Tour de France and nothing else

I'm held captive in the clutches of the Tour de France, unable to wrench myself free until the final rider crosses the finish line in Paris tomorrow. I was hooked on the intricacies and spectacle of it years ago when I tried racing and rode my bike all over everywhere. While it's complex and there are many aspects of strategy involved in the sport, the visual appeal is hard to deny. Riders everywhere imagine themselves riding up the huge mountain climbs or bombing down twisting devilish descents, but only a very minute percentage of racers have a realistic chance of competing. Among those, an equally tiny percentage have a hope of competing to win.

When the Tour coverage begins in July, I'm glued to my TV and love every second of it. Like one little French lady said a few years ago, "The Super Bowl? Pooof! What is that compared to three weeks of the Tour?"

I agree.

Blocked

Writing is hard work. It's solitary, bedeviling and painful work. Hemingway knew that and so does any other writer who's been published. You get to the point where you know that when you look at the screen or the paper, nothing's going to happen, and you imagine all kinds of self-pitying scenarios, most of which involve no writing but lots of screaming and thrashing. You hope for things to happen to you so you'll be torn away from writing against your will, and it won't be your fault you don't write ever again.

Next time you wander into a bookstore, stand back and let your eyes scan all the spines of all the books displayed there and imagine that, probably, for every inch-thick book, there has been about a year of a writer's life spent. At least. Lots of paper, lots of backspacing and deleting. Probably lots of therapy hours spent, too.

I'd say having an urge to write and then not succeeding at producing an interesting paragraph or even - god, let me, please, a sentence - is a lot like anticipating a nice cool swim in a pool you know about and finding that the pool has been drained when you get there. It's soooooo disappointing. You ask yourself (after a few satisfying foul words tumble out): Well, what else could I do besides swim? What else could I do besides write?

For me, I can think of lots else, but not many other things draw me to them. I guess I could go wash my windows since I can't see out of them anymore. That would actually be useful. Or, I could walk, or read, or sing, or SOMETHING!!!! But, you have to understand, I feel like writing. I really need to write, and, just like I really need to breathe, if I don't write, I will crumple up into a little ball and end up in a corner behind the sofa, dead. I'd bet money that that's not probably something you can relate to, needing to write.

I probably won't let myself get to the point of a desiccated, shriveled little mess of frustration. I'd go the fridge or the store long before that, but I know it would only be a delaying tactic. I flew into the Monterey airport one time in a private plane with a friend. We were going from point A to point B, B being the airport here, but in the approach, we had to use delaying maneuvers to avoid piling up too close behind another plane. My friend had to start banking left and right, left and right to slow down his forward progress. We knew we were going to end up at the airport, but we had to avoid it for a while. I got airsick and almost barfed. Avoiding writing is a lot like that. I know I have to sit down and do it, but I can delay it by going to the store or a bakery or to the ever-beckoning fridge. I'd eat, or walk and eat, or anything but write, but the whole time I'd know I was meant to write because I told myself I needed to write.

So, there you go. You can let me off the hook by saying, "It's okay, don't write, you've done enough, it's all good." Or, you could say, "Write, write, write! Never stop!" And I'd have no excuse, possibly even be encouraged and then, even more possibly, my mind would unlock and I could write again. So, what'll it be?

Okay, here I go to the fridge....

The fog and the mock Chinese

Here it is Sunday and the sun has rustled by in her long skirts, hastening to the evening performance at the horizon. The breeze is lifting the leaves lightly on the ornamental plum in my neighbor's yard, tickling them, teasing until they all turn, smiling prettily, flirting with the boys. This is when the day begins to shift to evening time. Twilight, the shy good-looking end of the day, is stretching its arms and preparing to dance with the moon.

We've been seeing a full arc of weather every day lately. Fog rolls in, picks his teeth absentmindedly and checks out the sports page, obscuring the sun for most of the morning. Eventually she tires of him, thinks him a boor and by midday sends him packing. When we get to day's end, we are feeling as if summer actually exists, but the experience is short-lived. Fog shuffles back and sits on the trees and park grass, lolling around, ignoring angry stares and muttered grumblings from us all. It's just the way it is here.

