Thinking of Yoko on the 40th anniversary of John's murder

 In the early seventies when I first started listening to The Beatles Yoko was already a diabolical character. She was loathed by fans and critics alike. I, however, found her fascinating. How could you be a fan of John Lennon and not be intrigued by her? In some pictures she seemed to be stern and focused. In others she had that alluring and mysterious smile. In interviews I detected a smoldering intelligence. I didn’t see what the fuss was all about. I read that when John first met her he kept a copy of her book Grapefruit on his nightstand. For years I scoured used bookstores until I found a copy. In Boston, if I remember correctly. Opening the book at random I was enchanted. This was an art form I was unfamiliar with. How could I, I wondered, figure out how to do these things? Such as, 

Paste you name on the window.

Borrow a canon.

Go to a distance and fire against

your name.

Or,

Whisper your name to a stone. Send it to

a stranger. 

These little performances were whimsically serious and it was easy to believe that Yoko had indeed acted them all out at some point. It was obvious that Yoko and John were mutual muses. I find it difficult to believe John could have dug so deep without her love. 

  Over time Yoko seemed to grow more regal, more elegant. There was no mistaking she was a powerful woman. And at the same time a great force living for her art, and, of course, for her love of John and Sean. When she and John were split up I rooted for them to get back together. The press portrayed her as begging him to return. The opposite turned out to be true. And the evening of their reunion, sneakily arranged by Sir Elton John, is a beautiful story. 

  Her anguish at John’s murder was expressed honestly and publicly, there was no masking her crushed heart. The world felt it. At the time I wondered how she would be able to endure. She proved to be heroically strong. 

I hear her influence in everyone from Patti Smith to Deborah Harry to Ani DiFranco to St Vincent. Radical artists who are unmistakably themselves.

 It is a cold Autumn morning in Central Park. The sky is blue and there is no doubt that Winter is imminent. The foliage blazes in oranges and yellows. Strawberry Fields, the memorial and quiet zone dedicated to John is silent but people are smiling. I hear French and Spanish and Italian whispers. The black and white mosaic with the word IMAGINE at its center is strewn with roses, wildflowers and Autumn leaves. The scene is not really solemn but for a moment I get choked up. I sing those beautiful words to myself. Imagine no religion…. 

  This spot was one of John and Yoko’s favorite places in NYC. They often walked here. They lived a block away at the Dakota Building and it's where, in its entryway, John was shot after returning home from a recording session. In a colossal act of bravery Yoko still lives there and is able to look down on Strawberry Fields and see the daily comings and goings of the pilgrims who visit from all over the globe to honor her husband and meditate on peace. It must give her solace. I wonder if she’s looking down right now at me shivering in the crisp breeze. Wouldn’t that be something. 

She sings, 

I'm going away smiling, thinking of our life

How we were good for each other, how we knew

When I came to you, I was all black and blue

You just smiled and said, your love was true

We had a great time, didn't we?

Never knew this is how it would be

And,

Made up my mind to say goodbye,

Went to the park for the last time.

But when I saw your eyes,

I knew for the first time,

That there's no goodbye between us.

There's no goodbye,

There's no goodbye,

There's no goodbye between us.

If one day we slip away,

And that may be in the cards,

We will know deep in our hearts

That there's no goodbye between us.

As Autumn Begins

 

  October 1, 2020

 A few days ago I walked by a baptism taking place at the beach by the Cabrillo Bath House. There were about fifty people on the sand. Unmasked and not observing safe distancing. I’ve already seen enough examples of churches disregarding safety precautions that I was not at all surprised. The holy always feel exempt from common decency figuring that god has an eye on them and would never subject them to any harm. Obliviously they go through life with eyes shut. It’s repulsive.   

  Although I kept my distance I could hear the shouts of “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” And “Amen Lord!”  The flock ever obedient in their rote chanting. Christian music, not gospel or soul but generic rock, blared from a pair of speakers. The crowd swayed un-rhythmically. Three guys, perhaps ministers, anyone can become one, even me, led the initiate into the water to much applause.  Cell phones were recording the scene. At the count of three they screamed “Jesus Christ!” and dunked the born again man under the waves. The gathering cheered wildly and also called out “Jesus Christ!” There was a lot of high fives and hugging, Covid-19 be damned. 

  I think back to my walk on this very same beach two days ago. It was a foggier morning than the sunny skies on the day of the baptism.  As I passed two homeless fellas one said to the other, “Hang on, I gotta take a shit.”  He preceded to walk into the waves up to his chest. He returned to the sand with a look of satisfaction. He did not, I recall, sing out “Amen!”   

  The lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.   

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Eddie Van Halen died today. And while it is ridiculous to call someone the “Greatest Ever” Eddie was certainly right up there. It was his uniqueness that made him so important. He didn’t quite play like anyone else and nobody, even imitators, couldn’t quite play like him. He was a one-off as we used to say. I only saw him play once and it was a memorable evening. I sandwiched that show between Stevie Ray Vaughn two nights earlier in Saratoga and Dicky Betts the night after, also in Saratoga . Eddie’s favorite guitar player Randy Bachman opened the show which was in New Haven. Or as Sammy Hagar called it that night, “New Halen!”  So I saw some amazing music in those few days.  On that evening it was apparent that Eddie was right on. His energy was crazy. It was such a stellar performance that the band released the show on VHS.  Yes, it was that long ago. So you can now go to YouTube and watch it for yourself. It’s called Without A Net.  I’m sure you’ll agree with my critique. Sammy holding up a sign that said FUCK DAVID LEE ROTH was a bit much but the kids ate it up. 

  I am thinking that from those three concerts that Stevie Ray is gone as is Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks. And now Eddie. The chain gets shorter and shorter and the party less and less interesting. 

  I remember the day the first Van Halen album came out. (I guess I could look up the date) There was some hype from our local radio station. A friend picked it up and a few of us went to his house for a listen. A tradition and ritual that is sadly lost; the unwrapping of the plastic, the removing the sleeve and then taking out the disc. Gingerly placing the record on the turntable. The lovely smell of new vinyl. Delicately dropping the stylus down. The slight hiss of the needle’s contact. Analog kids we were indeed. 

  We played it loud. And then played it again. We loved Rush and Sabbath and Zeppelin but none of them prepared us for Van Halen. We couldn’t believe our young ears. This was something new. And we loved it. For the next two years you couldn’t go see a bar band in Western Massachusetts and not hear Running With the Devil and You Really Got Me. It seemed Van Halen had conquered the world. And what a ride they would have. 

  When my phone started lighting up this morning I wondered what all the noise was about. My first message from my pal Scott said the same thing as the twenty others. “EVH Fuck.” Some texts simply said “fuck!”

  When 1984 came out, at the restaurant I worked, we would play it over and over after the customers left and we set up for the next day.  We could get the chandeliers to sway when Michael Anthony hit those low notes. 

