May 2019
A few grey and gloomy days. The marine layer has been thick, mornings foggy and we’ve even had some rain. I’ve been walking in the mist most mornings wearing a light fleece jacket. I’m usually warm enough. But like I told Ellie in Gualala last week after delicately negotiating the wet seagrass covered rocks with my flip flops and wounded ankle, “I am a rose in winter, fragile, weaker than I once was.” She just laughed and that made me laugh, too. However, instead of jumping the small chasms from rock to rock like I used to I eyed the water filled channels more cautiously and meandered along until I found an easier passage out to the deeper tide pools.
Back in Santa Barbara it doesn’t take long for the peace and serenity of my time on the North Coast to almost completely fade away. The usual parties and work and out of town guests fill my schedule. I struggle when I get home at night to capture some of the solitude I devoured just ten days ago. I get into bed and read a poem or two and put Charles Lloyd on softly in the background. It helps a little.
The 7th. Mide would have been 56.
A day full of tears. I couldn’t even talk to anyone. Just texts. So many friends remembered. Walking and crying on this grey and lonely day. Afternoon thoughts on how to live with the uncertainty of it all. There really is no such thing as security no matter what anyone says. I’m aware of how temporary the situation really is. Fooling myself is not a part of my makeup. I can hear his voice in my head.
I also now realize that no one alive will ever call me by his nickname for me.
I'm beginning to appreciate the feeling, in a very small way, of not getting it all. (The same stuff..music, books, girls, champagne.. The list is endless.) And the fact that I'm going to leave so much undone. Just thinking about all that there is in existence and all that I'll never know has become humbling in an almost positive way. What I take away from it all remains to be seen. In the past this bothered me a great deal, now I’m beginning to see that it’s just the way of the world. So I’d better get used to the idea.
The reverse is to appreciate deeply those moments where life truly shines. Whether it be a song or a hawk or a kiss. Don’t let beauty go unacknowledged.
Every time I talk with my friend Daffnee she always says to me, “Hey TF, tell me what moves you lately.” So I always try to have a ready answer. I do this by paying attention to stuff. By filtering out the mundane. By cultivating an awareness of my emotions. Sometimes it’s an old song, or a passage from a book. Sometimes it’s moments with a loved one or watching for meteorites. The world can be endlessly fascinating when properly viewed. This week Nanci Griffith brought me to tears with an old song called There’s a Light Beyond These Woods (Mary Margret). Why did that song grab me as I was driving? I haven’t a clue, but it did.
Sitting in my yard with a friend and a bottle of Champagne as we discussed our travels made a few nights ago one of the highlights of the year.
And how do we measure these treasured moments such as watching fog drip or a leaf rain in Autumn or a swarm of dragonflies in the yard or holding a soft hand? I guess we really can’t measure them in any meaningful way except to enjoy those transcendent experiences that for whatever inexplicable reason sear our hearts.
In an odd conversation the other night I was going on about things I’ll most likely never live to see. Why people listen to my nonsense sometimes is beyond me. Perhaps she felt trapped. Or the wine was worth the blather. Anyways, I explained that I had asked Ellie and Juliette to do me a favor. I want them to look into the night sky on July 28, 2061. This is the next time Halley’s Comet will become visible to the naked eye. It also coincides with what would be my 100th birthday. The odds are very much against me being around to see this wondrous (the comet) event. I plan on asking Marcus to keep an eye out for it as well. They all will still be young enough to be around if fortune permits. And it will give them a good excuse to remember me, if only for a brief evening.
Ten days into the month and I’ve yet to see the sun. A steel grey ceiling has stayed constantly low in the sky over my neighborhood and out over the water past the islands that are also shrouded in the dark marine layer. I’ve been tempted to drive up the pass to Los Olivos and have lunch outside at a winery and sit in the sunshine but every day some small distraction keeps me near home.
I’ve never been one to let the weather spoil my day so I still walk in the morning. I don’t really mind the damp cool air. The beach at low tide is much less crowded and I run into fewer people I know. Which is a small tradeoff. I’ll take the solitude over sunshine these days. And I also know it will not last. Although the forecasters are calling for rain tomorrow. But as a friend often reminds me, “They’ve predicted ten of the last four storms.” I should have been a weatherman.
I’m reading Laila Lalami’s new book called The Other Americans. On the surface it’s a story about a fatal car accident. But its much deeper themes are the trials faced by immigrants. Even legal ones. It’s a look into discrimination that takes place on a myriad of levels. Lalami’s writing is very powerful. In these times of Trump it should be a book taught in high school. Or perhaps handed out to our congressman and senators.
