The days have warmed up. Poppies are blooming as are those yellow flowers over at the park that are being treated as weeds and crews are removing them with hoes and shovels. To me a sinister operation. They are swaying gently in the breeze before being hacked off. I take some pictures of them and by late afternoon they are all gone. Despicable.
The peach tree in the side yard is blossoming with branches full of tiny white flowers and if you get right up close they give off a very slight and sweet fragrance.
I counted twenty lemons on the small tree out front. A record, usually I get three or four. I’m kind of wondering if I’ll still be living here when they finally ripen and turn yellow.
After one am, there is no moon. The owl’s lonely call makes the night seem longer, more forlorn. And it’s so very far from sunrise. Sleep seems like an impossibility. So I get up and write a few notes and then try to read some poetry from an anthology edited by Czeslaw Milosz. It’s called A Book of Luminous Things. I have two copies of it. A year or more ago I bought one for a friend and haven’t had the chance to pass it along. Someday, I hope she gets it. And somewhere on one of these shelves is another poetry book for her. Time just whizzes past and hardly a day goes by without me noticing some strange lapse that seems hardly possible.
Here’s a luminous one by Steve Kowit;
What Chord Did She Pluck
What cord did she pluck in my soul
that girl with the golden necklace
& ivory breasts
whose body ignited the river:
she who rose like the moon
from her bathing &
brushed back the ebony hair
that fell to her waist
& walked off
into the twilight dark—
O my soul,
what chord did she pluck
that I am still trembling.
I guess for whatever old reason that one resonates….
Which got me to thinking about a summer night almost thirty years ago. The air was thick and humid and I was sitting out on the balcony of the restaurant I was feebly in charge of. I was drying out for a while, turned out to be over a year, and drinking iced Perrier out of a champagne glass. I was waiting for a waitress who I will call Jane. I was wondering to myself if I knew exactly where my life might be heading. I wasn’t sure at all. But returning to California was my best option. And eventually that would happen.
Jane, as usual, was late. I was almost looking forward to her excuse, she was very creative. Her car was always breaking down, or she copied the schedule wrong, broken alarm clock, too drunk, and once she called me from the hospital where she claimed she was being treated for crabs. Shy she was not. My problem was I liked her and I wasn’t looking forward to firing her. She was an extremely smart girl. She was just a shitty waitress and I had to let her go. She finally showed up and I offered her a drink which she accepted. If anything, I was a compassionate boss. And Jane being clever knew why she was there. She saved me a lot of trouble as she slugged from her cocktail and said, “This is it, isn’t it?”
I admitted that it was and we both were relieved. It was the easiest termination I’ve ever had the pleasure of conducting.
Then she quizzed me on my life for a while as the night darkened and fireflies floated through the trees like errant snowflakes. She kept asking me what the hell was I doing in a job like this and why wasn’t I out there somewhere making the world a better place. Because those were her plans, to go out and make a difference in people’s lives. I got her another drink and listened to her talk about what the future might hold for her.
Jane was very passionate and beautiful, long brown hair and an enormous smile. Her dark eyes were filled with curiosity. I truly enjoyed her company. After that interesting night I never saw her again. Every now and then I expect her to show up in the news running for office or living in an old growth Redwood saving butterflies. Perhaps she became a doctor or a teacher. I guarantee she’s not waiting tables.
So always in the back of my mind is the fear that I’ve never done enough to make much of a difference in even my loved ones’ lives. My contribution to making my small slice of the world easier for my friends to navigate has been minimal. Hopefully I’m on a slightly different trail these days where I pay attention more. Where I’m less selfish and more aware of others. I realize I’m no Dali Lama (for which I am thankful) but I have been sniffing some sort of change. I am standing besides strange waters!
Two windy days in a row, the white blossoms have blown off the peach tree and are scattered around the yard and stoop. I cleaned the street of the fallen branches from the palms. Everything is covered with a fine dust. The sea is white capped and frothy. The swells are sloppy, which hasn’t deterred the surfers. The winds are warm and I’ve been sitting out enjoying the day after walking 8.6 miles. Walking therapy.
I bought Robert Bly’s new massive book of collected poems today and can’t wait to dig in to it. But before I do I read one more from the Milosz anthology and then return it to the shelf.
HOPELESSNESS
By Li Ch’ing-Chao
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
When I look in the mirror
My face frightens me.
How horrible I have become!
When Spring comes back
Weakness overcomes me
Like a fatal sickness.
I am too slothful
To smell the new flowers
Or to powder my own face.
Everything exasperates me.
