The Jeep is packed, I stand in the street for a minute. The waves are gentle at Leadbetter Beach, two owls call each other from across the neighborhood. I often hear their throaty hoots when I’m up this early. It’s an hour before sunrise. Only stopping for gas, I’m over the Golden Gate before noon. It is clear and windy. Alcatraz looks deceptively close. Traffic is light on this Palm Sunday.
I get to The Sea Ranch Lodge with plenty of time to rest and scratch a few notes in my journal before meeting everyone at the house Joanna has rented on Curlew Reach.
However, the Wus pull in right behind me. Timing! Our reunion is emotional. We go in the lodge, the bar is not open yet but the cafe has beer and coffee and sodas. We sit for a while at the famous corner table and take the traditional photos.
We still have some time to kill before check-in so we go to the Surf Market for oysters, fudge, ice cream, lottery tickets and some other random necessities.
The house, named the Aloha House, our home for the next seven nights is perfect; big and roomy, open kitchen, fireplace, piano, large dining room table, hot tub, a grand view of the ocean that today glitters alluringly in the afternoon light. We hope to see many whales.
Michael and Mary show up and the excitement of the first day is electric. We open some wine and Pak starts pondering dinner. Oysters first and then we walk out to the point in front of the house. Seals watch us from the waves, oystercatchers scoot by screeching their distinctive cries, an osprey hovers while hunting the shallows. The tide is high, the wind blows fierce and rain is expected tomorrow.
Dinner is leisurely and delicious. We get caught up, tell some stories, drink fine red wine. Before I know it it’s midnight and exhausted from the eight-plus hour drive, the windy ocean air, lots of food and a touch of whiskey, I go to my room. I open my journal and am too scattered to make many notes. I’m asleep in minutes.
Tradition: For the last eight or ten years of trips with the Wus Ellie is my alarm clock. We are usually up before everyone else and we get in a morning walk and try to make it back by breakfast. I’m up reading (Milosz) when, at 7am, my phone pings. Ellie texts, ‘Good morning!’ I text back, ‘Good morning!’ A minute later she knocks on my door, we grab our jackets, slip on our walking shoes (Uggs for Ellie) and are out the door while the rest of our loved ones still sleep.
It’s a clear morning and the prospect of rain seems slight. The clouds from last night have dispersed. We walk south along the cliffs toward Black Point. We meander, in no hurry to get anywhere. We see more seals, cormorants, oystercatchers, gulls, and vultures. We stop and photograph flowers along the path, quail under the pines and deer in the fields. We see very few other people. Elusive yellow birds dart away too quickly for Ellie to get a good picture. But, we reason, we’ve six more days to capture an image of these colorful little singers. We notice our neighbor has a bird feeder and decide to keep an eye on it.
We make it back in time for Mary’s Quiches, one broccoli, one asparagus. Both wonderful.
Everyone wants to walk up to the seal rookery so off we go. There are a few new babies only hours old, tiny, black, helpless. But in a few days they will be in the water learning how to swim and fish. We watch their progress all week. The knowledgable docents keep us updated when we stop by on our daily visits.
Back at the Aloha House around noon. Joanna opens a rosé and we sit at the outside table and enjoy a long lunch. The wind is still blowing hard, there’s a gale warning in effect, but the back deck has a high wall that perfectly blocks the heavy gusts. So we bask in the afternoon sun, sheltered and warm.
We try out the hot tub on the deck which is situated as to give an ocean view through a large opening in the wall. Pak hops in with a beer to share with me. The soak feels very much needed.
Then it’s back to the store for more oysters. (And Milanos, bread, candles, more lottery tickets.) Pak grills them with garlic, butter, bacon, maybe some wine. At the table he lightly crisps the bacon with a torch. A delicacy beyond words. Michael lights a fire and the house gets cozy.
Dinner is again relaxed, Juliette fits the candles into wine bottles adding a touch of her elegance to the evening. Pak gives one of his soulful toasts and we clink glasses. More good red wine. The conversation never slows. Michael and Mary have great tales about their many, many adventures. We we hurry back out to the point and catch the sun as it comes out of a cloud and sinks into the choppy sea. Shorebirds sing in the distance. The moon, almost full, rises over the pine trees. There’s a sense, perhaps false, that we are eternal. All of this has been going on for eons and will continue long after I’m not even a memory.
