Beach at Sunrise

Several miles away from our perch on the edge of the Pacific are a row of cliffs that rise steeply from the ocean waters. They are a uniform purple, their thick shape emerging from the early morning mist of salted spray that hovers over the choppy waves like a silvery ghost. Behind the cliffs, the sky is pink with yellow undertones, a brilliance cast from the emerging sun still hidden behind the low hills to the east which promises the warmest of days.
The ocean stretches out for miles towards the horizon, the waves frosty blue with bright white caps which glow intensely, reflecting the brightness of the sky. As the dawn rolls in, right on time, the wind whips up a trail of moisture from the peaks, leaving an ephemeral white trail behind them which lingers for a moment then disappears into the water and air. The light above plays on the water's surface, casting a hint of pink  which creates a soft glassy hue. This is also true for the water left cascading backwards on the sand to the sea, though the shades of pink vary depending on the amount of water on any given area of cold beach.
I watch the tiny shape of a person on the sand, perhaps a few hundred feet away. They are silhouetted and black against the glowing ground.
Lines of seagulls hover just inches above the water line, coasting on the breeze, barely moving a wing.
We sit on a dirt pullout, a single fence of wooden posts spaced five feet apart and connected by two thick jute ropes spaced a foot and a half apart. A white van is parked to the right of us, the driver taking photos of the landscape with a black phone. To the left, a woman has a towel wrapped around her waist as she undresses and squeezes into a black spongy wetsuit.  Along the coast, about a hundred feet to the left are a row of cars where surfers are in various stages of undress with towels providing a modicum of modesty.
There are a few surfers in the water, about a few hundred feet away. They look smaller than the seagulls, like black pebbles amid the influx of the white capped waves and dark blue waters.

Coast

The two lane black tar road clings to the side of the mountain. Below, a thousand foot drop is the ocean- wide and blue, stretching to the horizon.
Emerging from the frigid waters are small islands of rocks. They look like the dropped pebbles from a giant child. There are a few dozen, several covered in white bird droppings. They look massive and temporary at the same time- strong and yet susceptible to all the elements, to every bird and human travelling along the coast.
The beaches far below, inaccessible to those without wings, are covered in bleached white logs from long-ago felled timber. Strewn every which way on the white sand, they stay until high tide and then continue on their journey.
The road snakes through the inclines and down into the forested valleys, winding, creating switchbacks.  Pale, slightly overcast blue skies contrast with the deep dark blue of the sea. A slight bit of haze gathers at the horizon, promising more fog.
The cliff sides are rocks, jutting and made of slightly red earth that seems to be a combination of sand and stone. The mountains teem with life and vegetation. Bushes and shrubs cover it in every shade of green.  Wild flowers poke out from rock faces and at the edge of the road where the tar has crumbled back into sandy earth.
A mixture of pale yellow and bright orange California poppies spot the landscape. Tiny yellow buds on top of wispy stems rise several feet from the earth and look like a million bright stars, left somehow ignited in the daylight. A smattering of tiny purple and pink flowers are all mingled with the beige, dried up coastal grasses that sprout from every available surface.
The road coils like a black snake, up and down hills and mountains, through thick brush on either side, sliced through reddish earth. Wild fennel and mustard plants line up along the sides of the road like soft guardians. The fennel, bushy and soft like feathers, the mustard, bright and electric yellow buds sway in the salty coastal air. 
Only a few hundred feet from the road the forest begins, thick woods with pine and redwood and enormous ferns. Every now and then is a house, part of the ecology of the mountain. 
The moon, a thin crescent, hangs high above, still bright against the blue sky.

Shelter

There is a nest of Monterey cypress overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The water is less than a mile away, buffered from the cypress patch by a series of low hills and sand dunes which are covered in succulents and low-growing shrubs. 
The ocean is dotted with white caps and shrouded by mist. From the cliff side it appears pale blue and ephemeral. On the dunes, wisps of sand are lifted by the constant ocean wind and sweep over the rich array of yellow, pale red, pink and green hues of the succulents and thin desert grasses.  The plants bend in the wind and seem malleable by nature and design, built to tilt, but they stay firmly rooted. 
The nest of trees grows on the edge of the cliff, the massive cluster of roots holds the sandy soil together with their weave of hardened lumber. The collection of cypress have grown over the years into a dome shape, creating a rounded shelter protecting the center from the ever present ocean breeze full of seaweed scent and salt.  The majority of the rough trunks are stooped from years of strong winds, some of them grow thick, yet almost parallel to the ground.
Within the dome, which is open and free of vegetation but for the blanket of brown, fallen cypress needles, the air is slightly warmer and nearly without breeze.  It smells deeply of earth and soil and just a hint of stagnant soil.
There is a small pile of wood on the ground just a few feet from center. It has been reduced almost to charcoal and only a few blackened logs remain. An empty 40oz bottle of the cheapest variety is lodged between a thicket of trucks along the edge of the living wall; the trees are cluttered around the periphery. Dozens of trunks grow almost on top of each other, emerging from nearly the same space in the earth, their branches compete for sunlight, struggling upward despite the force of wind.
A topless girl is dancing, protected by the wall of trees in all directions. She has on tight jeans so faded now that the fabric appears gray. Though her pale skin is protected from the ocean air by the shelter of green, her nipples are pointed, still reacting to the sunless sky. 
She runs back and forth from her camera to a wide space in the center of the dome, twirling her body as the green light on the camera blinks in perfect rhythm until it doubles in speed and then beeps and the flash ignites, lighting her pale skin for a moment of further brilliance.
She runs to check the camera, sets it again against a small fallen branch on the ground, then sets the timer once again as she runs to the center of the needled floor, waving her arms around her in a motion of ecstatic abandon. 
A seagull caws somewhere close by, its sound carried like the salt and seaweed scent. The girl swings her arms, juts out her hips, and looks once more at the camera.