The sadness which tries me today
Adds itself to the accumulated
Sorrows of the days that are gone.
I am frightened by the weird cries
Of the nightjars that I cannot
Shut out from my ears.
I am filled with bitter embarrassment
When I see on the curtains
The shadows of two swallows making love.
I started packing (kind of) for the Sea Ranch trip. (What books to bring?) I leave in a few days and I need more wine and tequila and porterhouses. And I’m sure there are other random items that will make my shopping list tomorrow. Pak has been loading up on food and preparing a menu for over a week now. I’m guessing the next few days will drag until I’m finally on the road.
In a book I finished today called How To Disappear by Akiko Busch I came across the phrase and the idea of Jardin Secret. The concept that we all have private pieces of ourselves that remain ours only. It may be a place we hide out to regain our strength, it maybe an object like a ring or a stone that only has a meaning for us. It may even be an experience that we are reluctant to share but gives us comfort. We have these parts of our inner lives that do not translate well to others. They are part of our makeup.
Of course I could instantly think of many examples of my own, ranging from where I sneak away to to achieve a rare period of solitude, to moments I experienced that profoundly changed me when no one else around me seemed to notice. Times where I was completely outside my self and the world melted away and my inner voice was all that remained. I was connected to nothing but my mind. And far from feeling insignificant durning these times I felt connected to something (Nature) greater and unexplainable. Although I still retained the realization that I am a mere spec in existence’s grand unfolding. Whether that’s disappearing or not I can’t be sure.
Then there are those things in my life I’ve only shared with one or two people. And it occurs to me now that Mide has been gone a year and there are things that nobody knows about me. He took some of my secrets with him. And, perhaps, I took a few of his. Which is an odd sensation indeed.
I cherish my most private thoughts.
Sea Ranch 4/14 - 4/19
After a brutal nine and a half hour drive, traffic from Gilroy past San Jose has become unbearable these past few years, I pull into the driveway of the Prentiss House. Our home for the week. Pak, as always, is waiting with a cold beer, Old Speckled Hen, a favorite from parties past. Hugs from Joanna and the girls puts a lump in my throat and the memory of the miserable drive fades away quickly. Juliette and Ellie are so glad to see me it makes my heart race.
Pak, quoting our friend Aidan Bradley, suggests we have something a little more sociable and pours us each a small tequila. After a quick snack we walk over to the beach where the dogs, Nina and Arlo, enjoy getting off leash and run up and down the shore playing in the waves. The kids want to pick through the tide pools but the surf is too high.
Back at the house Pak grills lamb chops and we continue to sip tequila and catch each other up on our lives. We go back to the beach to watch the sun, an orange ball, sink behind the clouds.
Cicero writes, “But no life can be worth living without the mutual good will of a friend in it. There is nothing sweeter than to have someone with whom one can talk as frankly and openly as if to oneself.”
I am with those friends now. We have known each other more than half of our lives. And the kids, all their lives. I can tell them anything. And sometimes I tell them too much, but they tolerate me as only true friends can. I try not to be overbearing but in my excitement of their company I often get carried away. Oh wells!
Somehow we don’t get our usual first night-itis, limiting ourselves to just a few more splashes of Fortaleza as we sit by the fire.
Later in bed I try to read and take a few notes but I am exhausted. I vow not to watch the news or read a paper while I’m up here. The world can go on without me for a few days. I already feel more relaxed than I have in weeks. The landscape of this particular part of the north coast always calms me. Santa Barbara has been hectic lately and I’m happy to be out of town. I’m having a huge disconnect from Santa Barbara. It may be time to move on.
As per our usual arrangement Ellie is my human alarm clock. She knocks at eight and I get up. Pak already has breakfast cooking. It’s supposed to rain later so we take an early walk.
We are near a seal rookery and the moms are giving birth. The docent points out a baby just a few hours old with its umbilical cord still attached and two moms who will have babies that afternoon. We hang around a while but want to be back to the house because Aileen and Liam are due very soon. Reluctantly, because we want to witness a birth, we walk back home.
I take the kids to the store, a favorite ritual, where we load up on chocolate, ice cream, fudge, cookies and a few essentials like oysters and lottery tickets.
Back at the house I open an old pinot to breath, we light a fire and as Liam and Aileen arrive it starts to rain. We spend the afternoon relaxing and eating Pak’s endless treats from the kitchen where he keeps an eye on us while he cooks. Later the rain lets up and Ellie and I go for a walk. By the time we get to the rookery it starts to mist on us. We’ve missed two more babies being born a few hours earlier and the tide is low so the moms have the new pups in the shallow pools.