Michael takes out his guitar and sings a few songs he’s been practicing. He sings softly with touching emotion. We are all charmed by his renditions of some of our favorites; John Prine, Dylan, John Denver, Tom Rush.
We tell more stories of past trips up here. Stories, stories, stories! I vow to Pak that I will go though boxes of old pictures and bring them up on our next visit so we can try to get our memories in some sort of chronological order.
Again we are in bed before midnight. Later, after two am, the whipping rain against my bedroom window wakes me. But it is soothing, I try to stay up and listen to the storm but I’m quickly lulled back to sleep and hear nothing until Ellie’s text tone hours later.
That is how the days went with some slight variations. Ellie and I taking long morning walks before breakfast, Pak’s mastery in the kitchen, strolls to the seal rookery, lunch, wine, hot tub, another walk, a store run, (oysters) dinner, a nightcap.
And here’s how the rest of the week played out, in no particular order. One early morning Ellie and I walk over to the Sea Ranch Chapel and sit in the quiet for a few minutes each, for a moment, lost in our own particular thoughts. We are pleased to be the only ones out this early. I’ve spent many mornings in solitude here over the years but it’s nice to have the company today. Some of Mide’s ashes I tossed in the flowers outside the window facing the ocean on another Spring morning. Aileen was here on that trip.
I grab some donation envelops like I always do. When I have a good week at work I like to drop some cash in the mail to help with the upkeep. It’s never a lot, but usually enough for the grounds crew to have a six pack and some pizzas.
A few days later we all come back before going to the Lodge. We walk out to Black Point and are amazed at all the flowers blooming this year. Delicate small ones, yellows and pinks. Pak is particularly enchanted. And like every Spring, the big patch of Lillies are resplendent by the old barn that is slowly collapsing. Back at the lodge we indulge in martinis, another tradition. Juliette has been craving French fries and to my surprise orders a burger to go with them. And also to my surprise it does not spoil her dinner.
One afternoon Ellie and I are walking along one of the small coves and we hear frogs, lots of them and they are loud. There is some rain runoff flowing down the hill and the long grass is wet. We take a few steps toward the sound and the frogs go silent. Ellie quietly slinks closer to where all the singing is coming from and then freezes. A minute later the chorus starts up again. Ellie is surrounded by frogs but we don’t see a single one. They are so well camouflaged, hidden in the tall weeds between the rocks and sand. Ellie moves and the little swamp is again quiet. We walk away and can hear them again calling each other and proclaiming the wildness of Spring. Later in the week we walk by again and their loud croaks resonate and again they remain unseen. All we can do is laugh in wonder.
We have a rainy day. It never lets up so we lounge around watching the sheets lash the house, trees, fields. We can’t even see the ocean. We read, look at pictures, I write in my journal. (Kind of.) Juliette plays the piano. She’s learning Yesterday. Michael joins her on his guitar. I try to read (Milosz) but instead nap, waking off and on to Juliette’s music. It’s ridiculously relaxing. There is wine breathing when I finally come to. Pak makes his epic wonton soup. Michael has the fire blazing. We are warm, happy, dry and rested.
Another afternoon walk; we see a baby seal at the rookery, it’s only hours old. We watch silently from the viewing spot as the mother repeatedly touches noses with her newborn. I walk to the other end of the small cove where Pak is keeping the dogs away from the birthing area, per Sea Ranch policy. “The circle of life.” He says to me and we look down at a wake of vultures eating a small seal. They flap around menacingly keeping true to their reputation for gruesome theatrics.
“Biology.” Czeslaw Milosz writes. “It is concerned with life, as it’s name indicates, and therefore, in the first place, with the feeding of organisms, each of which uses another as its food. Nature is composed of eaters and eaten, natura devorans and natura devorata.”
And all we have to do to grasp this is stand on the cliffs for a half an hour and watch. Seals dive for fish, birds crack open mussels, cormorants spear sardines, and an osprey flies overhead with a small cabezon clutched in its talons. Humpback and Grey Whales scoop up tons of krill and in the deeper water, out beyond our view, pods of orcas devour seals as do lone hunting great white sharks. Both are plentiful here off the northern coast.
There are signs warning of mountain lions although we’ve never seen one on any of our visits. There is certainly enough deer wandering around to keep a small population of big cats well fed. We do see a few dead deer on the shoulder of Highway One but they are most likely victims of collisions with traffic. We notice them because of the vultures strutting in the roadside grass. Ravens patently wait their turn.
