Book excerpt: Laguna Beach became famous as an artists' colony in the 1920s, infamous as a mecca for hippies and surfers in the 1960s, and it still attracts free spirits and seekers of beauty. Among those inspired by its light, landscape, and people is poet Sarah Koops Vanderveen. In Once by the Pacific, she captures the rhythms of real life in a much-mythologized place that is ultimately, in her words, quirky, lovely, and authentic. Includes work by world-renowned photographer John Van Hamersveld.