October 2019

October 2109

  Life is short

  And full of thorns.       Robert Hunter

“I also wondered if the mundanity of my train of thought was hindering my progress.” So writes Patti Smith in her new book. I know exactly how she feels.  

Parties, weddings, concerts and house guests have interrupted my contemplation of Joseph Campbell. I had to put him down for a few weeks while I was distracted by my busy life.  In the meantime, I read some lighter stuff. But this past week I was able to concentrate on bigger questions. I went back to the book Romance Of The Grail and immersed myself again in Campbell’s brilliance for a few days and regained some of my balance with a good dose of solitude. Although the neighborhood is as loud as ever. 

  I could quote the book endlessly but suffice to say I’ve been taking my morning walks contemplating the “experience of existence” as Campbell explains it. Those things that make life worth the while. 

It’s dark at seven o’clock. And I noticed Orion last night for the first time this year hovering above the ocean. Mornings have been cool and foggy. A murder of crows has been haunting the neighborhood, harassing hawks. The almost full moon looks cold and far away. Autumn is here. 

Entropy is everywhere. Maybe, however, I just notice it more in the Fall. I am hyper sensitive to our constant struggle to stave off the wearing out of everything that surrounds us. 

At Shoreline Park the other day I heard a snapping sound and looked up at one of the pines and saw a branch slowly breaking. The still alive fresh wood, smelling like a Christmas tree, was making a cracking sound that was louder than I would expect from a branch with an eight inch diameter. It took about fifteen minutes for the branch, twenty feet long with green needles and all, to almost break free from the trunk. And now a couple of days later it’s still dangling. But only by a thin sliver of wood. I bet by the end of the week it will have fallen to the surf.

  It reminded me of the day I was sitting in the lemon grove at the farm in Summerland and while I was deciding which lemon to pick the one I was staring at fell to the ground. Timing. 

  On another warm summer morning I was at Toro Canyon, at the pavilion, and took a break from reading to watch the Monarchs passing over the scrub brush. I was looking at one through binoculars when a Jay swooped by and ate it in mid-flight. It happened in fast motion. 

  Yesterday I broke another wine glass. I’m now down to about fifty. 

  Then my drains in the bathroom backed up. Roots were growing through the mainline leading to the street.  Nature tends not to give a shit about our daily needs.  Like being able to flush a toilet.  

   I need new tires for my jeep. After only 35,000 easy miles. 

  My iPhone screen has a crack. I’ve no clue how it got there! 

  ENTROPY! ENTROPY! ENTROPY!  (I always yell that in Anne Everest Wojtkowski’s voice.)

  Yet another day of street construction right outside my window. The water lines are being replaced (entropy) and the noise is unbearable. Even with all my windows closed. This has been going on for months. 

  So I had to get out of the house. I went to Chaucer’s Bookstore and bought some books; Czeslaw Milosz, Pico Iyer and Claudio Magris. I still have time to decide what books I’m taking to Massachusetts in ten days. Always an agonizing decision. 

  At Gelson’s I get a salmon salad, sparkling water, detox tea and some dark chocolate. Enough for both lunch and dinner. I go back home to the noise. I’ll eat my lunch when the construction crew takes their break. Usually at 12:30. Until then I’ll walk. I take the path to the wharf then meander back at a slow pace. I sit on the bench at Shoreline and answer some emails. The day is cool and a strong breeze blows from the north. It’s very refreshing. I get home just as the workers are finishing pouring cement into the hole in front of my driveway. Inspired, I fish though a junk drawer, not sure what I’m looking for. But then I find it! A small, about the size of a nickel, steel peace sign. As soon as the crew departs for lunch I walk out and imbed it in the drying cement. A slight revenge for all the noise and inconvenience I’ve put up with these last three months. 

  After finishing lunch I notice one of the workers back smoothing out the cement with a flat tool. Damn, I figure, he’s going to snatch my peace sign. Oh wells! I tried. 

  I go for another walk and get back around two o’clock. Surprisingly the crew is gone and the neighborhood is almost peaceful. Except for the guy sawing fence posts across the street. That also has been a multi-week noisy project. 

  I check and, to my shock, the tiny peace sign is still there! It’s been hard to contain my satisfaction for the rest of the day. 

  A few more days of noise and company. Sleep has not been easy. At a fun dinner party at Chuck’s last night I couldn’t finish my meal. After salad and scallops I was left with an entire top sirloin. Well, the petite sirloin. I figured a steak sandwich for lunch tomorrow. But as luck would have it I noticed my old pal Homeless Dave camped out by the Tiburon Tavern. I stopped to say hello and offered him the steak which he gladly accepted. HD is not like the bums who hang out at Leadbetter on the picnic tables all day drinking and, occasionally, fighting. HD works. Often for El Todd at the Tee Off. He does a great job keeping the back lot clean and policed. He’s done painting and some minor repairs around the restaurant and his work is excellent. He’s alway in a pleasant mood and fun to talk to. He’s not unintelligent.  He’s been sober as long as I’ve known him. Seven or eight years. He’s a bit of a mystery because I know he could work more if he really wanted to. His needs are few and he seems to choose to live his life his own way.  We all like him. 

  I’ve given him other small things before; some jackets, a sleeping bag, shirts.  He’s always grateful. Every now and then I pay him $20 to wash my usually filthy jeep. It comes out clean.  

  I hope he enjoyed the steak.

 It’s a few days before we, Carlos and I, fly to Massachusetts. I better check the weather and start packing. Looks like cold and rain in The Berkshires for next week. But that does not matter. Only a fool lets the weather ruin a vacation, as any good traveler knows. We are on the road for other reasons. Namely, family and friends. 

  The last day of the month. All Hallows’ Eve. It has been a long day after a few late nights. I’m taking off from Phoenix sixteen hours after I left Pittsfield. I dropped off my rental at Bradley International in Hartford, CN. I napped, rather hungover, to Philly where I ate a mediocre grilled cheese sandwich. Then I slept for an hour or so on the way to Phoenix. The rest of the time I tried to make sense of my notes from the past ten days. No easy task.

  I’m looking out the plane window at a setting crescent moon which tonight is the color dull orange and I realize I’m looking at it through the smoke from the California wildfires, out of control for over a week now. It’s a sobering vision. Later we fly over some of the fires near what appears to be Santa Paula. 

 At the airport the night smells like smoke and the air is heavy. But Santa Barbara is safe. I’m exhausted. I Uber home and take a hot shower. Eighteen hours after I left Ridge Ave I get into my own bed after eleven days away. I’m too tired to even read. Perhaps I’ll get my Berkshire journal put together into something readable in the next week.