Burning Some Beach

My first bonfire since moving to the city was late one night on Ocean Beach and me and some of my classmates and their friends and roommates all met on the beach with our blankets and supplies and were soon waved over by a group of strangers originally from Michigan to join their group since they already had a fire going and we thanked them by sharing our hot dogs and marshmallows and after the Michigan group left the fire their place was quickly taken by another group of strangers that we invited over to help with our mini drum circle and even though my efforts to get the whole beach to sing along with my acoustic arrangement of Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" fell flat and it was getting cold with the sun having gone down I was still feeling good because it was my turn to sip from the bottle of gin and as I did so I could look around the fire and see that the guy across from me was smiling because he had found the beat on his drum that he was looking for and the girl beside me was smiling because she was halfway through her joint and the girl on the other side was smiling because she was staring out at the waves and the girl in the stroller was smiling because she was two-and-a-half years old, she was asleep, and her mom had named her Journey.