A time of reflection, inner work, concentration, sobriety, walking, reading, writing, cleansing. What good will come of it is anybody’s guess. I, for one, don’t expect miracles. There is a certain amount of tarnished joy, however.
I’m a peripatetic philosopher of sorts. Without getting attached to the exercise part. It is just an expression of my haunting wanderlust. A craving for movement and new vistas and visions.
I am adapting well to solitary and austere days that are turning into weeks. And I realize I’m among the lucky ones. This is a time of immense heartbreak, sadness and uncertainty. Many are not so secure.
Trump looks like a scared fool. He can’t complete an understandable thought or sentence. He’s clearly out of his depth and doesn’t seem to give a shit about Covid-19. He thinks it’s a hoax. He’s frighteningly ignorant. I can easily see a situation where he somehow cuts Dr. Fauci loose. These could be America’s darkest days in my lifetime. I feel danger is not far off. People aren’t getting true leadership. Not that I expected it from Trump.
Another odd press conference. A speech therapist today said Trump has the vocabulary of a fifth or sixth grader. Which I see as an insult to those young kids. Marcus, my nephew, speaks better English.
Trump’s ignorant fans actually think that this pandemic is a worldwide conspiracy to discredit and remove him from office. The stupidity is breathtaking in scope. How did it come to this? What would Dad say? Or Anne Wojtkowski? They’d be dumbstruck, no doubt.
May 7th. A full moon tonight. Mide would have been 57. Is 57 actually, if you count the ashes on my book shelf. I congratulated him on his perseverance. I toasted him with mushroom detox tea. I am on one my every thirty year cleanses. I played some of the music he loved so much; Styx, Zappa & Sabbath.
After the clear night watching the moon, the fog and mist hovered over the neighborhood for a few days.
Going through old journals and throwing out a lot of nonsense and pathetic poetry. I keep the poems that are most truthful. The decent ones are often about longing, lust and satori. Some things never change and for that I guess I should be thankful. But what do they boil down to? Some mountains climbed, books read, long drives, girls, food and wine, concerts, deep friendships. Quests for solitude and comprehension. A desire for an ungraspable inner balance and an understanding of cosmic humility. Arguably there is no destination, it’s the journey that counts for everything. Who was the philosopher who said “The path is the way”?
A day of reading Ferlinghetti after seeing that City Lights may have to close. One more charity to consider. Indeed, a worthy one. If that bookstore goes under a huge piece of San Francisco’s soul will be barren.
Listening to Miles and Dylan this afternoon. Then I flipped through Chronicles Volume One. Dylan’s voice on paper is every bit as searing as it is on vinyl.
My Miles kick has lasted a week. I bounce back and forth between the fifties Be-Bop to the seventies funk/fusion jams. A colossal chasm in my education is that I never saw Miles live. I came across a masterful rendition of the David Crosby song Guinevere that Miles turns into a twenty minute epic.
You could spend a lifetime studying Miles. Or Bellow, or Dylan, or Shakespeare, and indeed people actually do. There’s just so much stuff out there.
And speaking of Dylan, I heard a song the other day that I hadn’t heard in years and it shook me. Slammed me right back to Amherst and I was standing at the beginning of a future that I couldn’t imagine.
Joni does it to me also. Hejira came on the iPod in the Jeep yesterday and all of a sudden I was driving through Tyringham headed toward Lake Garfield. Or Neil singing Look Out For My Love, which put me behind the console at the long gone WTBR studio. Music has a way of transcending time and plays pranks on the skull. I could be twenty again and sometimes I think that I am when I dance around to Santana or The Outlaws.
— Morning marine layer and the ocean is a flat grey slate. I walk toward Hendry’s Beach at low tide. A few early dog walkers are carrying their shit bags. A lone kayaker paddles deeper and deeper. After an hour I turn around and watch a line of pelicans hug the cliff. I’m home before nine and have some cereal and shower away the chill. I need a day off from the bleak news. Things are not getting better. I walk some more. This time up Shoreline Drive and then loop back down Cliff Drive. I stare at my journal and can’t think of anything encouraging even though I’m in much better shape than many. Lucky enough today to have a peanut butter and watermelon jam sandwich.
