Xavier at Tapia Park

I was at Tapia, which is in Malibu Canyon

in Malibu, California

on this beautiful Sunday with my son Joshua

and my wife, to attend a book party for Sandy Ross

and her new book about the Bla-Bla Cafe in L.A.,

a book I edited several months ago.

 

While there was music playing and people eating

and drinking and generally partying and smiling

and feeling good, Joshua asked me if we could take

a walk in the woods, as he was the only kid there,

and got tired of his daddy talking to other adults in

what must have seemed to him like endless

conversation. (One seemed almost endless to me-

a polite but spirited debate about the American policy

in Guantanamo - a smart and gifted songwriter I know

actually suggested what we are doing there is

acceptable. I strongly disagreed.)

 

So Joshie and I strolled through the beautiful

canyon, admiring the immense and lovely trees,

and come to an unexpected little lake in the heart

of the woods, in which a Latino family was swimming

and playing. There were many adults and many kids

in the water, and there was one woman on the shore

sitting with a small dog, and a bucket of crayfish,

which the family was catching - perhaps to eat later?

I was not sure.

 

I stepped up to the water and said hello - buenos dias-

and asked if I could take some photographs - si! - and

I did - and this father of some of the children

emerged like Poseidon from the water and

proudly displayed this caught crayfish for my camera.

At the time, as is always the case, I just took this

picture along with scores of other ones, and was

surprised, as I often am, by the power of its

immediacy and action when I looked at it later.

 

My wife, who is a very protective mother, joined

us at the water, and forbid Joshua to go in. Later I

asked her why, and she said this was water being

fed by a water-treatment plant, and it certainly was

less than healthy for humans, of which Joshua is

one. She also strongly denigrated the

capture of the crayfish, which she felt was

disturbing the little ecosystem that is there

and also is rather unwise to eat.

 

And she's right, of course, as she usually is.

And the crayfish hunt was not a good idea. But I

couldn't dismiss how much fun that family had

for free in this Malibu water on this day.

 

I just hope they all

survived.

Done