One afternoon I catch a glimpse of a grey fox, its fluffy tail as long as its body, darting through the scrub brush in our backyard, no doubt in pursuit of rodents.
And that’s not all, one afternoon Juliette, Ellie (mostly) and I befriend a cat. She approached us as we walked out to the point in front of our house. Sammy, according to her name tag. She followed us for a while and then met up with us again the next day. Sammy then treated us to a display of her hunting skills. Right in front of our eyes she stalked, pounced on, toyed with and then joyfully killed a tiny mouse as it squealed in terror. Natura devorans and natura devorata!
And then there is the viciousness of random events. Although it can seem like the universe is conspiring against us, that’s simply not true. Our worries and pains and reactions to pure coincidence are actually met with cosmic indifference. The universe neither cares nor notices our blunders even when they lead to disaster. Joanna finds a dead bird on the front step. It’s one of those beautiful yellow finches, as pretty and delicate in death as it was in animated flight. The front door is all glass and you can look right though the house to the big windows facing the Pacific. I’m sure to the little bird it appeared to be a straight shot to the back yard. If only. So often in life massive changes happen instantaneously. I am grieving two friends who recently dropped dead in the course of their daily routines. They have been in my thoughts all week. Two more ghosts to add to my very long list.
On a cold, the temperature dipped into the 30s, windy night with pelting rain blowing from the north we decide to brave the hot tub. Any minute I expect the rain to turn to sleet. It stings our faces but we are otherwise warm immersed up to our necks. We endure it for as long as we can before Pak runs in and pulls our towels warm from the dryer. Luxury!
Ellie and I get carried away and walk for more than two hours. There is simply too much to see. She photographs more deer and blue birds and quail. We discover the Del Mar Community Center which we never knew was tucked away behind an old one room school that was also used at one time to house workers, sheepherders. There’s a heated pool, tennis courts and saunas. We follow a path past gardens and fountains. All kinds of flowers are blooming. With Ellie’s phone app we learn the name of a few of them that I instantly forget. The morning gets away from us and we check in with Pak. Breakfast is ready and will be waiting for us when we get back. We pick up the pace but it still takes us more than half an hour to get back to the Aloha House.
The days speed by, vacations are notorious for their ability to alter the flow of time. So say the philosophers anyway. And I figure that time was even a conundrum for Einstein so how the hells am I ever going to understand it?
On our last morning walk Ellie and I finally see a whale. It’s traveling alone so it’s probably a juvenile male on his first solo migration. He rises a few times rather quickly and then takes a sounding dive. He’s not out that far, maybe three hundred yards or so. Then he’s gone. We wait a good fifteen minutes, Ellie scanning the waves with her camera’s telephoto. Gone just as magically as he appeared, no doubt in a hurry to get to the fecund feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska.
Easter Sunday
Pacific Grove
Asilomar Conference Center
Mide has been gone four years today. I call Mom and we both agree that it seems impossible, but it’s not. I still talk to him daily. There will always be so much to say. While driving the winding coast highway I tell him about Pak’s homemade wontons and the soup he severed with them. Perfect for keeping us warm on a cool and windy day.
Heartfelt goodbyes this morning. The kids hug me tight. I don’t want to let go. I’m near tears, like always when we part. I sense Ellie is too. We are both emotional. It takes me a few miles of driving to catch my breath. I pull over at a cliffside vista point and watch the surf and compose myself. A wave of melancholia rivals in size the breakers below me. We all have busy summers ahead; Michael and Mary have sold their house and are soon heading to Montana before embarking on more travels and some professional house sitting. The Wus are off first to New York City and Washington D.C. and then a few weeks after that they go back east again to New Hope. Next month I am bound for Utah and then later in the summer, Pittsfield. Ellie and I agree that out of all the fun stuff we do there is something a little extra special about our time at The Sea Ranch. Nothing really compares to it. It holds a very unique spot in our hearts.
By the time I get to Jenner I’m almost normal. I am glad I’m not going directly back to Santa Barbara. Truth is, I’m not ready.
I detour around San Francisco and take the Richmond—San Rafael Bridge for a stop in Berkeley. Sadly, Chez Panisse is closed for Easter, I was craving a glass of Domaine Tempier Bandol Rose. Another tradition of mine when I pass through the east bay.