  We had many nights at the Tee Off where Todd Elliot, Scott Parent, Tony Ybarra and I would sit around after hours drinking wine and debating the merits of each Van Halen album. We started with the first one and over the course of a few weeks played the rest in order. I don’t think we made it to the last few because we kept backtracking to the first four. Fare thee well Eddie!

  A cold clear night. Autumn winds float damp woodsmoke on the night air. The moon won’t be up until later. After my eyes adjust red Mars is bright. Jupiter, our gravitational shield, is brighter. Saturn less so. It is also the first night I’ve seen Orion since last year. He looms huge and low in the sky on the eastern horizon. The owls are quiet. When the wind slows I can hear the surf. A reassuring sound. In order to keep the bedroom window open I pulled out my old EMS sleeping bag, the one that, if I remember correctly, goes to twenty below. 

  At 4 AM lightning and thunder wakes me. A rarity here in Santa Barbara. I savor the flashes and rumblings. I shiver looking out at the rain. As always, we need it. I fall back asleep warm and clear-headed under thick blankets. 

  When I awake again the skies are clearing and it is light out. It’s cold, high 40s. The ocean is a chop and I walk in the wet sand and the intermittent drizzle doesn’t get through my thick Patagonia fleece. I’m standing near Sterns Wharf and my phone comes alive. There is encouraging news. Joe Biden has been declared the winner of this anxiety filled election. My friends are beyond joyful. Something that we feel was terribly out of balance now has a chance for realignment. We are giddy with hope and anticipation. 

  I know Trump won’t go quietly or with any modicum of class or respect. He doesn’t have it in him. He will make the transition as difficult as possible for everyone. He doesn’t understand basic decency or courtesy. He’s incapable of humor, kindness and compassion. He will act terrible, which is no act. It is who he is. He is and will forever be remembered as a dirty stain on this country. History will vilify him. I can’t fathom any other possibility. His qualities are all disgusting to anyone with even the most basic grasp of morality. He is a failure as a businessman, a president and as a human being. The sad thing is that his mind is so flawed that he will never grasp any of it. It makes you wish that there actually was a Hell because he would be a first round candidate for eternal torture. I, we, need to forget about him as soon as possible. But I fear it will take some time to counter the damage he has inflicted. I’m confident President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris are up to the task. Kamala has many of us thrilled with her energy and youth. I hope she will be around for a very long time, say, twelve more years. 

  

 Books are stacking up again even though with coronavirus and my stint with sobriety I’ve had plenty of time to read. But I’ve also had plenty of time to shop and both Chaucer’s Books and The Book Den have made online buying and curb-side pickup wonderfully easy. So here I sit looking at my work table (and dinner table) that is proving to be a perfect master class in watching the command that entropy has on my small piece of the universe. It is now supporting six new books, two crossword puzzles, an iron teapot, a vintage Boy Scout knife, a week’s worth of mail, the new Alta magazine, four pens, two pairs of glasses and my laptop. How did it come to this?  It is simply the cosmos trying to reach its maximum state of disorder and there is nothing I can to about it. The second law of thermodynamics can not be messed with. It is an unchangeable condition of existence. I will learn to live with it. 

 

The Last Days of Summer

  8/31/2020

  Herman Melville, in old age, kept a quote from Friedrich von Schiller on his desk. It read, Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.  And so he scribbled away, at poetry and, notably, Billy Budd, as his beard grew longer and grayer. 

  My youth? I came to my passions honestly.  I discovered without any outside influence that I was healed by solitude and nature. I was, benignly and gently, aimed toward other pursuits that did not stick. My interests were encouraged by Mom & Dad even though they may not have completely understood them. That I was happy and healthy was what was important in our family. I needn’t be the left fielder for the Red Sox or the general manager of The Berkshire Hilton Inn so long as I could take care of myself reasonably well.  Life would undoubtedly fill itself out.  Not only am I remembering my youthful passions, and loves, I am still living them. 

  These are my thoughts as I sit in my room at The Cedar Lodge eating a mediocre take-out burger. But I’m hungry. I left (fled) Santa Barbara early this morning and drove through some fog and then smoky orange haze across the San Joaquin Valley and then pretty much pure smog around Fresno. The air cleared somewhat by the time I got to El Portal and entered Yosemite from the west entrance. Vistas, however, were much hazier than normal for late summer. I stopped for lunch by the river, across from a bone dry Yosemite Falls. I eat my salmon sandwich (from Trattoria) accompanied by bees. They don’t let up and I walk around the riverbank to keep them confused. 

  The Park is pretty much empty. They are limiting the number of people allowed in. I was lucky enough to get a last minute reservation.  Instead of hundreds of cars parked at Curry Village there are maybe fifty. I walk over to the Ahwahnee and there are a few people sitting outside with drinks. I text Ellie a picture of the hotel. Not meaning to rub it in. Something is always missing here without the Wus. Then I text Mom. The bar is closed and the famous restaurant is empty, it’s only serving to-go meals. The great sitting room with the massive fireplaces is empty as well. It’s surreal to sit there all alone. I want to live here by myself for a month. That would certainly be something. I continue walking around and love the feel of the deserted paths. Yosemite Village is quieter than I’ve ever seen it, even in the dead of winter. There are less than a dozen people at the store and Degan’s. I’m giddy about it. I walk through the cemetery stopping for a moment of reflection at Galen Clark’s granite stone then I take the long way back to my jeep at Curry Village. After a few hours of walking I can feel the smoke in my lungs. Breathing is a bit difficult and I hope tomorrow when I get up above 8000 feet it might be a bit clearer. Half Dome looms above me through the opaque air. My eyes are watery. 

  Now at The Cedar Lodge, I am off the grid, no service and I’m thrilled. I really only had one text to make but it can wait. Anyways, she already knows..

  The room is semi rustic, the usual Yosemite photos on the walls. Carved wooden oak leafs over the bed. 

  The lodge is less than a quarter occupied. The grounds are quiet and the sun disappears behind the hills. It’s too smoky to see stars. It stays hot all night. The temperature hovered in the nineties during day. I am unusually achey after six hours in the jeep and a couple hours of walking around. A cold shower helps a small amount. I read myself to sleep realizing nobody knows exactly where I am. A rarity for sure. 

  9/1/2020 — Dog Lake      

  I am not used to the beautiful silence (After I shut off the air conditioner.) and I slept fitfully. The Tioga Pass Road is also practically deserted. There was nobody at Olmstead Point and only four or five cars at most of the trailheads. The parking lot at the base of Lembert Dome is also mostly empty. The air is slightly worse than yesterday. I drove past two lightning strike fires and smoke limits the views of the peaks surrounding Toulumne Meadow. The rangers are letting the fires burn and are monitoring their progress. My plan was to climb the Dome but at a fork in the trail half way up I was breathing too hard and slightly dizzy from, what I hoped, was the altitude. After all, I live at sea level. So instead I took the left path up to Dog Lake and now I am sitting on a dead log with my back against a pine tree. I have caught my breath. Mount Dana, my favorite climb in the Park, is barely visible through the dirty air. 