We risk walking a bit more to check out some houses for sale. We look in a few windows and Ellie climbs on the roof of one of the old sod-roofed houses. It starts to rain harder and then starts to pour. Before long we are drenched and head back to our house. We end up at a cul-de-sac and turn around until we find a horse trail that I know will take us back to our street.
We laugh, tell stories, and I feel deep grace to have such a young smart friend. I think about me at that age. I didn’t have older friends. There were certainly people I could look up to, like Dorothy and Don Coudert and Ned Kerwood. I’ll include Anne Wojtkowski here, too. But all of our friendships developed when I was older. When I was young I was much shyer than the Wu girls. I was quiet and spent a lot of time listening before I was bold enough to join the conversations of adults. But these kids, including Liam, are full of ideas and easily contribute to the discourse. I am slightly in awe of them when I reflect on my own tentative forays into the mysterious minds of the grownup world.
Ellie and I get back to the house, change into dry clothes and sit in front of the fire. Wine has been poured. From the window we watch the light, already defuse, turn from slate grey to darkness.
The next morning there are sporadic light showers and then the sky clears and the day becomes pristine. We do all the same things; walk, pick the tide pools, open wine, lounge on the deck, talk, laugh, light a fire and of course eat. Pak rarely leaves the kitchen except maybe to supply us with a gin and tonic or a glass of wine. We tease him about raising money and investing in a food truck for him. But he claims then it would be too much like work, all the fun would be taken out of his cooking. Besides, he says he’s really not that talented. Actually, he is.
Two dinners stand out. The Korean BBQ we have after sunset one night is remarkable. Pak sets the grill in the middle of the table on the patio and we cook our own shrimp, calamari, asparagus, tofu, garlic, beef and scallops. Perhaps I’m forgetting something. It’s two hours of slowly savoring our food and sipping yet more old pinots.
The next night was stir-fry beef, curry potatoes, crispy noodles, Chinese style calamari and lobster. All epic dishes. Of course there is ice cream and chocolate for dessert. We adjourn to the fireplace and tell stories. Liam teaches me an excellent card trick and I can’t wait to use it at work this weekend.
We all fade by midnight and I’m slightly embarrassed that we only made it through one and a half bottles of wine. There was a time when Joanna and I would consider that a warm up before dinner. It’s possible we have mellowed a bit.
On Wednesday, the 17th, I inform my friends that it has been exactly a year since my brother Mide has passed away. I have brought a bit of his ashes with me and intend to sprinkle them at Black Point. A place that he loved hearing about and always asked for my pictures from there. He never visited but this was one of the very few places that my travels took me to that he was fascinated about. So I thought it only appropriate to leave some of him up here. First we make a stop at the Sea Ranch Chapel. I have been stopping here, usually walking over in the early morning, for more than twenty years to meditate and contemplate. It is a small peaceful room with simple wooden benches and beautiful stained glass windows. My wonderful friends join me in a moment of silence.
In the flowers on the side facing the ocean I drop just a touch of Mide. Do I believe in prayer? I’ll just say that this is a place were many people come for solitude and reflection so a tiny portion of my brother will alway be near good thoughts. Or something like that.
We drive on down to Black Point and walk out to the edge of the ledge. Joanna helps me find a good spot and without any solemnity I let the ashes fly into the wind. The cloud of dust dissipates quickly and we all smile. Ellie gives me a hug. Juliette waves goodbye. I find I’m not sad. Talking to Fran earlier helped and texts from Paul, Mark and Kev Mahon added to the feeling that we were all celebrating Mide in our own way. Hopefully someday, a long time from now, someone (Ellie?) will flip a bit of me out into the waves near here.
One afternoon when everyone goes to the cove I decide to stay and catch up on my notes and maybe read a few pages of the book I brought. It’s no use though, after a half hour I admit I’m too wound up to concentrate on anything so I decide on a long walk. I pass above the beach and wave to the gang before heading north up the cliffside trail. It’s good to be moving and the day is stunningly clear with a strong offshore wind. I look for whales and see none. We spotted a few yesterday near the lodge. I look down at the wet rocks being hit by waves and catch sight of a bright orange beak glinting in the late day’s sunlight. It takes me a minute to see the black bird blending in with the black rocks. A solitary Oystercatcher is picking at mussels.
I walk for over an hour turning around when I get thirsty and start craving a beer. Everyone is relaxing and waiting for me when I get back and, of course, Ellie wants to go back over to the seal rookery to see if we missed anything. Once again we did. A pup was born earlier and we vow to return again tomorrow.
