The Top of the World

We are driving home from Laguna Beach and you have drifted off to sleep in the back seat. The sun is setting and the late summer sky is a hazy soft blue. Tom Petty is singing about square one and Louisiana rain and how when you dance I just go right with you. Mom keeps saying how happy she is. I keep saying this was a good day. We are driving home after meeting Mom’s cousins from Canada. First we met them at the Top of the World, the lookout point in Laguna Beach where you can see the hills and the coast and the sea and the houses in the canyons. We took a picture there. Then we all went to the beach. The Canadians wanted to go in the water. You walked on the sand and watched the tide come and go and you pointed at the pigeons walking on people’s towels. It was not too hot and there was a breeze. I slathered sunscreen on your back and arms and shoulders. I held your hand near the water and once or twice the waves washed over my shoes but I picked you up just in time. Mom held you on her hip and the two of you looked out at the ocean. You ate some string cheese and sliced tomatoes. Then the cousins had to leave but we decided to stay in Laguna a little longer for dinner. We ate outside at a bistro. Somewhere nearby a woman was singing and playing guitar. Wonderful Tonight, Landslide. Mom had crab cakes and brussels sprouts and a glass of wine and I had salmon and asparagus and a diet coke and you had more of the snacks we packed. You said hi to everyone sitting around us. Then you said bye-bye when we left.

Now we are on the freeway and there is traffic and we are eager to get home to Apricot. Mom is admiring the setting sun, lower and lower in the sky, fire, orange. I say something about California being beautiful. B.B. King comes on the radio. The deejay tells us King would have been 98 years old this weekend. He made it to 89. I start thinking about how we measure lives in years but a lifetime is not just a number. You are sleeping, and you will sleep almost the whole way home, but I want you to know that while you were asleep Mom kept saying how happy she was, and I kept saying this was a good day. We met family and you got to swing in a park by the beach and we ate a delicious dinner at a restaurant and together we set our eyes on the horizon from the top of the world.