  I hear voices to my right so I follow the shoreline to the left where I found this perfect resting spot as the sounds of the hikers faded away down the trail I just came up. I have the lake to myself for the next few hours. It’s glorious. I write a few notes, drink some water and eat some dark chocolate. I start to doze but pull myself awake and decide to walk around the lake. There is a poorly maintained trail and I alternate between it and the gravelly shore. I am breathing better and if I remember correctly the lake is at 9300 feet. I saunter to the far side and find a comfortable rock to sit on. I walked by deer tracks and some relatively fresh bear shit. A single duck floats on the water. 

  I nap on the rock for I don’t know how long. I check for a Rip van Winkle beard but I don’t have one. Whether that’s a good sign or not I guess time will tell. Giant blue dragonflies whip past me fluttering wildly. The dragonflies intertwine and buzz even louder. Mountain love. In the silence of the basin they are the only sound besides unseen birds singing in the trees. I splash my face in the lake and it’s more refreshing than any beer I’ve ever had. I disturb a tiny brown frog who hops into the water.

  Once again it hits me that no one knows where I am. I am alone and feel less lonely than I have in a long while. Less lonely than when I’m in my restaurant full of people. Not only that but I feel less fragile as well as I exercise the passions of my youth. 

  Near my rock is a single dullish purple flower and a small butterfly, orange with black dots, comes and goes repeatedly sampling the last nectar of the summer. There is now a high breeze and the water ripples. The air cools and I sense the first hints of Autumn. I splash my face again. I refrain from checking the time. I am in no hurry and I savor my aloneness. My heart feels wild and lively. Again there is that feeling that I am less delicate and less melancholy when I am so far from people. I eat more chocolate and smell the deep rich pine pitch smells. I am strafed by chickadees. Little wild and excited birds, they quickly vanish into the trees. 

  I love to sit on the top of mountains and at first I was disappointed not to climb Lembert. It’s no surprise that I am past my prime and never will have my legendary energy back but I certainly through Lembert wouldn’t be a big deal. But the smoke got to me and perhaps I should have taken a day to acclimate. Sitting here in this quiet spot some part of my essence experienced a renewal. Evidence of the healing power of being in the wild that Joanna and I have been talking about all these years. I’m living proof of its capacity to mend the ennui brought on by prolonged exposure to society. 

  A black rock glints in the muddled sunlight and I pick it out of the water. It’s a small piece of obsidian that looks like part of an arrowhead or spear point. I put it in my pocket to take a picture of for Kevin Kechley, my expert friend on this type of thing. I left my pack and camera back on the rock. I don’t want to leave here. 

  Soda Springs

  After another interlude on the rock I reluctantly made my way around the lake and back down the trail. I pass couple on their way up who laugh and say, “What a beautiful place! You’re the only other person we’ve seen all day!” I agree and tell them there’s nobody at the lake and they joyfully pick up their pace. I meet the most beautiful girls in the mountains. 

 When I get to the meadow I decide to walk along the Toulumne River.  I splash my face in the effervescent water that bubbles up from the ground. And now I’m sitting at a picnic bench near Parson’s Lodge. I eat a Cliff Bar, some nuts and drink the last of my water. I remember being here thirty-two years ago and a ranger telling my friend DE and me that the bubbly water mixes perfectly with whiskey. Today there are signs posted that say the springs may be polluted by man. Our dirty fingerprints are everywhere.  A few people pass by on the trail and take me away from my revery. For a second I’m irritated but I know if it were me and Ellie walking through the meadow we’d be chatting like those chickadees up at the lake. 

  I reach in my pocket and there’s the piece of obsidian. Crap! I meant to take a picture and then put it back in the lake. It’s bad juju and, I think, illegal to remove artifacts from the Park. I make myself a deal. I’ll take it home and that gives me an excuse to show it to Kevin and next summer hike back out to Dog Lake and return it. 

  Tonight is a full moon and my plan was to stay up here and watch it rise but now there is even more smoke, visibility is crappy. I walked around the meadow for a while and am now resting at the jeep. I drove east and get a look at Mount Dana. At the trailhead I look up and am amazed that I climbed up there. It looks rather challenging. Again I’m reminded of my fading strength. But I still like to think that with less smoke in the air and a few days to get comfortable with the altitude I could still do it. It might take me twice as long as it did on that magnificent summer morning so long ago. I bet I can talk Pak into it. 

  I chat with a lovely ranger for a few minutes before driving back toward the Cedar Lodge. I tarry. The fires I drove by this morning seem bigger but the signs say they are under control. The sun is ugly orange, ominous in the afternoon sky. This is a good day to be on the uncrowded pass. I stop at an empty turnout at Tioga Lake and I am reminded of all those things I think I am these days; an outlier, recluse, wanderer, seeker, melancholic day dreamer, wannabe acetic, peripatetic philosopher, a man out of time. It’s all volunteer work. 

  The lake is a gem. Pak and I spent a few hours kayaking it on yet another perfect Sierra day. Almost every turn on the road brings memories of past trips. 

  Back at the Cedar Lodge it’s dark early in the canyon. Another quick mediocre room service dinner and another cold shower. I ponder my balance knowing all moments of happiness also contain anguish. And I can’t help but notice. Even though my room has no real view, just of a hill, it is quiet and peaceful. My back is still fucking killing me. Possibly the start of some long term malady. Or, hopefully, just a weirdly stretched muscle. 

  When I checked in yesterday the desk clerk warned me that a bear was prowling the grounds so to be wary. I step out to take a quick look. No bear in sight. It’d be nice to see one. Even on the hill outside my room. I haven’t seen a bear in The Park in a few years. It’s good that they avoid people more these days, but why me? I’m in bed early again reading Jack Turner on wildness. 

  9/2/2020

 A cool morning. Perhaps the air is a little clearer but it’s hard to tell. I’m heading to Wawona. 

 Mariposa Grove parking lot. —  I had another night of disjointed dreams. Maybe an inner turmoil I’m letting go undiagnosed? The grove is closed. If I had more time I would hike from here. It’s only two miles but I lingered longer than I though up past the swinging bridge. I wanted to sit for a while by the giant boulder where I dropped some of Mide’s ashes. I wanted to update him on some stuff. I stood by the stone after a hot trek along the river. The water level is not as low as I expected. I splash my face a few times. At the stone that I now name after Mide I am accosted by flies, or maybe gnats. They’re as irritating as one of Mide’s jokes. I remind him of his habit of telling the same jokes over and over and over. His voice in my head says I’m calling the pan black. I think he means “kettle” but there’s no arguing with him.  I had to thrash though a blowdown to get to where I poured his ashes. The spot is now a little less accessible and wilder. A fallen log, tangled branches, duff. Very appropriate. 

  I went back to the river and found a comfortable rock and dunked my head. It’s getting smokier. I sat and listened to the water for a while again devouring the sounds of the wind on the mountains. I passed a sign that says Wawona Dome is closed for climbing because a pair of Peregrin Falcons are nesting on the face. This is wonderful news. As usual I have left my binoculars in Santa Barbara. I forget them so often that I wonder why I even own a pair. Mom and I saw a Peregrin go into a dive one time at at Glacier Point. It took our breath away. It was indescribably graceful and totally foreign to our senses. It was an experience of the otherness of nature. It brought us to tears. A glimpse of true beauty. 

