CALIFORNIA, CENTRAL COAST: December, 2009 (Part 6)

That night we ate linguine in orange sauce and hamburgers and drank red wine in a cozy Cambrian restaurant. People wore shiny paper hats to celebrate. Large groups filled other tables. Their laughter free and loud rang over us. Us, in our bubble.

We carried our bottle of wine back to the motel, where I slipped into pajamas and a scarf. We took plastic cups and in the dark cut through a forest of cypress pines to the sea. A full white moon shone down on curls of ocean foam. The night air, crisp and cool, rang with the sound of waves crashing off the rocks below us.

We settled on a bench and filled our cups with wine.

Here's to 2010, William said, raising his cup.

To whatever it brings, to whatever happens and to being together when it does, I answered.

We smushed our cups together.

I leaned on the rough wood railing and peered across a sea both deep black and lit by the light of the moon. I wanted the dignity of getting married and was receiving so much more. Because of William I had seen cities far across this ocean. Because of him I could spend time in an elementary school yukking it up with kids and the Bard. Because of him I could write books.

William will tell you he has a "because of Mel" list but that's his to say. Of course I know the list but that's all I'm sayin'.

We know people will always watch movies and read books — perhaps not in theaters and perhaps not on paper, but the audience is out there. We dream of that audience and we share those dreams out loud to each other. Because of William my dreams don't sound so farfetched and ridiculous.

As I looked out on New Year's Eve of 2009, I pictured a small boat out a sea. A boat formerly with a single occupant, but now with two people. Two people using oars to cut over those waves and row forward, ever forward.

♦

POSTSCRIPT

Since 2009 William has cut fourteen projects. In August 2014 Mel's book TEACHING WILL: What Shakespeare and 10 Kids Gave Me That Hollywood Couldn't will be published by Familius.

CALIFORNIA, CENTRAL COAST: December, 2009 (Part 5)

For two nights we stayed in a one-room cottage at a bed & breakfast inn. We picked up a rotisserie chicken, salad and wine from a local grocer. A storm broke and rain pattered our roof. As we sat on our bed and ate I was reminded of our bed-top picnics at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome. Another winter, so long ago now. A winter when I waited to be married. A winter when I didn't know what to do with my life.

We slept 12 hours a night in the silence of our redwood grove. In the morning I opened my eyes and straight above us, through a skylight window, I gazed up the trunk of a redwood tree that appeared to be miles high. We were sleeping at the base of one of nature's best.

We continued south along the coast to Monterey and into the small town of Pacific Grove and a 19th-century inn. Our room's walls were covered in flowery paper, a claw-foot tub sat in the bathroom and the bed stood proudly with four posts. Corny, but sweet nonetheless.

We walked to the Monterey Aquarium and ate lunches in a hippy-dippy restaurant right out of the seventies, with its mint tea and hummus. We took long walks along the coastline and studied the cottages of Pacific Grove. These houses sported historic placards bearing women's names. This, I later learned, was because their fishermen husbands of yesteryear couldn't be trusted to come home safely from sea and the women needed to hold those deeds or find themselves on the street.

From Pacific Grove we traveled further south along the Pacific Coast Highway, with its dramatic views and sheer drops to a crashing sea. I drove and William clicked his shutter out the window. We stopped to watch sea lions and otters playing in the ocean. Wind whipped across our faces and the sun shone bright. We snacked on pretzels and sandwiches and by late afternoon we were north of San Simeon, viewing hundreds of elephant seals sleeping, fighting and nursing their babies along the beach.

On Moonstone Beach in Cambria we checked into a sixties-era motel with sloped high ceilings and a fireplace in our room. The following morning we were up early for a tour of the Hearst Castle. William clicked off a lot of shots and I looked far off across green fields and a blue ocean in the distance. The air was warm and clear. It was December 31st.