Photo by Ashley Beem
“You can show me your home;
not the place where you
live, but the place
where you
belong.”
I have had three great loves in my life
The first great love of my life is my father. He is the one
constant throughout my life. He has been my compass and
true north. I lost many an hour listening to him talk about
driving up the California coast along Highway 1 all the way
to Monterey. Mijo, you never want to take the 101 – that’s for
tourists and farmers. You’re a Californian. Drive the coast,
mijo, it’ll humble you and make you feel closer to God.
The other great love of my life is my wife; a statuesque
blonde whose beauty is surpassed only by her intelligence.
We met in Monterey in 1993 while stationed at the Defense
Language Institute. We spent time together by default – my
barrack mate was dating hers. She intimidated me to the
point that I had to wait another seventeen years to actually
ask her out.
The last great love of my life – the one my wife would call
the greatest love of my life – is the Monterey Peninsula. I was
not born here. But time and again I was put back together
here.
You see, the thing no one tells you about Monterey is:
yes, it is beautiful to look at, but more than that, it helps heal
the soul.
And when you finally get to Monterey, mijo, stop and
take it all in. It’s not a place you drive through; it’s a place you
absorb.
When my dad died I was living in Ohio. I came back to
LA the day I got the call. I did all the things a firstborn son is
supposed to do; I handled his meager estate, hugged virtual
strangers, listened to stories about the man who made me
that I had never heard before, and buried my father. Then I
left LA.
36 Elite Carmel
For a few months I was simply not there. I was alive, I
was working, I was numb.
I left Ohio and moved back to Monterey. Then I took
my father’s advice and stopped, and remembered to breathe,
absorbed. At night I would sit on the beach and just listen.
Sometimes I would catch myself talking out loud to no one
there. Other times I would throw on my wetsuit, jump into
the sea and dive just so I could have a place scream without
people thinking I was a madman. From Del Monte to Lover’s
Point, from Asilomar to Carmel River, the beaches of the
Peninsula have absorbed an ocean’s worth of tears. Monterey
took me at my lowest point and held me up just enough to
help put me back together.
It happened gradually, almost imperceptibly; I started
smiling more, laughing more, and just living again. One
day as I was walking along Asilomar beach I became acutely
aware of being alive. I was struck by how surprised I was to
feel that way again.
I don’t live here anymore. I finally asked out that statuesque
blonde I met on the Peninsula oh so many years ago and
married her. Duty calls her to be stationed far away (yes, she
is still in the Air Force) so I am stuck living on a different
beach in Florida. I still consider Monterey home and come
back often. When I return, I always leave feeling like a part of
me that arrived almost on empty is filled again.
- Rudy Martinez