Pier Pressure - A Locals View of Manhattan Beach

Fifteen years I have walked down to this pier. I have watched the fog burn off the water at dawn and the light go gold and then gone at the end of the day.

This is downtown Manhattan Beach and the sand in front of it, seen the way a man sees his own town, not the way a stranger sees a postcard. The after-work crowd at Center Court. The surfers paddling out before the light is gone. The pier itself, standing where it has always stood.

Nothing here is invented. It is only what I saw, and thought was worth keeping.

The collection grows the way the years do. Slowly, and then all at once.