Driving Route 41 southwest in a steady rain. Listening to Arthur Fielder conduct the Boston Pops, great theme songs of the American west. One of dad’s favorite albums. Indeed, Don’t Fence Me In.
Housesitting in Santa Barbara for my friend Lee. A view from her window of mist on the hills. Lovely and peaceful. A different view of this city I think I know so well. (I don’t)
An afternoon of solitude. My inner vertigo reminding me I am not at all like other people. I should be used to it by now. (I’m not)
Shakey sleep last night. Dreams of Taos, O’Keefe, Los Alamos. Maybe it’s the wine from last night causing this morning’s unease. Feeling useless and ineffective, slightly lost, slightly scared.
A walk around the zoo with Sebastian clears up my brain fog somewhat. Although seeing the snow leopard sluggishly lounging in the corner of her cage is disheartening. All the wildness of this magnificent cat diminished by this tawdry enclosure. (She, Kisa, would have to be euthanized a few months later.)
The great Willy Gilbert hosts a private super bowl party at the Pickle Room, Gerry and I work it. Lots of old friends stop by to say hello.
Lee’s place is quiet and I spend each morning on the deck wondering why all the nonsense from the night before. For the past couple of days the balance has tipped more toward socializing than writing. Certainly part of the reason I left Santa Barbara a year ago was to be able to concentrate more on getting my books out. My endless struggle.
It is with no small amount of relief that I leave town a day early for my rendezvous at Sea Ranch with the Wus.
I make it to Carmel after driving through intermittent rain. I walk around town under slate solid clouds. The tide is coming in hard and frothy. I follow the walk south toward Tor House, my regular pilgrimage. A few blocks from the great poet’s stone tower, braving the scattered rain drops with their fragile magazine rack, are two Christians offering passersby flimsily pamphlets proclaiming that the answers to all life’s questions and mysteries can be found by accepting Jesus Christ.
I’m sure that these two earnest and devout believers are clueless that just up the road Robinson Jeffers wrote this;
God is a hawk gliding among the stars—
If all the stars and the earth, and the living flesh of the night that
flows in between them, and whatever else is beyond them,
Were that one bird. He has a bloody beak and harsh talons,
he pounces and tears—...
One fierce life…
A much different view of existence than an everlasting life of blissful worship. Jeffers’ view of nature, from what was then a lonely hand built rock house perched at Continent’s End, was much more realistic, brutal, and dark than the cartoon Jesus depicted in the handouts.
I walk up to look at the house and tower as the rain picks up. They seem out of place these days surrounded tightly with beach houses and fairytale-like cottages. Not conducive to contemplating the wildness and mystery of the cosmos.
In Monterey I find a motel just as the storm hits. Tired from the past few days of high living in Santa Barbara I decide to stay in my room. I have some granola, nuts, chocolate and water for dinner. I am lulled to sleep by the thrashing rain.
Still raining as I drive through San Francisco. It’s windy and dreary, the views of the city are dull and forlorn. A deluge hits as I cross the Golden Gate.
The road to Bodega Bay is flooded in several spots and I detour through some back dirt roads past farmhouses and cow pastures. The going is slow and I get turned around. Finally I resort to turning on the GPS. Of course, I’m pretty close to where I thought I was. I hate to use that thing as a crutch, it blunts my sense of adventure and self reliance.
Tonight I’m staying at the Surf Inn and I walk down Highway One to the Surf Market and get a sandwich, a monster called the Lumberjack, and have another dinner in my cozy room fifty yards from the mad, wild and indifferent sea as it crashes and screams in the black night. Appropriately, I read more Jeffers on my kindle. I wish I could come up with my own poetic vision. I’m feeling pretty close to clear headed. I understand I’ll never be 100%. Also, despair, however slight, lingers. How does poetry (mine) add to, cure, compliment, my wanderlust? Or keep my edges sharp?
The Wus will be here tomorrow.
I have a few hours to squander this morning so I drive up on the mountain side of Highway One and look at some of the smaller houses for rent. It’s a different atmosphere than being down on the cliffs. More secluded up here with some long views of the coastline. It’d be a nice place to hide out and write.
I walk out to Black Point and sit for a while near where I flung Mide’s ashes. His sense of humor often comes back to me and today I smile at some of his remembered antics. Despite all his suffering he had a way of cheering me up. I miss that the most about him.
Now I’m sitting in one of the chairs at the lodge (Which now rents for almost $500 a night. A crime.) facing the Pacific and finishing my Lumberjack sandwich. Ellie has been tracking me and she and Pak show up just as I’m leaving to go to the house on Masthead Reach. We get there and the Kecheleys, Kevin, Marcie and Max, get there soon after. And then Joanna and Juliette. We are all emotional. This is the first time we’ve been here together in years. And the first time seeing each other since our friend Pam passed away. Pam was the original instigator of these trips to Sea Ranch. It seems like a different life we all had back then, almost thirty years ago. As far away as those days seem Pam is etched so deep in our hearts that I half expect to see her coming up the trail from the tide pool, big oversized sweatshirt, hair whipping in the wind, crab bucket in hand, grinning like a wild woman. Momentarily as I stare toward the sea my vision blurs. I suspect Pam’s benign and loving ghost will hover over us all weekend. We miss her terribly.
