Thursday, June 05, 2003
blanket immunity
We’d rented a van and filled it with coolers of water and fruit juice, sandwiches and bananas, cookies and chips, and of course patio furniture, pillows and sleeping bags. We drove two hours north to the fairgrounds at Ventura, and parked next to the rock berm at the shoreline. Spray from the waves speckled our windshield within minutes after we’d parked, and although we were technically in an illegal space, we were followed by many thousands of others and within a few hours we could only have been extracted by a helicopter with a winch (or “winchacopter"). The guys in the van right behind us gave us free access to the keg of beer they’d brought, and a general party atmosphere ensued as our transient community of 20,000 gathered for two concerts by the Grateful Dead. It was 1984 and there was still an air of authenticity about the scene.
The first show was great, phenomenal really. We returned to the van as the summer night fell, thrilled and energized. We cooked on the rocky shore where the waves washing in jostled the stones and rolled them against and into each other, clattering like so many teeth and bones, a hollow sound that I felt deep under my skin. I loved that sound; it soothed me, eased the churning rhythms of the concert out of my blood, replacing them with random organic repetitiveness. I dragged out a chaise lounge from the van and set it up on the shore, ten feet from the breaking surf; I put my sleeping bag on it, climbed in, and drifted into sleep.
Early the next morning the cold started seeping in. I became painfully aware of my knees, my sacrum, the back of my neck, the top of my head. I was dreadfully awake with cold. The sea on the rocks sounded like chattering hypothermic jaws and definitely didn’t comfort me or warm me up. A wet Pacific wind can cut to your bones, even in the summer; it feels much colder than people might think. I could feel the vital energy draining out of me as the dew formed on my sleeping bag and face and hair.
Giving up on my sleep in the still of the dawn beside the shivering rocks at the ocean’s edge, I opened my eyes to see a man approaching me with a large bundle. He was deeply tanned, modestly dressed, looked itinerant. He pulled a brightly striped cotton blanket from his bag. “$10,” he said with a heavy accent. I reached into the jeans I was still wearing in the sleeping bag - there was one bill in my pocket: a ten-spot. I handed it to him and he draped the blanket over me.
I quickly fell back to sleep, comforted and warmed until the day itself grew warm and the parking lot campground came alive with song, smoke and breakfasts cooking on open flames. That day’s concert was also fabulous and the blanket came home with me afterwards. I took it back to college that fall, and I’ve kept it with me pretty much ever since. It’s an extremely handy blanket, big and soft and sturdy and cheerful. I’ve used it as a bedcover, a wall hanging, a yoga mat, a serape… and it’s been put to a few other choice purposes too. We still use it all the time. I’ve long since amortized that ten dollar bill, but there’s plenty of comfort and warmth left in my Mexican blanket. I can’t help but think that that’s the warmth of the man who sold it to me, the warmth of a benevolent universe that sent him to me at the moment I needed him most. I don’t think I spoke to him that morning, but I thank him every time I use it.