 The Wawona Hotel is closed due to the pandemic. This is the first summer in over thirty years that I haven’t spent an evening on the porch sipping gin and listening to the great Thomas Bopp sing old Cole Porter songs. More evidence that the world has indeed changed. I drive by without even stopping to walk around, feeling it will only accentuate my loneliness. 

  The parking lot here at the grove is getting busy. Afternoon hikers no doubt. I drink a soda water and eat some trail mix. I’m dreading my drive.  

  Santa Barbara. I got home and took a cold shower, read my mail, rehydrated and flipped on my laptop. There is a warning email from Yosemite recommending cutting hikes and climbs short due to the increased smoke and hot temperatures. I figured that all out on my own when I was panting for breath on the trail to Lembert Dome. 

  I take a picture of my piece of obsidian and text it to Kevin. He is one of my more unique friends and as I said earlier the person who would know if this small stone is anything special. Kevin has a wide range of interests and talents. He is full of esoteric knowledge that can only be accumulated by a person with a great curiosity. So much catches his attention. Conversations with Kevin are expansive. His is not one of those people who knows a little about a lot of things. Kevin knows a lot about everything. A walk through his backyard shed is like visiting a museum with a curator who sees the world much differently than normal people. His axe collection alone is worth the price of admission. Kevin is a student of nature, he loves flowers and trees, mushrooms and bugs, weather and water. He is an expert fisherman and perfectionist abalone diver. He always seems to be learning and looking at stuff. We’ve been friends now for over twenty years if I can believe the dates written on the back of some old photos. He is a moral philosopher of a kind. He instinctively knows how to navigate the path between right and wrong. When Kevin says that something is “bad form” he means rude and unacceptable behavior for an educated adult. We look to him for guidance. He is admired by all our close friends for his steady good humor and the example he sets by the way he lives. He is deeply in love with his beautiful wife, Marcie, and his clever and thoughtful son, Max. 

  He is excited about my find and tells me it is a “nice biface” and says he was thrilled when he and Max found one a few years back. He asks for pictures of each side and a photo that shows its size. He is going to make me a replica because he likes my idea of returning my piece back to near where I stumbled across it. Perhaps I could entice him to join me next summer in the back country. And yes, Kevin makes his own arrowheads and tools from obsidian. I’m ridiculously excited that he’s working on a piece for me. Only Kevin Kechley! 

  He sends me a few pages out of a book about obsidian tools from the Mono Lake area and how they were traded to the tribes of the Sierras. Most of the specimens found date from 1100 BCE to 500 CE. I’m sitting here now holding the stone in my hand. It’s not a full arrowhead or spear tip. There is a clean break where a part is missing. It is opaque and you can see through it. It would make a marvelous privacy window for a shower. It is a little bigger than two quarters set side by side. It is cool to the touch and has sharp edges. It is beautiful. How long, I wonder, did it sit on the shore of Dog Lake? Did it break off inside an animal’s gut, a deer or a bear, after a hunter’s aim hit the mark while hoping to feed his family? Was it dropped casually by someone returning back to his village on the eastern slope of Yosemite? Did an artist, a master at his craft, chip away at this piece of obsidian and give it to the best hunter he knew in return for meat from the hunt? I wonder how it became buried as seasons passed. It survived winters where the snow was thirty feet deep, spring floods, high water, low water and hot dry summers, like this one. All that time it lay unnoticed and untouched until what ever swerve brought it to the surface so that it glistened like a treasure where the water touched the shore that is strewn with tiny pebbles. And then it caught my wandering eye. 

 It is amazing to think that I’m holding an artifact that was held in the hand of a person maybe 3000 years ago. A person whose life is as different from mine as can be imagined. But I’d like to think that there are things, emotions, that we have in common. Like a wonder about the world, an appreciation of Nature, awe in the face of mystery.  I like to think he, and she, found aspects of life pleasing and meaningful. That they laughed and worried and sang songs and, most importantly, loved. We humans are connected by those things that we share and I try to imagine a kinship with those California, before there was a California, natives whose culture was as rich and rewarding as ours is today, perhaps more so. We are in no position to judge. 

  Today, the 17th of September, they closed Yosemite because of the poor air quality. The pictures are gruesome. Orange dim light obscure any views of the rock walls and waterfalls. The fires are horrific, frightening and historic. We are, I fear, reaping what we sowed. I also shiver at the thought that it will get worse, if not this year, then next. Or the year after that. The weather and the climate are unsurprisingly what humanity has to fear the most. Science will defeat the Covid-19 virus, make no mistake. Dedicated geniuses are working overtime on a cure. They will succeed. But right now we may have pushed the planet too far and too fast for us to catch up if all we have to depend on is evolution. We just don’t evolve fast enough. We can’t learn to adjust to a different component of what makes up our air. We are not ready to adapt to more powerful ultraviolet rays. We didn’t pay attention soon enough or react fast enough. 

  But that doesn’t mean we should completely despair. The poet Jane Hirshfield writes,

   “It’s almost simply a call to be one more decibel in the chorus on the side of existence.”   

COVID-19 Month Number Five

  August 11, 2020

  Tonight was the first night of the Perseid Meteor showers. Just before midnight I walked up along Shoreline Park to a relatively dark spot. I let my eyes adjust and listen to the waves. It’s chilly, the chillest August I can remember. (I think) Looking up I see the silhouette of a great blue heron. Birds screech far out over the water. They sound like Terns to my untrained ears. I’ve seen huge flocks of Terns in the past week.  So it makes sense. I wonder, do they feed at night?

 Two faint meteors flash dimly and fade quickly. Then two more. I stare straight up for another ten minutes. Nothing. I’m a little early, the real show isn’t supposed to start for a few more hours. Patience is my least favorite virtue. Ten more minutes. As my night vision grows stronger the Milky Way, The River of Heaven, becomes more pronounced. It is a wonder to look into the center of our galaxy and ponder its vastness and meditate on what could be looking back at me. As alluring as that sounds I’m not being arrogant. I suspect there is no one out there interested in my speck of a life. I bask in the universe’s profound indifference. It’s comforting in a way and I shiver. 

  A bright meteor lights up the sky from the mountains to the ocean. It’s a brilliant burning rock that leaves a long white trail. The sky goes dark again but the image is burnt into my retinas. I close my eyes and can still see the glow.  A short, five second, spark of beauty that will only happen once and I was in the right place to experience it before the moment was gone for eternity. A thrilling display of the workings of the solar system. 

  I see another ghost of a meteor, dim and brief, before going back home to wait a while for the moonrise and the predicted 50 to 60 an hour. I stand in my yard but there’s too much ambient light. The local owl hoots in the distance and then all is silent before I finally go inside. 

 At two o’clock I look out the window and the fog has crept into the neighborhood. There will be no more sky watching tonight.  

