Story of the Grey Girl

Once upon a time, long ago when I was small, we would occasionally travel the coast in California.  Up past Cayucos, then Harmony, Cambria, San Simeon, past Esselan- all the way up to Carmel. The road is narrow and beautiful, clinging to the cliffs beside the sea, twisting and curving above the rocks and groves.  Far down below are beaches that are hidden, inaccessible but sometimes you can see the waves, the shore covered with rocks, kelp and elephant seals.  Fog comes up and drifts over everything, and everywhere there is the smell of sea and scrub.  When we drove this, I loved the way it looked and smelled, longed to get out and get down to those beaches (not possible, except some brave jade pickers and abalone divers went there sometimes), was queasy all the way- sometimes now I dream of driving it, of heading off above Cambria, exploring places I never stopped at.

I don't know where we were going or why, I don't remember who was there besides Mother, but it was on one of these trips that we saw the grey girl.  I know I was young- young enough to play with dolls in the backseat, young enough to shift attention between my made up worlds and the real world, play and windows and trying not to throw up.  We were crossing the Bixby Bridge (I think it was, it may of been another one of these graceful canyon spanners, but I'm thinking it was Bixby because I remember a park-historical-type sign) and I remember it as being one of those days that was grayish, yet bright.  Fog around below, but not dense- more wispy.  The girl (woman?) was standing on the bridge, leaning on the rail, looking out to sea.  Not in a touristy way but a desolate way- aura of mystery and profound grief- or maybe I am imagining it.  She had on a head scarf, a coat of some kind- it is vague in my mind like a film shot, but I know it was real enough, even if my details are wrong.  I remember Mother talking about her off and on for years afterwards, about who she might of been, how she got there, what her story was.  I've thought of her often as well, is she ghost or spirit or just a girl in the mist. 

         It was that time of the century when there were still hippies all along the coast, Big Sur and Little Sur, and people still drifted there in search of their souls. Encampments of art cars and school buses, dead heads following festivals, scent of sandalwood and tofu was still new.  - a certain kind of casualness, a curiosity but it was being tempered by the slow change into the next decade, where economics replaced activism, disco flash out shown bonfires, and the culture of the country turned in a different direction.  There are a lot of missing/unidentified women listed in the databases for that time- leaving their lives to find themselves elsewhere, victims of predators, other reasons unexplained.  I wonder if she was one of them~ I remember finding some similar story once in the data bases, but I can't locate it this morning and haven't time to search.  It's funny though how seeing something like the photo of Bixby Bridge can summon up these stories~ make me think of it so strongly that I know I will spend a bit of time searching for her again later, and tonight I will dream of her standing at the edge of the world.