The sun has a better time of it over in Monterey. She has set a limit and holds her line at about the crest of hills that border Monterey and Pacific Grove. She puts her foot down, and the fog generally takes heed. But, over here, it's different. Here the peninsula sticks into the bay like a referee. The ocean currents wrestle one another and take down small boats, kick up spray and pound the shoreline. The victor hauls kelp up on the beach, spoiling the fine blond sand until high tide cleans the stinking strands away.

You'll need a jacket, good walking shoes and a plan if you're going to venture out. Your best bet is to get out at about 8 in the morning. Go get a real cappuccino at Juice 'N Java downtown or up on the hill (Forest Ave.) you can go to B's Coffee. Both will get your heart started and fortify you for our version of summer. Then, you'll be ready for a ride or a good walk where you can take a look around.

PG is gearing up for a weird but charming little festival - The Feast of Lanterns - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you've dealt with the elements in the summertime on our Peninsula. Over 100 years ago, the local assemblage of Protestant summer campers were bored and very cold. It was July and even though drinking and partying were not ever to be indulged in, something really had to change. Being fervently religious white folks, they decided to host a Chinese pageant and dress up like princesses. They floated a mock dragon in the little bay at Lovers Point and set off fireworks, all in an effort to divert attention from the penetrating chill of the fog. Further back in time there were actual Chinese people living in a rickety collection of shacks where Hopkins Marine Station is now, so perhaps in an odd tribute to the now-vanished community, the white folks invented an odd, quirky festival that continues to this day.

In a nutshell, the pageant includes belly dancers, samba drummers and little kids with big voices who sing the Star Spangled Banner. Princess Jasmine (always played by a hand-picked white girl on her way to sorority membership in college) and her Court escape the Evil Mandarin and eventually everyone lives happily ever after. Then someone turns into a Monarch Butterfly, and a huge display of fireworks turns the fog pink, blue, white and purple with loud percussive thumps. It's very grand, and everyone cheers wildly and cares not one whit about its silliness. It takes your mind off the clammy fog and absence of bikinis, off the raccoons throwing pine cones at you from the storm drains and deer chasing your dog off the lawn. It takes your mind off the wind that blasts down from the north and from the sun who's gone into hiding after her aria at midday. It reminds you that we are cornered over here and shoved up against the big cold Pacific but that we are living here, doing our thing in our specific but quirky little groove.

Waiting for Summer

Summer has reverted back to its old patterns after trying on some unusual heat last year. With a sigh, it has settled onto the sofa and is taking a nap until fall. Then, I'm hoping, it will awaken and dash around raising the heat and ripening the fruit in the trees. We are cold here because everywhere else is hot. It just works that way. The big deep cold Pacific is being asked to provide cool air after the warm air inland - hot air actually - rises into the heavens, creating a vacuum that the cold air tries to fill. The provision of coolness comes in the form of fog for us, cold, formless, persistent. There has been enough fog lately that cars are beaded with moisture in the morning. They look as if someone had turned the hose on them all night. The rooftops are wet and water pings in the downspouts every morning.

I feel so hopeful every day, looking for sun, wishing for warmth, remembering a suntan. Vine-ripened tomatoes are the stuff of wistful conversations among gardeners around here. "I wish I could just grow tomatoes," my friend said today at breakfast. "My roses look so bad." She pantomimed a withered and sickly being, weakened by pests and mold. "You should just forget about roses in Pacific Grove."

My roses are trying hard, but every bug and ailment known to science is now afflicting them. All for the lack of good warm sun.

Well, on the positive side, we do have plenty of calm here. And gray. Also, we have an abundance of guano, but that's only really a benefit for, well, I'm not sure, but there must be a benefit. So, there you go. A calm, gray, bird-shit-laden town that remembers it once grew tomatoes somewhere else.

A glimpse

He reclined in his chair and felt his body gradually relax. He inhaled quickly and let the accumulated clang of the day become muffled and then silent. He sipped from a cool tall elegant glass and felt the beaded moisture on its surface, ran his fingers up and then down one side of it. The light was dim in the room and the distant city was now quiet.

Then, he saw her silhouette in the doorway. She stood and regarded him, her arms at her sides. He noticed one single finger fluttering, almost imperceptibly.

"Do you like my shoes?" she asked. They were all she was wearing, but she wore them very well.

"New?" he asked.

"Do you?" Her eyelids lowered and the slightest wisp of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

"Will it cost me?"

"Could."