  The crow is a symbol of, among many things, the afterlife. Most mornings I wake to their loud and, to me, joyful conversations. It’s not generally respectful to anthropomorphize but I can’t help it sometimes. These playful black birds always seem to be enjoying themselves as they indulge their curiosities. They act like grateful opportunists eating whatever they stumble upon.  So, oddly, I often look to these birds as something more than just neighbors. Symbols, as I’ve said, can be tricky. Joseph Campbell writes,  

 “Mistaking a vehicle for its tenor may lead not only to the spilling of valueless ink, but of valuable blood.” And also, “And the problem of the theologian is to keep his symbol translucent, so that it may not block out the very light it is supposed to convey.” 

  Emerson, who Campbell says “Got it!” writes in his journal in 1855, “But, (it is known to us all that) every man may be, (& some men are,) raised to a platform whence he sees beyond sense to moral and spiritual truth; when he no longer sees snow as snow, or horses as horses, but only sees or names them representatively for those interior facts which they signify. This is the way the prophets, this is the way the poets use them. And in that exulted state, the mind deals very easily with great and small material things, and strings worlds like beads upon its thought. The success with which this is done can alone determine how genuine the inspiration.”

  So, maybe, a crow is more than a crow. Time will tell. 

 I’m trying to figure out if this past half of a year is really a dream or not. It seems like it is and there are clues. When I’m in the middle of a dream I will say to myself things like, “This can’t be right, I don’t know how to play the clarinet!” as Bob Weir motions from across the stage for me to take a solo.  Or, “Shit Mide, that’s good advice and I wish I had it months ago. And aren’t you supposed to be dead?” My remarkable brother laughs and walks out of my bar leaving me wondering what to do next. 

   When I jump off a mountain and start flying towards another peak I try to wake myself up before I crash into the Tuolumne River. Sometimes I’m successful and usually wake laughing at my gullibility. After all, even if I could play the clarinet Weir probably wouldn’t have a spot for me in the band. Perhaps he’d let me sit in for Bird Song or Dark Star, but I guess we’ll never know for sure. 

  I do wonder if it’s a dream that Donald Trump is really as fucking ignorant as he appears in interviews. Nobody can be that stupid and be president of the United States. 

  Other things that make me question whether I’m awake or not: I haven’t been in a restaurant in almost six months. Haven’t had a drink either. Can this be possible? The world is all wearing masks. Well, most of the world anyway. There are those idiots who think it’s some sort of a plot or conspiracy against their beloved leader. Which makes the greatest country on earth seem like it’s not so great anymore. A laughing stock. Dad and Uncle Harry wouldn’t recognize where we are today. They’d be as baffled as I am. 

  I haven’t seen so many friends in way too long. It’s inconceivable. But, I can’t seem to shake myself awake like I do just before I steer a great ship into an iceberg or realize that I’m once again talking to a dead friend. Or, as happened the other night, watching Fran cut up lines of glittering cocaine.  And I told myself in a dream a few weeks ago, “Ferdyn! You don’t know how to fly a helicopter!”  However, I had no choice, Amanda was scared. I mercifully woke up before I could do any real damage. And then later my dreams made a segue way to a silly scene where I was sitting at my desk writing these notes.  Hmmmnnn.  

  I woke up this morning humming Stella Blue, not unusual.  Later I saw that Dead and Company were streaming the Hollywood Bowl shows from last year and I remember Weir singing it. So I listened to the concert. A fine version and Mayer’s solo at the end is beautiful. He catches the feeling perfectly. Then I get in the Jeep and the first song that pops up on the iPod is Stella Blue live from the Knickerbocker, late 80s. A lovely rendition. Jung would call it synchronicity but he and I would differ on the meaningfulness of it all. I’m happy just to call it a coincidence and leave it at that. 

  Deadheads are funny and not, as my father would say, funny ha ha, but funny peculiar. Sometimes when a bunch of us get together we start talking about our favorite versions of particular songs that we saw performed live. For years I’ve been claiming that a night in Vegas, at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, they played a very, for me, poignant rendition of Stella Blue. Something about that night; the hot desert air, my life’s crooked path, the deep love for my traveling companions, an uncertain future, as well as too much other stuff, gave me pause. We did have a penchant in those days (1994) to overindulge in the finer offerings available to the initiated. We were young and strong back then, made of tougher stuff. 

  A mellow song to begin with, Jerry often sang it with more than a tinge of melancholy. I dug through the old bootlegs, now available on the app ReListen, and played Stella Blue from that long ago concert.  It was as I remembered. Deep, soulful, with a haunting touch of pathos. That night Hunter’s words shook me and I had tears in my eyes as Jerry played a long touching solo to bring the song to an end. As only the Grateful Dead could do, they took a song I’d heard many many times before and altered it ever so slightly to give it a meaning that affected me on another level. I looked at things a bit differently later that night while walking around the surreal casino at The Excalibur Hotel. Would, as I often wondered, life ever be the same? 

  Well, I figured, there was only one thing left to do. I pulled the book The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics down off the shelf. I was wondering what I needed to know about Stella Blue and why it was hammering my mind so hard today for, seemingly, reasons obscure. 

Stella was a guitar brand popular in the 1920s. Hunter wrote the song at The Chelsea Hotel in 1970. It was first played at The Hollywood Bowl on June 17, 1972, coincidently, Pig Pen’s final show. 

  I stood in my yard and read the words out loud like I was reading a poem to the crows and the Anna’s hummingbird, which I guess I was.  And this about says it all. 

  It all rolls into one

  and nothing comes for free

 There’s nothing you can hold

  for very long

And when you hear that song

 come crying like the wind

 it seems like all this life

 was just a dream

  

 Under the Jacaranda tree this morning was a dead Mourning Dove. Its chest was plucked out and it was eyeless. I looked up in the branches expecting to see the Cooper’s Hawk who haunts, and hunts, the neighborhood. There was plenty of the bird still left to eat. There was no sign of the hawk. Perhaps I spooked him. Across the street on the wire was a lone and silent dove watching me. Mourning. This, I remember, is how they got their name. Who told me that? Joanna? Brenda? 

  That was four days ago. The lone Mourning Dove is still sitting vigil. It flies back and forth from the wire to the Jacaranda tree. It is still silent. The dead bird is gone. Today the Cooper’s Hawk flew by, later it was chased by the crows, and the lone Mourning Dove on the wire didn’t even flinch. Too sad to move? No longer fearful of its own extinguishment? Hard for my simple mind to grasp. 

  Day five and the lonely, solitary, stoic Mourning Dove gave a tentative coo.  An hour later it gave another soft, weary and melancholy call. Another bird answered back and soon landed on the wire. They were about a dozen yards apart before the original bird flew off. Then the new bird flew off as well. Later in the afternoon a single bird was back again shyly cooing. The second bird returned and they sat side by side silently for the rest of the day. The sun is setting and they are gone now. Love and death playing out on a small scale in my front yard. What happened and what it means is anybody guess.  

