Week 2: Laguna Love Affair

So, I am smitten with California.  No, I'm serious.  It's a Laguna love affair.  California is so different from New York City, and anywhere on the east coast - and I feel in a lot of ways more "at home" than I ever have before.  It's easy for the people who were born and raised here to take what I find so marvelous for granted.  I can be on the beach and in the mountains in the same afternoon.  I can go to LA or San Diego for a bigger "scene," or drive up and down the cute beach towns.  It's love.  

This week's assignment was more challenging for me, because I couldn't find exactly what I wanted to take a picture of.  There was a moment when I witnessed two people see each other after a little while had passed, and watched their long embrace and happy kiss (and felt too awkward to snap a pic).  And there were several moments in "The Last Goobye," the new musical version of Romeo and Juliet at the Old Globe, that I could have snapped a pic (but I'm a good theatre-goer).  

So in the end, I went with this photo: taken Saturday evening as the sun was setting in Laguna Beach.  I had a cocktail in one hand, and was discussing with my Directing cohorts the play we just saw - literally feet from the beach at this swanky hotel bar.  It's a great end-cap to week two, and does a good job to capture the love I feel for where I am right now.  Starting a new adventure in grad school, consumed (in a good way) in everything theatrical, and surrounded by interesting and inspiring people. Laguna love affair.  

In the picture, I love the soft, puffy clod cover - grey, but not in a dull or gloomy way at all.  Deep, grounding brown sand, speckled with footprints, at the bottom of the photo.  Supported from the top and grounded at the bottom.  Sandwiched in the middle is the brilliant ocean, whose water is always ebbing and flowing like life.  The pinks and oranges and yellows of the sun setting are captured in that space between water and air.   I love the reflective path of the sun through the water - seemingly straight towards me.  

I took a picture about a minute later that felt so different - it was fiery and full of passion - with orange spilling into every part of the picture.  But this one felt more like love.  I enjoy the mix of cool blues/greys with the warmer yellows and oranges.  It probably doesn't scream LOVE to anyone but me, and that's ok.  It says subtle passion and a strongly-lit path towards what I am to do, offering its soft but powerful way.  Just enough pink for me to be sure my heart is supposed to be right here, right now.