty and the fishermen and the surfers. A girl is walking toward the water with her surfboard. "No," I think, "I have had the luck, but it cannot last. There will be none today. There will be nothing." "Excuse me," I say feeling foolish, but she is willing, eager even. One. Two. I tell her that I can send her the images if she has an email address. I have forgotten to bring paper and she offers to walk back to the car with me. No, no, I tell her, I will run right back and write it down. I can remember. This time, I bring the paper and pen.

I turn back to the beach and there is another girl walking with her board atop her head. She is walking ahead of me and at an angle away from me, and I have to tell myself not to be eager. I'm afraid I'll lose the shot. But she pauses for a moment. One. Two. She writes down her address.

OK, I say, the day is already a success as long as the film turns out. You can never tell with a Holga. I think of the thousands of dollars I spend on cameras so that I can walk around with a ten dollar toy camera. No worries.

I see a very tan man with titanium white hair. He looks like the surfers from Hawaii in the '40s. "Hey, fella, I don't want to bother you. . . ." I hear a man's voice call out, "Is he old enough to be in your pictures?" I look over. "You took my picture last week." And a good one it was, I tell him and walk over to get an email address. His buddy arranges himself as I kneel and shoot. Later, I think I was too distracted and didn't get the right shot. I'm afraid I wasted the opportunity. The fellow was sixty-something, handsome and classic. As I begin to leave them, I see a little girl playing in ankle-deep water. "Does she belong to this group?" I call out and get nods in return. "Is it OK if I photograph her?" Sure.

Down the beach a group of young teenage boys are skim-boarding. What the hell. I walk over and ask them if I can take their photograph. I am surprised when they all jump up quick as lightening and line up together perfectly holding their boards in front of them just so.

A fisherman on the beach reals in a silver fish. He is a long ways away, and I get to him as he prepares to release the fish into the surf. It slips from his hands and he bends to pick it up. "Excuse me. Would you mind. . . ." He bends his knees and holds the little fish in front of him with both hands. I shoot. I don't think I got it. I fear I am too far away for the fish to show.

A family with surfboards sits at the water's edge. Another family builds a big sand castle. Two rolls. Only two, but I am finished.

I put down my camera and wade into the water. It is warm. I body surf for a long time, floating in between waves, feeling the current move me down the beach. It has been sunny, but it is afternoon now and the clouds roll in. Rain. I swim to shore and run to my car to roll up the windows. I stand in the rain to wash away the salt. I am clean. It is perfect.

I am writing this on the veranda with sake and sushi and the passing crowd. I am an observer, I think. I try to make a record. I don't know why I have been so lucky these past days. It is all luck, I think. Like all things, it is sure to end. But I had it. It was there. A Few Days One Summer.