Personally, in the last few years I’ve witnessed a new and more open type of racism. And it’s disconcerting. Heartbreaking. Hatred of and derision toward people who are different from “us” whether it be because of skin color or religion is indisputably at an all time high. And there’s no one who can argue with me about this. I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears. I’ve been serving the public since I was seventeen and I know racism when it’s in front of me. People think because I’m older and white they can say things to me or around me that they wouldn’t say otherwise. I let them know how woefully wrong they are.
I also know the type of country I was brought up in and this isn’t it. The lack of decency is staggering. My father would be cringing right now. In politics, even in my small hometown, people didn’t always agree. But compromise was always an option. An early lesson from Dad was when I asked him if I could put a sign in our yard for my friend who was running for mayor. She was running against the incumbent, one of Dad’s good friends. And indeed a very good man. Dad asked if we should have two signs in the yard, his and mine. We talked a bit and decided on no signs. Dad and I volunteered for our respective friends. Both candidates understood. It was a tough, but never mean, campaign. There was respect on both sides. Just different visions for our city of fifty-thousand people.
Well, my friend won. And something she told me as she made the transition into the job was that nobody was more helpful in making it easier than her predecessor, the outgoing mayor and Dad’s buddy. And that is how it should always be. I don’t see a lot of that anymore. I’d wager if Trump looses this next election he will have to be forcibly removed from The White House. To Paraphrase Jefferson, I tremble for my country.
Watching a murder of crows in the neighborhood this morning I realized it’s been a while since I’ve seen the old one with the three or four grayish white feathers. It’s been maybe a year or so now. I remember reading somewhere (Snyder? Harrison?) that crows live about eight years. So the odds are that every crow I watched when I first moved here is now dead. But the flock looks and sounds exactly the same.
And how small I feel around that raucous murder. They are wild and loud. Almost alien. Like the many dragonflies in the yard lately. Or the poppies and other wildflowers growing unnoticed near the trails I walk. And the whales slowly swimming north. My only connection to these moments in nature is my brief viewing. The world goes on around me with indifference and I feel unconnected to real and true wildness. I think it’s time to go sit on top of a mountain. Or take a meander along the Drinking Man’s Trail which Mike Carpenter called it because it’s almost all down hill and ends at The Wawona Hotel. Or perhaps a walk on the Panorama Trail where I usually see a bear might bring me closer to a feeling of belonging to something bigger than myself. And a stronger relationship to nature. And perhaps someday figure out what that otherness is that compels me to gaze into the woods and mountains and night sky. There is a poem in there somewhere.
I go outside tonight to absorb the moonlight for a little while. It helps a bit as I sip detox tea. But back inside I still acknowledge my disconnect from.. What? They way I should be living? Greg Allman sings, “It just ain’t easy.”
Sometimes I buy a book without really thinking why. I’ve just started Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s In Love With The World. It’s been a long time since I’ve read any Buddhist philosophy. Maybe I just need a gentle reminder about how to deal with the tribulations of the past year. So I’m immersing myself in thoughts of transience and impermanence. How to cultivate awareness and meditate. I’ve never been very successful at meditation but maybe I’ll try (again) some short attempts. But my mind has never been very good at relaxing. I frustrated a teacher, long ago, with my inability to concentrate. It’s not for everybody she had to admit. Never the less we enjoyed our time together. However, I’m older now so maybe I can give it another spin.
There is a Pharoah Sanders song called Sunrise that I often listen to simply to listen to and relax and breath. That’s about the closest I’ve come to true meditation in a long time. This morning I played it and just sat in front of the speakers. But my thoughts still flowed turbulently. My lifelong affliction. It’s about an eighteen minute song and that’s pretty much my limit for staying still. I wasn’t quite able to focus much on impermanence either. But two things today reminded me of the fleetingness of it all. First I found a CD given to me by my friend, Erin, who passed away suddenly several years ago. She was sweet and young and gone way too soon. I spent some time with her memory.
Then I came across a postcard from Mike Carpenter. And it made me laugh. It’s an old black and white photo of a naked woman eating a banana. Very tasteful I might add. On the back all he wrote was “Viola!!”. Remembering his colossal sense of humor brightened my morning. So I thought about Mike for a while and about a time he came to visit and made dinner here at my house. We walked down to the fish market, brandishing a flask, if memory serves, and bought oysters and local sea bass. Then we went to the store for heirloom tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, crusty bread and cheese. After martinis we opened many bottles of wine. It was a fantastic meal even though the kitchen looked like a grocery cart exploded in there. Of course cleanup was my job, as usual. How temporary these great evenings of conversation were. I still carry lessons from them.