After a walk and as it gets dark Pak grills New Yorks and we laugh at our old stories. Later we watch Venus and see a great shooting star. Max comments that Orion has a “comically large bow.”
More reminiscing, some good wine, a few tears for Pam. I’m amazed that the kids still think I’m funny. I feel loved.
I’m in my usual room. It’s as cold, damp and dark as I remember it. Sliding glass doors lead to the hot tub.
The Sea Ranch is still a place that restores me. There is something comforting about these surroundings; the shifting blocks of fog, crying oystercatchers, the purple wildflowers and little yellow birds. The mix of scents; pine, kelp, pollen and low tide fecundity. The whales we often see, the deer that wander through the yard, the birthing seals, an osprey clutching a snake, vultures drifting on the thermals, all add to the remoteness of this stretch of coastline. For all that is going on out the window and along the cliffside trails still my heartbeat slows. When I am not here my dreams often return me to the views of the blue horizon and massive swells as the tide shifts.
This morning on a short walk with Ellie the crinkled shoreline vanishing in the fog in both directions affords a dose of solitude I desperately crave.
Back at the house the day slides along like so many days here in the past. We eat well, sit on the back deck, the kids fish. They catch some ling cod and cabozon, which has an iridescent and delicious blue flesh. Kevin sautéed it expertly. The afternoon turns windy and Pak and Joanna make sure we don’t go hungry. They make big plates of polenta fries, wings, clam chowder, (New England of course) Philly cheesesteaks and a few nice wines. The mind of Kevin entertains us as it gets dark and in the distance the surf slams against the rocky coast, Earth’s white noise.
Another day of beach combing, shell and stone collecting, and birdwatching. The dogs run wild in the waves.
We walk over to the Sea Ranch Chapel for a moment of meditation or reflection or prayer, each of us I guess are thinking pretty much the same thing. We all have people we are now living without and at times like this our thoughts turn toward their absences. We are not, however, gloomy in any way. In fact, we are full of smiles and reminded, just by looking at the kids, how amazingly lucky we truly are.
The day stays blustery and damp. Kevin makes a spicy chicken curry and we add one more epic dinner to our long list. Carpenter and I were going to write a Sea Ranch cookbook. He was going to explain the menus, ingredients and preparation and I was going to write about the guests, the dinner conversations, the music we played and wines we opened. It was to be a book about friendship and how we bonded over long, unrushed, many course meals. I should still write my side of the book in honor of our raconteur pal Mike Carpenter.
We are all aware enough of how being able to be with each other and have this period of leisure when most of life is hectic and full of distractions. If that’s not good fortune I don’t know what is.
Already it is Monday and we spend the morning packing up. We take a walk out to Black Point before saying our goodbyes. Good times are both fleeting and difficult to cling to.
I’m lucky enough to be heading to the Wus for another day. After a lunch break in Napa, where I notice that Quintessa is still appointment only, Ellie hops in my car and we don’t shut up until we pull into her driveway. There's always so much to talk about.
Pak whips up a “simple” dinner. Hamachi, shrimp, tofu, soup, pasta and cookies. We are joined by Miss April and Deb.
A trip to Sacramento for me wouldn’t feel right if we skipped a morning of dim sum. The Wus are treated like family at their favorite restaurant. We endure plate after plate of the most wonderful dishes. It would be embarrassing to list everything we ate, suffice to say we weren’t hungry for the rest of the day. That does not stop us from later having a snack of caviar and oysters. Joanna always has two kinds of caviar, the expensive kind and the really expensive kind.
Driving to Yosemite Forks this morning Bickmore texts saying he is also on his way. We rendezvous at Johnny’s and then have dinner at the Snow Line. Another late night telling stories and I am the first to go to bed. Johnny and Bick are still late night guys.
A cold morning drive to Yosemite Valley where we make all the usual stops to take pictures and stand in awe of the rocks and hawks and waterfalls. Like we always do, we make our visit early before the traffic becomes annoying. On this winter morning we have all the views mostly to ourselves. We linger at Sentinel Bridge, Yosemite Falls and the meadow across from El Cap.
Later in the afternoon when we get back to Johnny’s we see on the news that some laid off Yosemite employees have hung an American flag upside down from the top of El Capitan to protest the massive and ignorant job cuts that are taking place in our national parks. It’s a travesty for sure, a policy based on stupidity and arrogance. And like most things Trump, it is being done with utter incompetence and cruelty. His ineptness astounds me.
If we hung around slightly longer in the valley this morning we would’ve seen the massive distress signal three thousand feet above our heads. I applaud the rangers and climbers who love Yosemite so much they are willing to risk the repercussions for committing this wonderful act of civil disobedience. What comes next for the Park is anybody’s guess. But the people I’ve talked to who live near here, including Johnny, are not optimistic. There is a menacing hue to the future. We’ll see soon enough.
Bibliography
The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen
The Double Axe – Robinson Jeffers
Discography
Pops Roundup -- The Boston Pops
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