Originally I had planed to check out the Royal Robbins and Sierra Design stores. But instead, on a whim, I look up the address to Czeslaw Milosz’s famous (To poets anyway.) house up on Grizzly Peak. I’m very close so I drive the steep and tricky road and find a parking spot right in front. I get out, there is not much to see, just the garage and a side path leading down to the house. There are garbage pails in front of the doors. Tomorrow must be trash day. But this is where the great Polish poet wrote for thirty years. It is also where he received the news that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1980. An event I vaguely remember possibly because of the pride of Pittsfield’s small Polish community centered around Holy Family Church. (Later I would spend more time at the Polish Falcon. A bar of some reputation.)
Grizzly Peak Boulevard is narrow and curvy with magnificent views of San Francisco. I’ve never seen the city from this angle before. It looks small and compact against the backdrop of the ocean. I pass by Tilden Park and the Botanic Gardens wishing I had a day to explore. It’s another few hours to Pacific Grove so make my way over the peak and down into Oakland and head toward Monterey Bay.
Before I check in I stop and get what turns out to be my dinner; nuts, raisins, bananas, granola and dark chocolate. After seven nights of multi course meals I feel almost as if I’m fasting. I leave the wine and whiskey in the Jeep and stick to water.
I walk over to the state beach and find a crowd waiting for sunset. The sky is clear and the water calm, at least calmer than Sea Ranch. I see a whale, then two, then two more. I go back to the room and grab my binoculars. For the next hour I lose count of how many whales are feeding in the bay. More than twenty and there is never a minute where I can’t see a spout. The sun sets a deep orange illuminating the whale’s tall plumes of their breath. It’s a sight that is hard to understand. All that grand life in front of me. I get the feeling again of eternity caught in a single moment. This has been going on for millions of years in at least a very similar way. Migrations of the earth’s largest animals that have ever lived following their instincts that have evolved so precisely. It will all still be going on after I am not even dust and surely long after whatever fate awaits humanity.
The beach clears and soon I’m alone standing on a rock outcrop as darkness seems to come from every direction. I listen for a while to the waves and the shorebirds and the seals. It could be a thousand years ago or a thousand years from now. Again the mystery of time, or maybe timelessness. Same thing I guess.
Back in my room I light a fire in a real fireplace with real wood. My room is rustic, no TV, no phone, no coffee maker. None of which I need. I read Milosz while waiting for the moon, now a day past full. It glows through the pines before I pull the curtains and drift off to sleep.
Monday, I’m up early. I take my binoculars and a banana and go look for whales. I walk north toward Monterey. The tide is going out and there are a few kayakers in the calm coves. I occasionally scan the water and do see one whale. The only one I spot all day. It’s a clear morning but rain is predicted for later. I walk for over an hour before turning around. At one of the small coves I stop to watch two otters dive for oysters, or maybe scallops, and then float on their backs and eat breakfast. They are slick and fast and bigger than I always remember. They are usually described as playful, and for good reason. They lie on their backs, frolic around each other, then dive for more food. I leave them to their antics and walk for over a mile along the path bordered by carpets of deep purple flowers. There’s a haiku by Kobayashi Issa:
In the world’s way—
On the roof of hell we walk,
gazing at flowers!
A kayaker putting on his wetsuit points at my binoculars and asks if I’ve seen any whales this morning. I tell him about the one and then he says that I should’ve been here last night. I was, I say and he tells me he’s never seen so many whales all at once. I assure him neither have I.
Walking out on a secluded point of rocks jutting out of the sea I catch the scent of rotting flesh. The wind shifts and the unmistakable stench of decay becomes stronger. Somewhere below me unseen is a dead animal, most likely a seal wedged into the rocks. I peer over the edge but see nothing but waves. From the smell I can tell that this one has been here for a few days. Milosz writes, “Certainly, I recognize the influence of sentimental and romantic imaginings about nature. Then nothing remained of all that. On the contrary, it struck me as unbounded suffering. But nature is beautiful; there’s nothing you can do about that.”
The trick, of course, is to find the beauty amidst all the life living off of other life. There is a great Peter Atkins quote from his book On Being that I will look up when I get home.
Back in my room I shower and then read some Japanese travel essays out on my patio. I’m still high from The Sea Ranch and miss my friends. Once again I marvel at how quickly the days flow by.
