Photo © Kristina Feliciano.”Driving to Cuyama at Night,” Cuyama, California; written November 2021 and revised January 2025
What best describes the day is the drive back to the hotel. A sky creamy blue and dark round the edges. Brake lights, headlights, and yellow stripes. Soft curves of mountains like cut felt. A nearly full moon keeping watch.
Today was a winding drive to Santa Ynez, about an hour and a half, and a four-mile hike to complete Lovers Loop. No one on the trail. Not well marked. Found my way following the U-shaped prints of a horse that had just been through. Near the end, small children with faces smudged from playing in the dirt. One of them, a little boy of about 4, stood looking at me in that silent, semi-distracted way of a child whose brain is busily piecing together feelings and data. The teacher—a woman wrapping pea-green yarn round a large spool—sang a song, softly, upon noticing me. When the boy didn’t move, she gently took his arm. “You move out of the path when I sing this song, okay?”
Then Solvang, a Danish town that’s part tourist novelty and part real life. I got a cheap massage from a guy who was all eagerness and haste. Felt like after school in the rec room with a high school boyfriend in an imagined past.
Later, a jaunt to Gaviota, for 20 minutes of beach bliss. A woman who’d been languidly swimming in the cold surf walked by me as she made her way back to the parking lot. She had noticed me writing in my notebook. “Isn’t the water cold?” I asked. “I hypnotize,” she said. Her accent, her all-knowing eyes reminded me of Viveca Lindfors, who I first encountered at poetry performances at the Swedish council in NYC in the early 90s. Viveca and this woman both were warm an enigmatic. Like electricity—something whose presence can fill a room but that you can’t touch.
And lastly, s’mores at the hotel. Alone, because it’s November 2021, there’s a pandemic, and I’m the only one here.
What best describes the day is the drive back to the hotel. A sky creamy blue and dark round the edges. Brake lights, headlights, and yellow stripes. Soft curves of mountains like cut felt. A nearly full moon keeping watch.
Today was a winding drive to Santa Ynez, about an hour and a half, and a four-mile hike to complete Lovers Loop. No one on the trail. Not well marked. Found my way following the U-shaped prints of a horse that had just been through. Near the end, small children with faces smudged from playing in the dirt. One of them, a little boy of about 4, stood looking at me in that silent, semi-distracted way of a child whose brain is busily piecing together feelings and data. The teacher—a woman wrapping pea-green yarn round a large spool—sang a song, softly, upon noticing me. When the boy didn’t move, she gently took his arm. “You move out of the path when I sing this song, okay?”
Then Solvang, a Danish town that’s part tourist novelty and part real life. I got a cheap massage from a guy who was all eagerness and haste. Felt like after school in the rec room with a high school boyfriend in an imagined past.
Later, a jaunt to Gaviota, for 20 minutes of beach bliss. A woman who’d been languidly swimming in the cold surf walked by me as she made her way back to the parking lot. She had noticed me writing in my notebook. “Isn’t the water cold?” I asked. “I hypnotize,” she said. Her accent, her all-knowing eyes reminded me of Viveca Lindfors, who I first encountered at poetry performances at the Swedish council in NYC in the early 90s. Viveca and this woman both were warm an enigmatic. Like electricity—something whose presence can fill a room but that you can’t touch.
And lastly, s’mores at the hotel. Alone, because it’s November 2021, there’s a pandemic, and I’m the only one here.