Fires to the north and fires to the south. The air is smokey and I cut my walk short. My slightly weakened lungs feel the strain. The sky has a hazy orange tinge to it. The sun’s scant illumination is foreboding as the afternoon becomes even more discolored.  My throat is dry and eyes watery. Perhaps those crows in the jacaranda tree know something that I don’t.

08/21/2020 — Spent the day mourning my friend Ken Ryals who passed away suddenly yesterday. I listened to, a few times, his CD with Tony Ybarra, Elements of Sunday Jazz.  Once again this year I am at a loss for words. The sadness of the sunset did not go unnoticed. 

Exile Fragments ---- Part Two

 

Things spread out

rolling and unrolling, packing and unpacking,

  — this painful impermanent world.   Gary Snyder

  My cleanse continues, now entering its fifth month. The results are mixed. It’s possible I’m in better shape.  Of course, this too could be an illusion.

  I watched Trump’s interview with Chris Wallace last night. How anyone can have any confidence in this buffoon is hard to believe. 

  And now his senseless base is calling him a leader because he finally wore a face mask. It came months too late and he is possibly the last politician in the country, if not the world, to put one on. This is the exact opposite of the definition of the word leader. When you are the last one to do the right thing you are a follower. Period. Enough about Trump, I think the country is paying attention. And that will help. 

 

 In 1989 I bought a new truck. A red Nissan pickup. It was the cheapest vehicle on the market at the time. Six grand to drive it off the lot. After some convincing the salesperson agreed to let me put the downpayment on my AMEX card. At first he said it wasn’t allowed and when I offered to go to LA and buy the truck there he found out it was in fact allowed. They would have probably taken a goat if that was all I had. But all I did have was an overextended AMEX. But it went through and to this day American Express hasn’t forgiven me. But, they created the situation, not me. And that, as they say, is another story. When I drove to Cattleman’s to celebrate the bright red truck had eleven miles on it. It’s amazing what you could get away back in those innocent days of easy credit. I bought a round (with the AMEX) and drove home marveling at how broke I was. I believe it was the Greek goddess Artemis who said boldness is a fine quality in a young man.  At least I think it was Artemis. I should look that up. 

  A few days later I bought (the trusty AMEX again) a sharp matching cab for the back and now felt reasonably secure in the fact that if I had to run I’d at least have a place to sleep. And sleep in the back of that little truck indeed I did. Although never while on the lam. Staying a few steps ahead of AMEX is not difficult. 

  I slept in that truck in some beautiful spots; some parking lots, a couple beaches, several places in Yosemite, Saddlebag Lake, to name just a few. I was always ready to stay where ever I ended up. In the back I kept a cheap sleeping bag, a camp stove, beach towels, an old pair of boots, a foam pad, a first aid kit and box of books. The books were mostly guide books and trail maps. Some field guides to birds and flowers, mushrooms and sea shells, trees and dragonflies. I had the maps to Tuolumne Meadows, Sequoia NP, Big Sur, Wawona, Kings Canyon, Los Padres National Forest, Rand McNally’s USA roads and, for nostalgia purposes, Vermont’s Long Trail. There was  a book of aphorisms by Ed Abbey and one poetry book, Gary Snyder’s Myths and Texts. A wonderful little book about the wilderness that I love so much. I read that book with the black and white picture of a cross-cut section of a redwood on the cover several times, by campfires, beside rivers, under stars, and in the cab by headlamp. Later to my modest traveling library I added his book The Practice of the Wild. Another wisdom book that belongs on a lonesome wandering trail so when you return home you have the strength to keep the sense of wildness in your heart while navigating the perils of daily life in the chaotic city.  

 I sold that truck thirteen years, two cross country treks, and a hundred and sixty-five thousand miles later. I couldn’t have bought a goat with what they paid me for it. I gave away some of the field guides to curious kids and put Myths and Texts on the bookshelf. I read Snyder pretty often for his dedication to the earth and its many communities, his passion for poetry, his grasp of the transitoriness of all things, his sense of gentle humor and his ability to communicate big ideas. His work in itself is a field guide in many ways. And it’s a map on how to find your way and balance society and solitude. He does it like the zen student (master) he has been now for a very long time. 

 So it was with pleasurable anticipation that I decided to read Myths And Texts again for the first time in almost twenty years. I wondered how it would hold up after so long. The poems are as sharp and edgy as I remember them to be. They pull at that urge to be far from a road absorbing the silence of deep Nature’s grasp. He writes, “Truth being the sweetest of flavors.”

  In the last few days here’s what I learned about the comet NEOWISE.  Today, July 23, the comet will be the closest to earth as it’s going to get. 64.3 million miles. It will be as bright as the North Star and easy to spot appearing just under the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, about an hour after sunset. The comet’s full name is C/2020 NEOWISE. The telescope that discovered it in March is the Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. NEOWISE. 

  The comet is made up of about equal parts dust and water. And it’s moving pretty fast, 144,000 miles per hour. That’s about 40 miles per second. Because it’s so far away it will look like it’s standing still. Astronomers calculate that it won’t be near Earth’s orbit and visible again for 6800 years. Well, I figured, by then I’ll be 6858 years old so I had better get a look at it now.  Just in case. 

  The Mesa here in Santa Barbara had a sky filled with wisps of fog and light clouds. I drove up 154 and out of the overcast. The glow of the sunset lasts a while this time of year so I kept going until I got to Lake Cachuma and pulled in the vista spot and was amazed there was nobody in the parking that looks out at the dam. The air was cool and the smallest sliver of moon hung in the west. Crickets chirped loudly and an owl flew over my head. At least I think it was an owl, it was a dark shadow and its wing beats were almost silent. The night air was fresh with hints of pine and sage. 

  By the time my eyes adjusted to the dark the Big Dipper was prominent in the sky. With my binoculars I easily found the comet. I spent the next forty-five minutes amazed at the workings of nature. It truly is fascinating how big and wild the universe is. And science’s knowledge warps my brain. This three mile across bit of rock and dust and water has taken a long time to flit past us. It’s already traveled around the sun and is now starting its journey out past the farthest parts of the solar system. It looked like any other dim star except for the long blurry tail estimated to be over a million miles long. 

  What did the earth look like 6800 years ago? Well, our ancestors most likely looked to the sky and wondered what the finicky gods had in store for them by sending such a bold portent. Would it precede a flood? Or a pestilence? (Like now!) Or was good fortune to follow? Who could say?

  And 6800 years from now? Will humanity have survived? Will we have beat the poor odds and overcome our ignorance and won our battles against climate change and curtailed our nuclear appetites?  Will we have finally understood that we are all one and erased the disease of racism? These are mysteries and what ever survives of our species they will certainly look back at the year 2020 the same way we now look back at 4820 BCE. And hopefully it will be with amazement that they made it that far. So much will happen in between now and then. And NEOWISE will have made its lonely journey to a far off place where the sun’s gravitational pull will finally turn it back from the dark emptiness and once again it will pass by this small and special planet whose inhabitants will greet it like a long lost member of our corner of the galaxy. It will certainly view us with cosmic indifference. Which is all our descendants can expect.   

