6. no name
I woke up that morning in LA. I had a photo shoot for work in Idaho and decided to stay on the west coast a few extra weeks. I was going to stay at my friend’s apartment while she stayed at mine in New York. My cousin was coming to pick me up that morning and we were going to Malibu for a beach picnic on our way to Ojai for his artist friends housewarming party.
I was excited because the food stylist at my photoshoot recommended I do a trip to Ojai while I was in LA. She described it as a small town, artist sanctuary about 2 hours outside of LA. I hadn’t known how I would fit that into my schedule but luckily I didn’t have to.
My cousin had told me about his friend. He was an amazing mixed-media artist, he made sculptures and paintings and paintings that protruded out from the wall like sculptures. During the pandemic, when bitcoin and NFTs were super popular he decided to capitalize on his talents. He created beautiful pieces of art and sold them for a shit ton of money, cashed out, bought a gorgeous house in Ojai for him and his wife and became an art teacher no longer needing to slave away in capitalist America to provide shelter for his family. Pretty baller.
Anyway, my cousin and I were on our way to Malibu. We stopped at a grocery market on the way to pick up some sandwiches and chips. He said he wished he had a joint. I told him I had eaten an edible. I knew he liked to smoke but my lungs have never really cared for the inhaling of smoke so I prefer to eat my weed and since it takes 40 minutes to hit I had already taken it. I told him we could look up dispensaries and stop to pick him up a joint. He went back and forth for a while but said he was fine. I could tell he really wanted a joint but his decision was made.
Like typical beaches in California, when we arrived we had a bit of a trek to get to the beach. Once we had gotten down the hill we walked along the beach to find a spot away from all the tourists. As we were walking along we saw a man, he had to be about 65 years old, fit as fuck, tan like a Greek goddess and sun bleached blonde hair flowing in the wind. It was clear he was in his own world. A character of life. My cousin and I both intuitively and individually locked our gaze on him, there was an unspoken “check out this guy” said between the two of us.
We have a deep love for interesting people. Anyone who freely breaks the norm has got our attention. And this guy did just that - he had the demeanor of a homeless person but the essence of a rich man. We couldn’t tell if he lived at the beach or came here from time to time to reconnect with “normal people.”
As we got closer to him I said out loud, “you know this guy has some wisdom to share with the world. You know he’s seen some shit and learned a thing or two about life.” My cousin agreed as we walked past him.
We found our spot in a little cove, put down our blankets, took out our sandwiches and took a sip of our brown paper-bagged beers and caught up about life.
Some time had passed. We had kind of forgotten about the guy when all of a sudden he comes peaking over the side of our cove with a joint in hand. He says to us “care for something to smoke, I can’t smoke it all myself.”
My cousin and I both gave each other knowing looks. This wasn’t an ordinary man on the beach, this guy was sent to us by the heavens. Before he even said anything out loud I knew that joint was coming into our lives because Matt had dreamt of one in the car.
This was the first time I was seeing my cousin in a while and we were mid-story catching up about our lives, we didn’t have time to stop and start a conversation with him. After all, he was a stranger we hardly knew.
But we knew he was an angel.