The Temptation of Vegas

Life, Sandra's Showcase | Sandra | November 3, 2009 at 11:46

I feel like a woman with a husband and a lover. They each speak to a deep need in my soul, but neither, on its own, can satisfy me. That’s the choice between Las Vegas and Shell Beach. They pull at me, hard, in opposite directions and I need to be both places to feel complete.

Throbbing Las Vegas with its pulsing avenues lined with a crazy patchwork of tall towers fulfilling a thousand different fantasies is that illicit tryst in a luxury suite with hot tub and champagne overlooking mauve mountains and flaming sunsets, a wild place where strangers gather for martini’s and everyone is charismatic and energetic and trying to sell you something.

Little Shell Beach with its narrow streets lined with a crazy patchwork of beach houses fulfilling a thousand different fantasies is that calm and safe harbor where neighbors gather for a glass of wine to watch the golden sun set into the vast sapphire Pacific and no one locks their doors unless they go away.

Never get attached to anything in Las Vegas because what’s here today will soon be gone. It’s sole purpose for existence is change because entertainment demands a new thrill or the audience is bored. It’s just the nature of the place.

Change is slow and resisted in Shell Beach. People are attached to each other, to the old ways of classic California, to the sea otters and comorants. An ocean storm with waves rolling all the way from the Philippines never ceases to thrill an audience that is never bored. It’s just the Nature of the place.

I don’t want to choose. I want my safe husband and my thrilling lover. I want to be two women – I am two women. I finally get it. I finally understand how a man can intensely love his wife and family and desperately yearn for his mistress. And why men (and women – although far fewer) with money have always had both.

It’s always about the money, isn’t it?