Joy in Laguna of old and new

Catharine Cooper

I see her in the distance, auburn curls bouncing as she dodges small

waves. She is a large woman, dressed in a loose-fitting black top and

tan capris. Her bare feet dance at the edge of the surf. Even from

afar, her joy is palpable.

“Do you know where Capri Laguna is?” she asks, as we close the gap

and stand before one another. I guess her age to be mid-40s. I point

her toward their beach steps, a few yards to the north.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asks as she unclasps her hand,

revealing tiny shards of broken shells. “The colors.”

Her face beams with a childlike innocence. Her cheeks are flushed

with radiance.

“Lillian,” she responds to my introduction. “From Connecticut....

I’m going to come here to live.... To walk the beach everyday.”

She explains that her sister has a home in Irvine, but for her

visit she chose to stay in Laguna. She thinks this is simply a

remarkable place, and she intends to find a way to move.

Her exuberance of place is a huge tonic in the midst of the dog

days of summer. Every August, I am struck by the same malaise. I am

weary of traffic, weary of no place to park, weary of too many

people, packed restaurants and sidewalks, and too much noise.

Everyone seems edgy, and feelings are easily ruffled.

I find myself longing for the Laguna that my parents discovered 48

years ago. With planning and good fortune, they were able to move

their family here. I can hear my grandparents’ voices recounting the

good old days as I retrace the steps that lead me to today.

The idea of baseline -- that standard of value with which similar

things can be compared -- plays heavily into my thoughts. For each of

us, our first experience of a place determines how we will forever

measure its assets and beauty. My baseline is of an Orange County

that existed four decades ago. For Lillian, her framework is August

2005.

“My” Laguna has only 12,000 residents and is surrounded on all

sides by chaparral and free-range cattle. There are no houses in the

Dunsmore Tract, no Top of the World homes, and Alta Laguna does not

have plots. The hillsides are barren of man’s touch, and the sea, for

the most part, has no pollution.

My playground is the open space, filled with sage, cactus,

rattlesnakes, skunks, raccoons and occasional mountain lions. My

neighbors are the Bluerocks, the Jenses, the Thienes, the Kluers. For

the most part, they own businesses in town, and I know the parents as

well as the kids. In fact, I know most of the kids. There are only

two elementary schools, Aliso and El Morro, and when we finally meet

at Thurston Middle School (where the high school pool now resides) it

is with great glee that we expand our circles of friendship.

There is a Girl Scouts and Brownie camp at the east end of Aliso

Canyon. Giggling young girls hike a pathway at the edge of the golf

course on summer days, never thinking about errant balls or

liability. None of the kids have a cellphone, and as long as we are

home at dark, our afternoon of play has been sanctioned. Hardly

anybody’s parents drive them to school, and car ownership is pretty

much reserved for a handful of senior boys.

There was only one shopping center -- and it required the long

drive to Santa Ana. And I say long drive, because -- and this will be

a bit scary to those who are new to the area -- there was no freeway.

There was not a 5, a 405, a 133, a 241, a 55 or a 91. Nope. Highway 101 was the major link of Laguna with the rest of the world.

It took 30 minutes to get to my grandmother’s house in Naples, and

no, my mother wasn’t speeding. There were simply fewer obstructions

-- fewer cars, fewer people, fewer stop lights.

El Toro was a Marine Air Base, a gas station and a country store.

Sulpher Creek ran wild through Laguna Niguel, and the first sixteenth

of Crown Valley Parkway was a two-lane street that connected Coast

Highway with the first of the subdivisions.

It’s easy to romanticize those days while cursing traffic and the

seemingly ceaseless flow of visitors to town. Thanks to Lillian’s

enthusiastic appreciation of what to her is a new horizon, I

challenge myself to erase my end-of-summer angst and be present to

the beauty in the moment. Laguna continues to work its charms with a

glorious past and a rather remarkable present.

* CATHARINE COOPER is a local writer and artist. She can be

reached at [email protected].