Salt, Glass, and Small Gods
A slow week, a warm ocean, and the small gods that crawl in to teach us something.
Summer arrived, and I thought we’d be packed. I pictured the dining room humming, silverware chiming against ceramic, voices bouncing under the warm Venice air. I pictured a kind of busy that pays the bills, the kind that says, you’re okay for another month.
Instead, it’s been a bit slow.
People left for hometowns and lake houses, for family cabins and dusty roads leading to anywhere but here. School’s out, surfboards strapped to cars, grandmothers to be hugged. It always catches me off guard, this summer exodus, how it leaves the restaurant half-full, me pacing by the pass, doing quiet math in my head I’d rather not do.
You feel it in your chest… the gnaw of what if this doesn’t pick back up? The thin line between faith and fear that comes with running a place like this.
But here’s what happens when it slows: you start to see again. You notice the way the light hits the glassware at 5:30pm, the way a regular laughs when you bring over a bottle you’ve been saving for them. You hear ‘Cheers’ that’s quickly followed by the hush that falls when the first sip hits the table. You find yourself leaning against the bar, actually talking, instead of scanning the room for the next thing to fix.
We cracked open wines that felt too precious for the chaos of a Saturday rush. Bottles with stories. Bottles that needed a little quiet to truly hear them. It felt like a small rebellion against the fear: to open something beautiful and let it breathe.
Sunday, I tried to surf, hoping to paddle out the restless energy. I pulled my wetsuit off the patio railing, still wet from the day before, sun-baked and salty. As I slid my leg in, I felt something move.
A cockroach, large enough to require a name, scuttled up my thigh. My mind left my body, and for a moment, I almost burned the suit in the alley. My skin crawled for hours after.
So I paddled out in boardshorts instead, expecting the water to be ice. It wasn’t. The Pacific was warm, almost absurdly warm, like it wanted to remind me that it could still hold me, that it could still be gentle when everything else felt jagged. I floated there, toes dangling, letting the sun burn my shoulders, salt drying on my lips. The kind of moment you don’t get when you’re rushing to put on a wetsuit that hides you from feeling the world around you.
Monday, I let myself sleep in. First time in months. I woke to a message that Gnarwhal had been broken into. Two windows shattered, glass everywhere, like someone had taken a hammer to the front teeth of a place I love.
They didn’t steal money, or laptops, or gear that could be replaced. They took two cameras. One I carried through New Zealand in 2015, stuffing it in backpacks, pulling it out to capture sunrises and dusty roads. Another was a family heirloom of Dakota’s, a link to stories before us, even before her parents. They took the things that mattered in ways insurance can’t understand.
The air that morning was heavy, salty, and sharp, like the aftermath of a fight you didn’t want to have.
Nick Burnham came to help board up the windows, knocking out the last pieces of glass with careful, practiced strikes. Shards fell and caught the late afternoon light, turning into a rain of tiny diamonds before settling back into trash on the concrete.
Nick is one of those people you build a life around without even realizing it. He built Companion with us, framing walls and running conduit, showing up before dawn and staying long after we were ready to quit for the day. He has been a loyal supporter of Gnarwhal from the early days, back when we really didn’t have a clue what we were doing.
He is probably the most Aussie person I have ever met, in all the best ways. Every Friday, he gathers with a crew of other Aussies and a few stragglers from here and there for an ocean dip and a coffee to start the day. They had this ritual long before I joined, but getting to enter the ‘Aussie Swim Club’ felt like a rite of passage, even though it happened at my own café. It was a reminder that sometimes the best communities are the ones you get invited into, not the ones you try to create.
Nick showed up after a full day of construction work with no expectation except to help his local coffee shop, to help a friend. While we were prepping the plywood and sweeping up the glass, a crew of firefighters pulled up, saw what we were doing, and offered to help us knock out the windows safely. They had just finished a call and were at Gnarwhal as they usually do in the afternoons for a bit of laughs and a coffee before the phone rings again.
It was an insanely beautiful reminder that even when things shatter, people show up. Sometimes, when you think you are losing everything, the universe sends you a small, perfect moment to remind you that you are surrounded by good people. The kind of people who will knock out the last pieces of glass with you, who will offer a hand without asking for anything in return, who will go for a swim with you at dawn and then show up again when you need them most.
We swept up the last of the glass, said nothing for a while, then went our seperate ways like it was any other Monday. But it wasn’t. It was a reminder that even in the middle of chaos, you are not alone.
I paddled out again that evening, letting the sunset paint the water in colors that don’t exist in real life. Waves rolled under me, and I let them, felt them, let them say, you’re still here.
On the drive home down Lincoln, windows down, salt drying on my skin, another cockroach appeared, crawling across the inside of my windshield. I felt my heart pound like it wanted out. I pulled over in the middle of traffic, hazards blinking, cars swerving, drivers shouting, a symphony of rage that felt biblical.
They didn’t know that for me, in that moment, it was life or death in the smallest, dumbest way possible. I killed it with my shoe, hands shaking, people flying by, and then drove home, heart still racing, windows down to let the ghost of it out.
Later, needing an explanation, I looked up the Native American spiritual meaning of cockroaches. Many see them as symbols of resilience, survival, adaptability. The ability to keep going, to endure, to scavenge hope from the scraps of the world.
It’s absurd, but maybe there’s something there. Maybe they show up to remind you that you’re still alive, still fighting, still capable of surviving a slow week, broken windows, a stolen memory, a crawling thing that makes your skin jump.
That night, I opened a 2003 Bordeaux I had been saving for when the time was right. I poured a glass, let it breathe, and sat in the quiet of our dining room, glass in hand, door cracked to let the summer air in.
It was good. It was better than good. It tasted like earth and time and all the things that keep going even when everything feels like it’s coming undone.
I sat there, letting it wash over me, letting the week crawl off my shoulders and onto the floor. I thought about how it’s often the quiet weeks that teach you what you’re made of. How sometimes you need a roach in your wetsuit, a broken window, and a warm ocean to remind you that you’re still here, still in it, still alive.
And that, for now, is enough.
Love,
Nick