  A note on comets. Halley’s Comet will next be visible on July 28th, 2061. Forty-one years from this week. Chances are that I won’t be around to see it. But that’s ok. Probably Ellie will. And Juliette and Marcus and Liam. And if they are, and the odds are good, I hope when they look to the sky that they remember me and wish me happy birthday on what will be my one hundredth.  

  In thinking about travel I’m reminded that Pak always says, “If you need it and you don’t have it, you don’t need it.”  This referred to a piece of equipment or gear as well as specific cooking ingredients like fish sauce or lemon grass.   

We generally traveled light in those days of sleeping in tents (matching yellow ones from The North Face) or the cabs of our trucks. We ate simply, for us. There were exceptions like when Pak showed up to our campsite at Tuolomne Meadows with live lobsters. We ate them quickly and disposed of the shells by wrapping and tying them off in a garbage bag before putting them in the metal dumpster a few campsites away. We didn’t want to drive the bears and raccoons mad with desire. Bears are especially drawn to powerful smells as we saw one night when a big black shadow crept up on us and swiped a bag of marinating chicken out of our cooler. We were less than ten feet away. Our dinner the next night was more light than we planned. But Pak made due and we did not go to bed hungry. 

  These days I travel a bit more comfortably and usually over-pack just in case. I am by nature a trip extender and hate to be caught by surprise with less than I need when I add those extra days on to a vacation. I’ve been stuck in far off places (Alaska, Cape Cod, Yosemite, Dingle, Prescott) having to buy socks or jeans or a jacket. So I’m overloading my green Golite pack for a quick drive somewhere. 

  I am not one who is known to pray. I haven’t had particularly good luck when I did. Maybe it’s because I only prayed for the impossible. But, one would think, if god can’t do the impossible exactly what kind of god is he? (She?). Compassion is not his strong suit no matter what the preachers say. They lie. 

  Imagine if you had the power to cure someone from dying of cancer. I suspect it wouldn’t be a dilemma as to what you would do.  Easy choice it is to alleviate not only the suffering of one person but at the same time also taking it away from their family and loved ones. One swift decision and an entire group of people is relieved of excruciating pain and anguish. Prayers for this type, asking for the reduction of horrendous suffering, are rarely listened to, much less answered. We cry out to an indifferent void.

  My brother Mide, who had at times a contentious relationship with his creator, argued with me that all prayers are answered by god. “But!” He’d admit, “The answer is usually no.”  Funny guy that Mide. 

  My friends who struggle are always in my thoughts. Some say that constitutes prayer. Maybe so, but I feel that I know better. Hoping for the best can be a terrible awakening when you have to keep lowering the bar and somehow find solace in the worst of outcomes. We all have been through it, countless times. That Indian teacher long ago figured out that all life is suffering. Once we understand that simple fact it makes things somewhat more tolerable. 

  I’ll admit that my stray thoughts for the well-being of those I love don’t accumulate into a cloud of healing energy that then flows toward them. But I do it anyway, think positive thoughts. Good vibes, that lovely hippie girl calls them.  

 So it is a bit of a shock when there is indeed good news, like today. The heart warms. In the past I would have been tempted to say, “Thank god.”  But like Daniel Dennett I now say, “Thank goodness.” Thank goodness for the doctor who dedicated her life to battling the most terrible disease. Who went to school for years and studied everything she could about the frightening challenges that she would encounter. Goodness of her heart, and the hearts of thousands of other doctors, who truly make this world a better place. So I will keep practicing positive and hopeful meditations. I’m reminded of the story about the great physicist Niels Bohr. A fellow scientist was visiting his house and noticed the universal symbol of good luck, a horseshoe, nailed above the door to his barn. “Surely,” said the guest, “you don’t believe that that horseshoe brings you good luck?” Professor Bohr replied, “No, but I am told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”  Think about that for a while.    

 7/28/2020 — Sitting in the fog at Ragged Point reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Or I should say rereading this amazing book. However, it’s been many years since I read it start to finish. Usually I just sip at it, like from a rare bottle Glenmorangie. A very little bit goes quite a long way. And like an eighteen year old scotch, Campbell’s writing ages well. It becomes more pure and nuances never noticed before jump out at you and inspire new thoughts. The world appears slightly different after the fresh immersion and the glow of the difference is in your favor. I haven’t had a whisky in close to a year now (Since Massachusetts with Hauge.) and it’s been longer than that since I cracked open The Hero. 

  Campbell lectured here just down the road at Esselen. You get turned away these days if you don’t have a reservation. And today the road is closed completely. I wonder if they need a caretaker. If Hunter could do it so can I. I’ll look into it when I have internet service. Here at The Point I’m off the grid. Which was part of the purpose for this jaunt. Campbell writes about the comfort and safety of the womb and enshrouded in fog I can certainly relate. Although it’s very chilly here on the cliff for this time of year. Maybe that’s why I’m pondering a warm dram. But I hold off. Ive gone this far, for now. 

  He writes about life and death, the promise of bliss; 

  “Full circle, from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, we come: an ambiguous, enigmatical incursion into a world of solid matter that is too soon to melt from us, like the substance of a dream.”

  This afternoon I took some small hikes around Pfeiffer State Park getting out of the fog and into the heat for a while. I went part way up Mount Manuel and then walked around the redwoods and up to Pfeiffer Falls. A mere trickle at this time of summer. I find an overgrown side trail that looks not only inviting but empty of traffic. Although I found that Pfeiffer, like Yosemite, has many quiet lonely trails once you get about a half mile from the parking lot. So I trek along the little used trail and soon I’m in a small patch of yellow star thistles. Their fragrance is fresh and sweet and I’m lulled by the aroma. (The poppy family maybe?  Ha.) I remember reading years ago (20?) that these are an invasive species. How many generations does it take for a flower not to be invasive anymore if they can never be iradicated? When do they become native? I ponder these questions as I linger in my private garden oasis and listen to the silence, a rarity for me these days. A breeze in the grass is the only sound, that and my breath. I soak up the quiet like some sort of junkie. A lonesome overgrown path can touch something in me that no church ever comes close to. Out here a few miles from another human I’m more connected to whatever it is that’s bigger than us than I could ever be as a member of any congregation. I feel less fragile.  Before turning back to the main trail I look up the slope and remember that it’s never inappropriate to say a grace and give thanks. I bask in my astounding luck, while it briefly holds. There is a Hasidic poem or prayer that Campbell quotes in The Hero.

“Doth it go well—-’tis thanks to Thee. 

Doth it go ill— ah, ‘tis also thanks to Thee.”

 That’s about right for a day like this. 

 

  On the way back to my jeep I stop and rest in the redwood grove among trees that are easily older than me. And I can’t help but thinking that they will be here long after I’m a faded memory. I will be dust for longer than I was alive and these solid and magnificent trees will still be growing and adding life to the slopes of Big Sur. Humbling, like watching NEOWISE. 