I head over to Fisherman’s Wharf for a late lunch. It’s a mob scene and I can’t deal with it after my peaceful days at the Aloha House. So I walk around Cannery Row for a while and it’s always a bit depressing to see all the junk shops. Who the fuck needs all that trash? Not me. Then I’m cheered when I come to Pacific Biological Laboratories, Ed Ricketts’ old building where he lived, studied and wrote brilliantly about California marine life. Unfortunately tours are by appointment only. I didn’t even know that they had tours, so next time for sure!
Still looking for a quiet place for lunch I go back to the Jeep and put more time on the parking meter. I come around a corner and there a block from my Jeep is a bronze statue of Ricketts. I read the plaque and discover that this is the spot where he was hit by a train in 1948. He died of his injuries before John Steinbeck could get there to say goodbye to his great friend and muse. The long introduction to The Log From The Sea Of Cortez is a wonderful short biography of Ricketts. My friend Kevin Kechely reminds of him with his endless curiosity and energy as I watched him pick through the tide pools at The Sea Ranch on our first trips all those years ago.
Back on Cannery Row I stop in a restaurant and once I’m in the door I realize it’s too packed, there’s only a single seat at the bar. Before I can turn and walk out the hostess smiles, “One?”
“If there’s a table.” I say, expecting a wait. Which I won’t do. But she whisks me to a large booth overlooking the bay. The room is busy, I somehow lucked out, again. I enjoy a leisurely late afternoon snack, a bowl of chowder and a red crab Louie. Service is excellent. Staying on my cleanse I forgo a glass of wine and stick to iced tea. I wanted sardines like I usually have when in Monterey but there weren’t any on the menu.
From my booth I see the whale watching charters come and go from the wharf. Farther out are fishing boats. The bay is still famous for sardines which might explain the whales last night. Perhaps a large school was moving through the calmer waters. Although both humpback and gray whales mostly eat krill. Earlier on the wharf when I walked by the offices of the whale excursions they noted on their signs that humpbacks are seen daily and orcas are encountered several time a week. I’d love to see orcas.
By the time I get back to Asilomar I see I’ve walked over ten miles. The day has clouded over but I take the boardwalk through the dunes to check one more time for whales. Parked by the beach is a van with two girls (Hippies!) sitting in the open side door. I catch the unmistakable scent of hashish. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around that magical stuff. Intoxicating and alluring, they smile at me knowingly as I take the path out to a point and scan the bay. I’m relieved I’m not offered a sample. Resistance to generosity is not one of my strengths.
A flock of maybe twenty-five dark birds float far out beyond the breakers. I watch as they disappear in unison then pop back up one by one. This goes on for quite a while like wild choreography. I see not a single whale and the sky is as gray as the ocean.
In my room I light a fire, I am tired and warm, I fall asleep reading.
Tuesday morning: I walk over to the beach in a light rain, more of a mist actually. There is an understated beauty in the dreariness. While packing up the jeep it starts to rain harder and I decide, like on my last visit here, to skip Big Sur. It’s a challenging enough drive under good conditions and while I don’t doubt my skills it’s always the other guy who is lacking ability to negotiate the winding road. I’m in no hurry to get home. (I keep noticing that these days.) I park at the beach and read, watch a few surfers in the rain and text Ellie. Her Spring break is over and today is her first day back in classes.
Santa Barbara at sunset. I’ve left the storms behind me, somewhere near Paso Robles. My ten days worth of mail includes nothing urgent, I leave the pile for tomorrow. As I usually do, I’ve told no one that I’m home tonight. I want to give myself another day of solitude out of necessity. Here’s the Peter Atkins quote I was thinking about all week.
“That God chose the primitive barbarity of natural selection to achieve His end, leaving a charnel house of guts through evolutionary history, certainly suggests caution in accepting the conventional reports of His infinite benevolence towards His creation.”
Listening to Charles Lloyd: I’m wound up so I unpack only to find that my chronic wanderlust is un-sated and I have an overwhelming desire to repack. The road goes on forever and I feel like I should stay on it, perhaps aimlessly.
Bibliography
Milosz’s ABCs — Czeslaw Milosz
Travels With a Writing Brush
Classical Japanese Travel Writing From The Manyōshū to Bashō — Translated by Meredith McKinney
On Being — Peter Atkins
The Log From The Sea Of Cortez — Edward Ricketts and John Steinbeck
Autumn Wind Haiku — Kobayashi Issa — Translated by Lewis Mackenzie