I sit outside as the sun burns off the last of the overcast and the day turns hot. I read from No Nature and then Dylan’s Chronicles. Brahms plays in the background barely audible over the usual neighborhood construction. I hate to go inside and close the windows on such a beautiful afternoon but ultimately I’m forced to if I want to concentrate. The leaf blowers and skill saws are too loud and distracting.
I take a third walk, again in the sand, and the beach has become busy. Not a mask in sight and very little social distancing. On the way back up the hill I see a friend who cheers me up with the prospect of seeing her for a drink soon. I fail to mention I haven’t had one in months which I’m sure does not matter to her. She compliments my long unruly hair. I note that the longer I stay at home the more homeless I look.
Snyder writes, “The world does what it pleases.” And also, “Taste all, and hand the knowledge down.” In my copy of this book Snyder inscribed the Sanskrit for No Nature. A lesson I’m still meditating about. He playfully poked my chest when he said looking at the trees surrounding the Libby Bowl, “Not no nature, but (poke) No Nature.” Sometimes I think I understand.
I sauté some fresh sea scallops with a touch of pesto. I serve it with a side of rice and cauliflower. While I eat I still refrain from the news of the day. Instead I do a week old crossword puzzle. Six down, four letters, Blackbird. Easy! They’ve been outside my bedroom window every day this week. Old friends to remind me to be wilder and spontaneous. No Nature perhaps?
At sunset the fog starts to move back in. The temperature drops a few degrees and I brew some detox tea and put on a chamois shirt, my old standby Carhartt that I bought in Homer, Alaska. After a storm at the McNeil River all my clothes were damp. It’s worn and soft, the result of many many trips. There are a few stars and a slice of moon intermittently visible through the tendrils of mist. A day of reading and writing and cooking and walking. Every day should be so pleasant. If it weren’t for the plague just outside my door this interlude would be joyful. Instead there is a frightening dread of what may be coming next. Under the reading lamp I start to doze off and close my book and turn off Brahms. What’s next I can only guess at without much foresight. I pull another Snyder book off the shelf and get in bed. If nothing else perhaps I’ll find another riddle to occupy my dreams.
Now the riots. And George Will says there is no bottom to Trump’s depravity. Just when you think he’s gone as low as he can he easily goes lower. Odd how after all these years Will and I finally agree on something. (Besides Baseball.)
Interlude — Nine hours on the road. San Fransisco is a ghost town. There is almost no traffic as I zip through just before noon and not stopping for my usual beer break. The Bridge is in a finger of white fog and cars slow in the mist. I take a left on route 20 and find myself deep in the coastal redwoods. Damp and hazy, filtered light, earth smells. I pass a huge lumberyard, turn right at Mendocino and up to Fort Bragg. I wipe down my hotel room with powerful sanitizers. Everyone wears a mask but their eyes are smiling. I wink at people more lately. And wave, my smile hidden under the tie-dye mask that Heather sent me. It gets plenty of compliments.
Everyone is at the campsite by the time I get there. Pak whips up some panko tofu and shrimp. Delicious after the long drive. We laugh and get caught up before a walk to the beach. We follow the boardwalk to a lookout and see three humpback whales. They are leisurely feeding and waving their great fins and showing off their flukes. The sun sets and we go back and sit by the fire. We are full of stories and love.
The next day is spent walking and eating and looking for more whales. We sit at the beach for a while. As is their tradition Aileen and Joanna sip from a silver flask. The famous flask with the Steal Your Face sticker. A veteran of many campaigns.
Pak cooks and cooks. Looking at an old journal a few nights ago I come across several entries of praise for his food. It warms the soul (that odd word again) to think we’ve been doing this for over thirty years.
Late, almost midnight in my room reading Grayling on the Greek philosophers. Epicurus’s wisdom fills my mind as I drift off. I’m asking the same questions some two thousand years after he did. “What is the good life?” I’m closer to it when I’m near these people.
Friday — We go to Glass Beach to look for trash. Literally. There used to be a dump here and now the sand is littered with tiny, smooth pieces of bright colored glass bottles.
We leave Joanna and Aileen picking for treasure and we take the kids into town for ice cream and some shopping. Pak knows a place. Black raspberry with chocolate chips for me. Ellie remembers where the oyster bar is, by the sock store, but it’s closed and another tradition this time is postponed. We will eat oysters another day.