  I am reminded of a trip so long ago, in human years, when Eksuzian and I ended up here at Pfeiffer late one night after many stops admiring views and drinking beer. There were no campsites available so we pulled his Honda Accord between two massive redwoods and dozed for a few hours wrapped in our jackets listening to Steal Your Face. Those were the days my friend! In the morning were were off to San Francisco and were on the road before the ranger was out collecting fees. We left a few bucks under a rock at the kiosk window, if I remember correctly. 

  I drive by an accident. There are four or five sheriff’s vehicles and a search and rescue truck and everybody is looking over the cliff. Expressions of anguish are on their faces. Everything can change so fast. Isabel, my grandmother, used to snap her fingers and say, “Like this!”  Three vultures are perched on a rock, also gazing down. An omen perhaps, not a good sign.  

  The damp air drives me into my warm room with the fake fireplace. I order a mediocre risotto from room service. I should’ve known better.  

  I put on my down coat and go back outside to watch the sunset from the end of the trail that leads to a viewing spot on the cliff. The sun sinks yellow into a cloud. Then reemerges underneath more orange and reflecting on the water before it slips into the fog bank. The night goes dark. Later the moon, Shakespeare’s mistress of melancholy, shines in the window above my bed that faces the hills. I read The Hero until I can’t keep my eyes open. 

 I have a leisurely drive home the next afternoon. I stop and look at the Piedras Blanca lighthouse which is lit up on this foggy morning. Then I stroll the short boardwalk and watch the elephant seals bellow and snort, roll over on each other and nap in the sand. Some are almost twenty feet long and must weigh 2000 pounds. The bigger ones have scars either from fights or shark bites. 

  I take the long way home driving out to Sisquoc and stopping randomly to watch hawks, inspect grapes and just to smell the summer air that is filtered through the live oaks and vineyards. I’m not sure if it is my imagination (sometimes feral, sometimes turgid) but I seem to be noticing that the air is clearer and fresher lately. Both up here in the valley and down on the coast. It’s entirely possible that having fewer planes in the sky and cars on the road is allowing the earth to cleanse its atmosphere. I suspect air quality scientists are measuring the effects that Covid-19 is having on the environment. 

 A Grateful Dead flashback. 32 years ago this weekend, July 29 - 31, 1988, me, Reilly, Eksuzian and Weiss made the journey to Laguna Seca Raceway for three concerts. It was an epic trip. There was a semi-complicated web of a friend of a friend of a friend that resulted in comp tickets for all three shows. Rosemary Reilly was the conduit and we sent her roses. Appropriate on two levels; our love for her and, well, American Beauties are a symbol used often by The Band.  We loaded up Eksuzian’s car (the same white Honda) with food and booze and got to Monterey a day early to acclimate. Weiss flew in to the little airport and we picked him up before checking into our hotel. 

  David Lindley and Los Lobos opened the shows. Particularly enchanting was watching Jerry swaying on the side of the stage as Los Lobos ripped through their amazing set. Towards the end he joined them for a few songs. The crowd went wild. Parts of the weekend are a bit of a blur. There was a some very fine opium available and we might have bought some. Or perhaps I dreamed that. 

  On the second day Bill Graham rode up on a ATV to me and Reilly while we were walking way away from the stage as wispy tendrils of fog drifted across the hills. He asked us how the weekend was going. We had to admit, “It was pretty fucking good!” The great impresario behind this event, and many other adventures, peeled away laughing.   

  We kept noticing that we had all this extra cash that was supposed to go for tickets. Even after sending the roses our wallets were fat. We upgraded our room, bought more beer and ice and filled the sinks, we bought stickers, (opium?) tie-dyes, posters, burgers, presents, hats, postcards…  

  The Band seemed to have a good time too. They sounded great, in sync and louder than normal. The set lists were typical for the late 80s but the performances were inspired. Today I listened to some of the old bootlegs and at least one of my memories of that weekend is accurate. That of Phil’s bass shaking the ground. He was as heavy as I ever heard him and a treat to watch. And I think Bobby wore the snake tank top. But I could be wrong about that. That might have been Dominguez Hills. (Where I lost Reilly for two days. He eventually turned up safe in Montecito. But that’s another story.)

  After the final encore on the third night we, thousands of us, walked single file over the brown hills to the far parking lot. It looked like a scene from a movie about a biblical exodus. Like after all Sunday shows we were exhausted, dusty, thirsty, exhilarated, had ringing ears and a shitload of new stories. Foolishly we drove back to Santa Barbara that night. Everyone had to work the next day. Eksuzian got us safely home. Not for the first time I might add. 

  Like every August the beach to the east of Sterns Wharf hosts thousands of raucous Common and Caspian terns. I can only surmise that the harbor teems with baitfish. Sardines I would guess.  I stood for an hour today and watched them alternately stand on shore, then in huge flocks fly out over the water and dive for food. Every now and then hundreds would rise in the air and circle the beach before settling back in the sand.  

  And just now as I’m sitting here trying to be intelligent and entertaining I hear an owl outside my bedroom window. It sounds very close. I wait until I hear it again and am sure it’s as close as I thought. I quietly go out in the front yard and wait some more. Owl calls are tricky and most times it’s almost impossible to discern what direction the hoots are coming from. I stand in the dark for a while. It’s a wonderful still night with hints of salty ocean smells in the air. Jupiter is bright in the eastern sky. I wait. The next hoot comes from almost directly above me. I squint and can just make out the silhouette of a Great Horned on the wire above my jeep. I shine my flashlight on this beautiful bird knowing from experience that it usually won’t scare them off. Plus I realize the owl has no doubt been watching me since I snuck out the door ten minutes earlier. He looks right at me and then turns his head and hoots again toward some trees up the street. I turn off the light and watch the owl’s dark outline against the starry sky. Then without making a sound he flies up the street and disappears over a house. Back inside, an hour or so later, I hear a final distant hoot that conveys, for me somehow, a note of melancholy loneliness. 

  Owls are symbols of stoic wisdom. The nighttime counterpart to the eagle. I have a cast-iron owl in my kitchen. It was Fran’s but she gave it to me years (30?) ago. A symbol is a powerful thing. Robert Hunter said  "I'd really prefer not to get into tearing apart the symbology of my songs. And I'll tell you why: symbols are evocative, and if there were a more definite way to say things, you'd say them that way. A symbol, by its very nature, can pull in many, many shades of meaning, depending on the emotional tone with which you engage the piece.”

  And Joseph Campbell writes, “..and shows why long sermons are unnecessary among idol-worshipers. The devotee is permitted to soak in the meaning of the divine symbol in deep silence and in his own good time.”  

 And this probably explains the massive popularity of emojis.  

  The last ten misty and foggy mornings are unusual for August. Last night I pulled on an extra blanket. It’s been cooler than normal, but refreshing and invigorating.  Before I go for a walk in the wet breeze I stay under the covers for a few extra minutes reading Petrarch. He writes:

“and these new tears, shed for these old desires,

prove that I’m still the thing I used to be,

a thousand things have changed, but I have not.”