2. Magic Hour #2
The more I thought about my stalled artistic aspirations, the more I realized they puttered out even earlier than Cam’s arrival in my life.
Probably around the time that I moved into Isla’s old place upstairs.
It made sense at the time to take over the apartment, too.
I could finally move out of my parents’ place and into something semi-affordable.
It was a place that I knew. A place that I loved .
A place that I thought I loved, anyway.
Because even though I decorated it the way I wanted to and organized it the way I wanted to, I couldn’t stop from walking through pockets of air that Great Aunt Isla’s signature perfume—Cristalle by Chanel—somehow still clung to.
They were constant reminders of how her life force was dimming. Slowly, yes. But dimming, still.
I sipped my coffee to relieve myself and immediately spat it out. Too acidic and too hot, even after sitting out. What gives?
I wrestled once again with the loneliness that invaded the beaches of my mind every day at this hour. At least when I’d been dating Cam, I’d had someone to text through the slow spells.
See any weird skin things today? I’d type to him while bopping my head to the smooth jazz Great Aunt Isla liked that I play for atmosphere.
A pimple on top of another pimple. Didn’t even know that was possible.
Pimple-ception, I’d send back. To which I’d get, Huh?
Maybe if I’d been less jokey. Less self-conscious. Less stressed by this store and less stuck to my promise. Maybe if I’d still been making art, showing my art. Maybe I would’ve been enough. Maybe I wouldn’t be facing another Christmas season alone. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I killed those thoughts one by one with the sharpest spears. What was it Great Aunt Isla had said to me over bingo? That the perfect person was still out there?
Standing in the center of the store as a big-band rendition of “The Man with the Bag” played over the speakers, I reminded myself that Cam was not perfect. No matter how many serums and creams and washes he used, flawless skin did not equate to flawlessness. Period.
With that, instead of stewing inside a store that likely wouldn’t see another customer or going upstairs to stew in my apartment with a cat I never wanted that made me sneeze at least a hundred times a day, I packed up my stuff, flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED an hour early, and trekked out to the beach to watch the waves.
The whoosh. The cradle. The consistency.
They always calmed me. And the walk did me good.
Sunset was fast approaching as I crossed the empty, icy parking lot and waddled up onto the boardwalk.
Winds whipped off the water, bringing a spray that was not unpleasant after I’d been standing around in the dry heat of the store.
Golden hour descended across the vacant, frosty sand.
Burnt orange and amber spiked out from the dipping sun like tangents in a geometry problem I couldn’t deign to solve.
How would I capture this on canvas?
I could halve an orange, peel the skin, preserve it somehow so it doesn’t rot. Dry it? Freeze it?
Inside the peel, I imagined replacing the fruit with half a tennis ball. Yes, that’s it. Replicate the sun on the horizon line but give it the depth it needs. I could use an incredibly pale blue paint for the ocean and my dried-out contact lenses to replicate foam.
But inspiration didn’t stay at the top of my mind because a memory entered the mix.
It was of me and Great Aunt Isla sitting out here on a warmer day in spring when I was thirteen years old, an hour before sunset.
The sky cast itself similarly, and Great Aunt Isla said, “Do you know what some people call this in photography?”
“What?” I asked, burying my hands inside the long sleeves of my oversized hoodie.
“Magic hour, because of how brilliant the sky and the light are. The town glows,” she said as if casting a spell with her words.
“Is it real magic?” I asked, at that impressionable age where I was too old for Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, but I was still reading The Chronicles of Narnia, still wanting to believe that I could open a random wardrobe and step into a different reality where fauns existed and beavers talked.
Great Aunt Isla picked up a handful of sand and let it dribble through the breaks in her fingers, mischief wisping over her face. “Make a wish and find out…”
Wishes had always fascinated me—shooting stars, dandelions, throwing a penny in a fountain. But I always refrained, worried if I put words to what I wanted that the universe would turn around and do the opposite just to spite me.
So I closed my eyes and I pretended.
But fifteen years later, standing there on the beach, encircled by golden light and salty sea air, I let the teenage fear roll away with the tide.
And despite the silliness of being a lone man parked on the beach in late November talking to an unknown, unseen power, I said aloud with my whole chest, “I wish for the perfect man.”
What did I have to lose? The universe had already brought me dud after dud, disappointment after disappointment. If it wanted to spite me (again), I could handle it.
Once more for good measure, I closed my eyes and said, “ I wish for the perfect man.”
I left the rest up to luck.