The Distant Ocean
When service people come to this house of ours on the hilltop, as one HVAC specialist did just yesterday, they invariably stand and look out at our views, especially towards the ocean, and comment on what a great view we have. We do have a great view and both Kim and I do not take it for granted. On almost every day, one of us will comment to the other about the spectacular sunset or the rolling mist that comes up out of the valleys and over the lower lying hilltops. It is a glorious view that makes me wonder about why we are so fortunate. There is a booking.com advertisement on TV these days starring Melissa McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, both highly recognizable ever since their big screen debut in Bridesmaids. In that ad, the two of them are shown in various vacation homes and the one where the ad fades to black is with the two of them standing on the balcony of a house looking out at the distant view. It occurred to me that this was the ideal that booking.com thought people aspired to in a get-away spot where their minds and souls could soar. And then it also occurred to me that the view they were looking out at was no different and perhaps even less spectacular than the view I look at every morning, noon and night here on the hilltop. My observation is not intended to brag about my view, but rather to pay homage to my good fortune at having that distant ocean view to admire each and every day.
People like Mike and Melissa have created the wonderful view that they have from their front patio. It was not an accident, and it was more than just good fortune. That is a view that they have achieved by design. We, on the other hand, were rushing around at the end of 2011 looking to buy a home to replace the Park City, Utah ski house we had sold in 2007 and which would allow us to maintain our foothold on the ground in the great western United States. We had spent a week looking at homes all up and down the coast of California and were leaving to go back to New York City the next day. I took one last motorcycle ride on Christmas morning and specifically wanted to see a house I had found on Zillow. I hadn’t really expected to run into a house that would grab my interest, but when I saw this hilltop house it did just that. I only saw the house from the street so the lovely succulent garden and the general shape of the house along with the interior photographs on Zillow were all that I had to go on (that and the very lovely streets of the neighborhood). I had my sister come and take a look at the house for me, and, while she FaceTimed to me, the layout of the inside of the house and a little bit of the view, I really didn’t have a full appreciation of the view before I agreed to buy the house. My first live view of the view was really on the day I closed on the purchase of the house a few months later. That is why I always say to Kim that we were very fortunate that we bought a house almost sight-unseen and that it possesses such a spectacular view.
I notice that some people have their properties organized to capture what I will call close-up views of their lovely gardens or swimming pools or whatever elements they choose to put on their properties. All people seem to care about what they look at, but it’s just that they often like looking at something fairly close by. We, on the other hand, find ourselves most inspired by looking at the distant views. We have no fences or walls around our property. The closest thing to the wall is our entrance gate which is set up to look like there’s a wall and then there is a large automatic metal gate, but we leave that open all the time and I think it’s fair to say that no matter where we sit on our property, even when there is a pleasant short range view like on our patio, there is always a smattering, or perhaps, a hint of the distant views beyond. I’m sure there are many psychoanalytic clues embedded in our love of distant views, but whatever those might be, my belief is simpler still. I enjoy the beauty of seemingly endless horizons. That is one of the things I think I stand for, the limitlessness of human potential. And to have the ability to stand at your own personal threshold, is to have the world, and indeed the universe as your own personal oyster.
No matter where I am on the property, I get a view. There are, by my count, seven places where I tend to sit in the house. Each and every one of them has a great view, and all but one (when I sit at the live-edge counter in the kitchen) has a distant ocean view, at that. I suspect that I pick my spots based on a subconscious need for that view. But then again, the beauty of being literally on the hilltop as we are is that no matter where you are, there is a great view, and probably a distant ocean view.
We tend to like to admire the ocean from a distance and don’t really go to the beach all that often. For Kim its about not wanting to overdue the sun for skin damage purposes. For me its more about the sand and the inconvenience of it all. That said, when we do go, I thoroughly enjoy it. We saw a movie on the beach at Hotel Del last week and had a fire pit at our disposal to cook up some S’mores. It was a pleasant evening. We will probably go again this coming week to the dog beach in Del Mar. Betty may be less of a beach fan than we are. Her beach program consists of making her way through the hot sand and then doing her best to find some shade to sit in. Playing with other dogs on the beach or running in the surf is simply not on her menu. I’m not sure why we think going to the dog beach is so great for Betty. I suspect that if she could talk, she would tell us that she too is satisfied with distant ocean view.
Speaking of distant views, this weekend is being called the Barbenheimer Weekend because of the simultaneous release over the weekend of the two bombshell movies Barbie and Oppenheimer. I am scheduled to see Oppenheimer this afternoon (Kim has declined, so I will go with daughter Carolyn and husband John). I have been looking forward to it for a few months now. And I hear that some movie people are all about doing a double-header this weekend and seeing both Oppenheimer and Barbie. I’m afraid I am not one of those people. The Barbie movie looks to be a kitschy, fun movie, but one which is a bit too much bubblegum for me. I can only tolerate so much pink before I start getting nauseous, and just the sight of Ryan Gosling playing Ken to Margot Robbie’s Barbie, with bleached blonde hair, a sterling white perfect smile and pastel garb gets me too close to that point for comfort. So, like my thoughts about the view, the distant sight of Barbie appeals to me like the distant ocean appeals to me more than the seaweed and brine of the real thing up close and personal.