I don’t worry because there is a big dinner on the way. Ellie and I take a long walk first, yet another tradition for us. When we get back the table is full. (Chicken, carne asada, shrimp, rice, turkey tofu soup) Stuffed as we are later we will still eat dark chocolate by the fire pit.
I’m too lazy to camp this on trip, or possibly I’ve grown soft as the years flit by like sparks from the burning logs. Although the hammocks look very comfortable and cozy. Aileen puts me to shame living in a tent even with her health struggles. She is my hero these days.
Back in my room I can barely stay awake for a few pages of A. C. Grayling’s delightful commentary before falling asleep with the light on.
Saturday — Nine hours and one minute drive time. Counting gas and piss stops. I eat a few Cliff Bars and drink plenty of water. My brain flies. There is always so much to think about. Friendship, love, how temporary everything is, the ephemeralness of our days together. We treasure the gift of each other’s company. Sadly, it will never be enough. But, as Ellie and I noted, we are indeed luckier than most.
I check and see that The Wawona Hotel is still closed. It probably won’t open this summer. Like many other hotels and restaurants and bars and parks and bookstores. My first stay at the Wawona was 1989 with Eksuzian. We came into Yosemite through Tuolumne Meadow after camping for a few nights in Sequoia National Park. That first night we stayed in a big white canvas high-camp tent right next to the roaring Tuolumne River. We climbed Lembert Dome in the afternoon and then had dinner in the old lodge where we met some fine people at our big table. Later I read by the river. I remember a soothing sleep after several nights of rain in our damp and cramped tent. The next day we toured the Valley and at the hight of summer the crowd was unpalatable to us. We moved on and planned to head to Big Sur. Our first view of the Wowona hotel charmed us into stopping for a beer. Eksuzian went to the gent’s and when he came back to where I was relaxing on the grand patio with a frosty bottle he informed me that he just took the last room they had. We were put on the second floor and had to share a bathroom. I took a long steaming shower and washed off the dirt and dust from the last three days. It was a glorious feeling and we dressed in our cleanest dirty clothes for dinner in the historic old dining room. We drank a fair amount of Wild Turkey eventually conning the bartender to join us for a nightcap out on the patio. Eksuzian ended up sloshing around in the fountain. But that is another story.
I have had a soft spot in my heart for that place ever since. I have not missed a summer stop there in over thirty years. And I always spend an evening or two listening to the National Treasure Tom Bopp play the piano. Being a last minute traveler I rarely get a room, most often we are at the Redwoods. Summer and Tom Bopp are a ritual more important than any holiday. The parlor is also were I developed my fondness for Cole Porter. Tom knows every obscure and dirty Porter song there is. He laughs and sings and in my mind, climbing Half Dome or Clouds Rest would be impossible without those tunes of long ago Broadway running trough my odd brain. It’s a strange combination; the words of John Muir and Galen Clark, the paintings of Chiura Obata and Thomas Hill, the photographs of Ansel Adams, and the voice of Tom Bopp. But they all mingle into my experience during my walks along the Merced River or up Sentinel Dome or sitting at The Ahwahnee with that first cold beer after coming off the Panorama Trail. On my hikes I meet people quoting Muir or Thoreau while trying to recreate the vision of Ansel Adams. Inexcusably I will find myself singing Night and Day or Don’t Fence Me In. To each his own.
It’s a hot summer day here by the Pacific. Not as hot and dry as being in the Sierra but I put on the Tom Bopp CD of vintage Yosemite songs. And I hope that someday, when this scary pandemic is defeated and the world starts to spin normally again, I will find myself, with the Wus and Reilly, sitting across the room from the piano as Mr. Bopp sings his renditions of Miss Oits Regrets and Let’s Do It.
I listen to more classical music in the summer. It is probably because of those August afternoons when Dot (Gee Gee) took us to walk the grounds and gardens of Tanglewood while the Boston Symphony was rehearsing in the Shed. Back then classical music could have came from Betelgeuse for all I knew. I thought I Am The Walrus was the height of culture. I liked the old folk songs we sang around the fire at Boy Scout camp. Rocky Mountain High, Puff the Magic Dragon, Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, stuff like that.
