I left my umbrella in the car, let the rain fall
(as if I could control it, make it exist more
by choosing not to avoid it).
It never rains like this in California
(and by like this I mean at all).
I had to leave to feel the rain again, and when I

did I felt it, really felt it, felt it drip down my face,
get in my eyes, I didn’t care. A sign
on the side of the road read Beach 1 and pointed
north. We were both furthest north and furthest
west in all of America. We were sleepy, but not too

sleepy to put our feet in the water. And what a
tremendous relief it was to put our feet
in the water, after days of driving, driving through
Oregon, through Washington, to the edge
of the universe, where a family of seals
(a mother, three babies)

swam close to shore, undeterred by the heavy
rain, playing, searching for a meal.
They disappeared into the endless, flat, peculiarly
horizontal water (as opposed to the vertical,
hill-induced view I’m used to seeing in Manhattan
Beach). I saw a bald eagle for the first time

last night as we left the restaurant, returned to our
campsite – is it real camping if you drive out
to a restaurant? It flew right above us; I watched it
through the window clouded with raindrops.
It was the first time I ever felt patriotic. I snapped
out of it

in a minute or two; I don’t even like bald eagles.
From a naturalist’s perspective, it was a rarity.
From a birdwatcher’s perspective. But I am
neither naturalist, birdwatcher, nor patriot.
All the same, I can’t deny the feeling.

The feeling has returned to me now, with this rain
dripping down my face, into my eyes;
with this beach, with this
practical yet playful family of seals.

I know what the feeling is now,
and it isn’t patriotism.
It’s something like this: god, it’s good to be alive.
Sometimes. When the sky is brilliantly dark
and cloudy, pouring corpulent droplets of water
into eyes that have almost shut

but pry themselves open to see the world,
to grasp the pure euphoria of it,
when water falls on water which flows and grows
and never ceases, lives many lives
which eventually converge into one

that never ends, when freshwater penetrates
driftwood, joins the salty, stormy sea;
yes, it is good to be alive.