Our dinners are so much fun. There seems to be lessons every night. Aileen talks about integrity, doing the right thing when no one is watching. The kids nod knowingly. Joanna tells them that they can be leaders. That if other kids see them taking a strong stand against, say, drinking or taking drugs it might help weaker classmates not to succumb to peer pressure. I wish I could contribute something profound but I am a mediocre teacher compared to my friends.
Pak explains about letting go. Whether it be of a preconceived notion of something as simple as disliking the taste of tomatoes or staying with so-called friends who bring you down. He illustrates his point by picking up a bottle of hot sauce and opening his hand and letting it drop to the table. “It’s that easy.” He says with a smile but his eyes are serious. I’m listening because letting go has never been one of my strengths. I’m notorious for holding on to things for too long always expecting stuff will get better when they clearly will not. But I’m still learning and as I always do I take Pak’s wisdom to heart. It will give me something to think about on the long drive home.
We are up early on our last full day for the drive to Fort Bragg to go horseback riding. We take a pit stop at Glass Beach so we can collect some sea glass before devouring giant burgers at a roadside stand.
At Ricochet Stables the extremely knowledgeable and friendly staff gets us mounted. I haven’t been on a horse in over thirty years and my mare seems a little perturbed at first. But she, Zvezda, Russian for Star, quickly relaxes. Everybody else seem comfortable and we follow a trail through the woods to the beach and ride on the sand for a while. Zvezda, I’m told, is twenty-five years old. And she is beautiful, as are all the horses. I talk to her a bit and then sing softly; “Sometimes we ride on your horses. Sometimes we walk alone. Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.” Whether my voice has a calming effect I’m not sure but we plod along gracefully. Fog is starting to blow in off the water and the day couldn’t be more picturesque. The ride is over all to soon and we promise our guides we will be back next year. And I hope we will.
Back at the house Ellie and I decide on one more walk to the rookery and this time we missed a birth by fifteen minutes. The mother and newborn are surrounded by gulls and vultures whose job is to clean up the afterbirth. They are creating all kinds (all kinds) of racket and the mother is not happy with the hassle. Finally a gull grabs the placenta and hops away to a rock. The other birds follow and the mother calms down and huddles with her pup. We walk around the neighborhood one more time before getting back for dinner. We agree that we sure are going to miss this place.
The last night blues. We can’t figure out how six days flashed by so fast. It is always a mystery to us. I quote, or paraphrase, Einstein: “Five minutes in a dentist’s chair seems like two hours and two hours sitting on a park bench with a beautiful girl seems like five minutes.” Relativity in a nutshell. It’s all on your point of reference. So obviously we’ve been having a splendid time. We watch a movie with the kids but after our trip up the coast and the horseback riding and the lobster feast we are all nodding off. The fire glows enchantingly. Ellie goes out to the patio for some fresh air and instantly falls asleep on the big cushioned chair. I wake her and she goes downstairs to bed. Soon everyone says goodnight and I am left sitting alone watching the flames. Outside it’s foggy. I have a sip of wine left.
In my backpack I have my journal from the past year. A year of tremendous loss; Mide, Lovejoy, Eddie, Mary and Pete. Some of the bleakest stuff I’ve ever written. I contemplate tossing it into the flames and letting my black musings go up the chimney where they belong. Or maybe they don’t. Who would ever want to read them though? I’m not even sure I ever want to read them again. But for some reason, perhaps time will tell, I don’t burn my notes of despair. I drink the last of my wine and go down to my comfortable room and realize, and not for the first time these past few weeks, that I am pulling out of the deep cloud I’ve been under since Mide died. Will I ever be totally over it? Doubtful. I don’t think we every truly get over anything. We just plod on and put on a brave face and if we are lucky we can share our pain and sadness with our family and a few dear friends.
The last morning and Pak makes one more big breakfast. I figure it will keep me full all the way to Santa Barbara. Saying goodbye is always hard. The girls hug me as tight as they can while we stand by my jeep. I linger as long as I dare dreading the nine hour drive.
There are tears in my eyes as I make the turn on to Highway One.
These friends have all changed me for the better. They really do bring out the best in me. I often say to myself that I want to be the person Ellie thinks I am. And the thoughts of the shared love and collection of memories sustains me as I pass over the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog, navigate through San Fransisco, endure the traffic of Silicon Valley and finally pick up speed near Salinas.
Good to be home? Yes, but I still wish I had more time up there. In the morning we will start planing our next trip. As always, we are full of ideas. Lucky us!
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