Certain pieces from Keith Jarrett’s Kyoto Concerts invite a calmness when you give them full attention. Maybe I’ll play those later, or tomorrow. Or perhaps someday listen to all five or so hours of that collection.
Mingyur Rinpoche writes, “Our continuous agitation reveals a low-level dissatisfaction that never entirely ceases except for a few peak moments here and there. We are restless with this scent of something better close by, but out of reach. It’s like a subnormal fever.” So true, for me anyway.
A beautiful breezy day. I spent it walking and writing. This afternoon I didn’t even turn on any music. I just listened to the wind in the palms and lounged around occasionally walking over to the beach to watch the whitecaps that went out as far as the eye could see. Then, as I’ve been doing more and more lately, I begged off on going out to dinner. I hope she won’t get tired of my flakiness. I’m not really worried. She has plenty of other options. Perhaps I’m creating a sense of mystery, although probably just the opposite..
A week of business, extra work, parties, lunches, dinners and a very very late night. All of which have worn me out. The late night however, and here I will paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, made the sacrifice of the next day rather trivial, the company was exquisite.
But then I do need some time to reacclimatize and slow down my thoughts and be able to concentrate here at the laptop as the sun sets behind the drab marine layer that has pretty much been hiding the sky, stars and moon all month.
The bounce-back isn’t as swift as it once was. So I’ve endured two days of salads and ice water and five mile walks. I stare at the Avión bottle with some apprehension but remain sober. Sleep has still been fitful.
I came across a great word the other day in a Jim Harrison story. Saudade. It loosely translates as a deep sense of longing and melancholy for something that is forever gone. A feeling I know all too well this past year. A distraction that has hardly faded nor am I confident that it ever will. Oh wells…
Watching the news from Mount Everest this week has been disconcerting. I’m not sure how many dead so far but at least eleven. The pictures of the line along the ridge to the summit are ridiculous. There are hundreds of people a day trying to get to the top which create long waits for climbers above eight thousand meters which is called the death zone. People are dying waiting their turn to summit. The stories of the bodies along the upper route are horrifying. An epic cluster-fuck for sure.
About fifteen or so years ago Mike Carpenter and I planed on trekking out to base camp to see the majestic Himalayans for our selves. Then Mike sent me an article about base camp being the world’s highest garbage dump. The pictures were disgusting; piles of used oxygen tanks, discarded tents and sleeping bags, boxes and containers, and frozen human shit. We decided on other plans and as I’ve watched the years go by the scene up there seems to only have gotten worse, more crowded and more trashed. Mike is gone now and as I sit here and write I realize tomorrow is his birthday. I believe he would have been sixty. I don’t know how this could be possible. I’ll have to ask his best buddy, Kevin.
I found another song to meditate to even though my friend says silence is best. But my neighborhood is anything but silent. There’s a lot of traffic these days and leaf blowers and construction. So rather than shut my windows and put in ear plugs I play music. This morning’s song was The Keith Jarrett Trio’s Somewhere/Everywhere. Very peaceful and easy to pay attention to. I know it’s not the real way to clear my mind of random thoughts but it’s the best I can do right now. Every time my brain wanders I try to refocus on just my breathing and the music. Am I more relaxed? About the same as taking a long walk. So maybe I’ll keep at it for a while.
I’m thinking about digitizing all my old journals. Most of them are written in pencil and are starting to fade away. Although why I should do this I’m not sure. I’ve pretty much been saying the same things year after year after year. Pondering time’s arrow, the shortness of life, impermanence, wandering around mountains and worrying about girls and booze. You can only say the same old things so many times. But, It might be a fun project to actually see how little I’ve matured and how repetitive I truly am. Who would ever want to read them anyway? Marcus? Ellie? The only up side is that they are scattered with poetry and maybe putting all my poems in one place could encourage me to get a book together. Or not. I’ll take a look at the fifteen frayed notebooks after I get back to town next week.
The month of May comes to an end with a few days of beautiful blue skies and calm surf. A fog bank hovers off shore insuring the next couple of nights will be cool. I am packing for a few days in Los Angeles. The Dead and Company Summer Tour is coming to the Hollywood Bowl. And, as usual, I just can’t say no. So here we go again.
