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THIRD PRIZE WINNER
High Corniche
Marie O'Beirne
I might think first of the High Corniche. I might envision myself
behind the wheel of an SLK 230, its brilliant silver hardtop tucked into
the trunk. I might suppose the shining morning light is kind to me,
sparkling off my sunglasses and caressing the bronze curves of my
cheeks. My hair sleek and full and blowing in the crisp air, my smile
wry and self-assured. I am more beautiful than anyone can remember me.
I pull the 185 spirited horses out of a hard curve with graceful
precision. As I round the turn, the distant Mediterranean comes into
view, more dazzling this morning than I have ever seen it. How could
blue be the color of sadness? I wonder. Ah, but this water is not blue
at all, it is aqua-marine, it is azure. It is a reflection, a mirror of
the firmament, of the very air that tousles my hair.
I might feel a sense of delivery, for I have willed myself here. I have
dreamed this road, I have seen it in paintings and photos and films. I
think of Cary Grant, maneuvering the hairpin turns more masterfully
than Odysseus slipping between Scylla and Charybdis. You picture the woman at his side
Grace Kelly, wasn't it? Grace of the full, promising lips, the cool
blue eyes. Fire and ice. Perfection.
I might think first of the High Corniche. But I recall a road closer to
home. I am driving the California coast road between Eureka and
Crescent City. We are going north, the great redwoods rising to our
right, the sparkling Pacific crashing against the rocks far below on our
left. My son is with me. He is grown now, and we are reminiscing about
a trip we took when he was a child. We were further south then, in Big
Sur country. The car was not this sleek SLK but an old Opal sports
model. His sister sat in the front seat beside me, and he was in the
back, perched on a carpeted ledge meant for grocery bags and packages.
"The road was beautiful," I say. "The turns made me sick," he reminds
me. "You had to stop so I could get out and throw up." Yes, that was
true. Amid the boundless beauty of rock and tree and sea, human frailty
took its nauseating toll.
Now, I am old and he is truly ill. Not just a little upset stomach,
washed away in the rain and quelled by carbonation, but a fierce,
creeping cancer threatening his very being. I am not so well myself,
plagued with the this-and-that of old age. But I have had my time. I
want him to have his.
The road is open, the curves engineered for high speeds. We breeze
along, this time in a CL500, richer, larger, more substantial. But
still a coupe, after all, still a reminder of youth, a metaphor for
power, strength and tomorrow. On this lonely stretch, we are unafraid
of the unlikely interference of a zealous Chippie. In places, the road
leaves the ragged coast. "Turn on Headlights," the road signs warn, for
we ride on the forest floor, beneath the dark canopy of verdant giants.
The cancer is in remission now. My son looks healthy, his hair has
grown back. He has started playing racquetball again; he will start a
new job next week. The car emerges from the dense forest. "We're out
of the woods," my son says. But he is not.
It is early afternoon, and the coastal clouds have given way to
sunlight. The forest stands back behind fields of amber grass, and
purple lupines dot the shoulders of the road. The cobalt sea glistens
and churns and bellows into waves that crash against the crags and
shallow beaches far below.
After a while, we come upon a sign announcing a scenic vista, and I pull
the Mercedes off the highway. I slide the car between the painted lines
of a parking space that overlooks the Pacific. There are other cars in
the lot. One belongs to a German family who have laid out a neat picnic
lunch. They smile at us and look approvingly at my car. The other car
belongs to a single woman, about my age. She is heavy-set beneath her
well-cut clothes, and busy looking out to sea. She does not acknowledge
us at first; she is engrossed in the object of her binoculars.
"Maybe she's looking for whales," I say. "I've never seen a whale at
sea."
"Me neither," my son says. "And neither will she. They don't come by
this time of year."
But it is the year of El Nino, the woman tells us, and even the whales
are confused. "You see," she points, "There's one." I shade my eyes
and squint out to sea, finding only ocean. "You have to look for the
spout," she coaches. "There!" I strain and see nothing but the deep
blue sea. She offers me her binoculars. I accept them, I raise them to
my eyes and adjust my sights to their narrow perspective. "There," the
woman repeats, "just beyond that rock."
I bow the binoculars in the direction of a sea-worn crag. I see her!
Her back rises to the surface, then rolls beneath it. I have seen her!
The Germans take an interest, and the woman shares her binoculars with
them. Suddenly drawn to a common quest, we all chatter among ourselves
as each in turn finds his great whale. How easy it is, I think, to form
a community among strangers.
Finally the glasses come to my son. He accepts them graciously, but I
know he is skeptical. He is my own child, and I have recognized his
doubts a thousand times. He adjusts the glasses, he peers out to sea.
"Looks like an ocean to me," he says. We all search the waters.
Suddenly, I see a spout close beneath us. I touch my son's shoulder.
"Here, " I say, "Right here."
My son lowers the glasses. A smile explodes on his face. "Hey!"
he shouts. "Thar she blows!"
Still smiling broadly, he hands me back the binoculars. Our eyes meet,
and I smile back. It is a moment almost too fleeting to remember, yet
too perfect to forget. We are connected, mother and son. We are
grounded in the moment, we are real, complete, substantial. We have, in
that flash of reality captured on the California coast, surpassed
fantasy.
The clouds will roll in soon, they will darken sea and rock and forest.
So we must be on our way. We get back in the Mercedes and turn north.
We want to see the lighthouse in Crescent City before it is too late.
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