We’d walk around on the beautiful lawn on a humid late summer day as thunderheads formed on the horizon. We’d gaze down at Stockbridge Bowl, a blue jewel with a few small boats circling the shore. I was ignorant as to the musicians who would be practicing for the weekend concert. Later I read interviews with Arthur Fielder and Seiji Ozawa and they talked about those times at Tanglewood. Perhaps as we sauntered around the property those masters were there on the stage working hard toward perfection. In the early seventies any of the geniuses of classical music could have been there. John Williams, Leonard Bernstein, John Harbison, to name just a couple of my favorites. And they could have walked by me, Mide and I would have never have known. Of course, Gee Gee would have.
I did get to see Keith Lockhart conduct the Boston Pops with Warren Haynes playing Jerry Garcia’s famous guitars (Rosebud and The Wolf) during a magnificent celebration of Garcia’s music. I remember a beautiful Bird Song with hints of Dark Star. Maestro Lockhart was handsome and in touch with us old Deadheads in his bright tie-dye. Warren was regal in a dark sport coat, a sharp dressed man. It was quite an evening. I lost my cell phone.
On another Summer night I saw Yo Yo Ma play the six unaccompanied Bach cello concertos. One of the most moving performances I’ve ever seen. He brought me to tears.
July 6, 2020
Charlie Daniels and Ennio Morricone die on the same day! So I played Ennio this morning and Charlie all afternoon. I know it seems odd that I listen to a redneck right wing, god lovin’ fiddle player like Charlie Daniels, but I remember him when he was different. When he was a southern rocker, pot smokin’ hippie. One of the good guys. But we all change and it needs to be said his generosity to our veterans is noteworthy. He has raised millions for them as well as traveled to war zones to entertain. He should be commended and loved for that alone. And it goes without saying he was an exceptional musician. His first few albums are absolutely brilliant. They make me jump around the house and my neighbors should know every word by now.
SPAC — 1986 — The usual bunch; Me, Hauge, Ike, Wilk, Eksuzian, Beav, Debbie and Plunk. Somehow we all find each other in downtown Saratoga and head over to the concert parking lot together. The normal antics take place. We drink some beer and wait for the gates to open. Just today they announced that The Dickey Betts Band has been added to the lineup. Greg Allman will play next and then The Charlie Daniels Band. Well, by the time Greg gets to his encore Dickey and his band have returned to the stage and it’s an Allman Brothers Band reunion. They rip the place apart. Poor Charlie Daniels hardly stands a chance after a monster rendition of One Way Out.
His set is obviously mellower and the crowd relaxes after the blistering finale of The ABB. We sit back down on the lawn and drink some smuggled in Wild Turkey. Charlie’s band is hot and he roars through his hits. Everybody dances to the last few songs.
We continue the party at our hotel after the show.
After dark tonight and the moon is rising, full just a few days ago. I play the Morricone Yo Yo Ma CD and then I play it again. It’s just magnificent. A mood lingers well into the early hours.
The last week has been peaches and cream. Well, technically, peaches and almond milk. My peach tree is full. Full enough that some of the branches are too heavy, and one of them snapped. I have been eating peaches with every meal. In the morning I mix them with my granola and almond milk. I have them in my salads at lunch. And for dinner I either grill some in balsamic vinegar or have a few for desert. I take them on my walks and when I get home I squeeze one in my club soda. I offered them to the neighbors and told the wife of our landscaper to help herself to as many as she wanted. “They’re beautiful!” She smiled.
I’m not sick of them yet because they are delicious. The tree has peaked and I’m eating them as fast as I can. Dozens are falling everyday and I figure I have less than a week before there are none left.
Can it really be a year ago that Amanda and I muddled them with Casa Amigos Anejo and sat in the yard? And then a few days later we made true Bellinis? Apparently so…
Exiled from travel I enjoy the pleasures of the Mesa. Today instead of being able to drive to Lake Alpine I watched hummingbirds in the peach tree and then monarchs land on the small pink flowers by the guavas. Later I was strafed by dragonflies as they hunted near the cliffs. The marine layer faded earlier today and the islands showed the details of their mountains in the afternoon sun. Back in the yard I read Snyder and played some Brahms. Warm winds ruffled the palms and I plucked a lemon for the salmon I was going to cook later. I ignored the news. A weekly diversion I try to adhere to. One full day with no news. It all can wait. And waiting we all are. For things to swerve toward some sort of normalcy. That is not to say I’m not aware of the pains and fright we are going through these days. Because how can anyone not be worried about what the near future may bring?
