Bravery Remembered

It's Memorial Day.  Today, as is every day in my small town, quiet, bucolic and very peaceful.  Teenagers may be bored to tears with the uneventful course of events here, but they are delivered from evil, essentially shielded from war and death, shrieking missiles and insane dictators because teens at other times and other places made sure we were.  They'll learn eventually.  They'll learn that young men 17, 18, 19 and older - their own age - faced horror and vicious insanity while at war, lost their lives, or were torn to pieces and lived to tell the awful tales.  The contrast is almost too much to fathom:  Peace and entitlement versus bitter war and tremendous bravery.

Children are playing at the water's edge at Lovers Point while tiny wavelets wash sleepily at the sand.  The families and tourists enjoying a leisurely stroll are not subject to any sense of fear or threat of death.  None of them probably ever will, at least at the hands of foreign invaders.  There are no land mines, no shelled houses used as gun bunkers, no coiled razor wire around our town.  We are content, happy, safe and sound.  No, there is laughter, gentle chatter and singing.  Radios are playing pop music and the food stand is selling hot dogs and fries.  The difficult choices of the day revolve around when to start the barbecue and whether to see a movie or stay at home and watch a DVD.

I have lots of opinions about political decisions to start or continue wars; that's another story.  I am taking a moment to remember what various heroic and ordinary acts were performed by people I never had the chance to meet and will probably never hear of.  I watched some of the episodes of The Pacific on HBO earlier this month.  It was depressing, as all war is, but the fact is that thousands and thousands of very, very young men died in uniform under fire at the hands of sworn enemies is so hugely in contrast with what I and my friends and family freely do every day of our lives cannot be shaken from my mind.

Thank you a thousand times, unknown soldiers, whatever you were like in your lives.  I have no illusions that war is going to end someday; that is the ultimate sadness.  But, I am today remembering and I am appreciative of sacrifices and pain suffered for the sake of my and my family's peace.  Thank you, brave people who died, so that I will never have to be tested in that most horrible way.  I am grateful and humbled.

Mood Shift: A Reminder

Sometimes you feel your mood shift to dark and ugly, and you don't really know what monkey is driving it, who's sitting on your shoulder kicking you, keeping you off balance.  Bad news, foolish behavior and mean spiritedness - even if masked by disdain and indifference in those around you - effect a poverty of attitude that can overtake you.  

Zen masters practice mindfulness and simplicity.  Perhaps I need to meditate.  What I do know is:  I need to be outdoors, moving in open spaces near fresh water.  The sound of any water is as good to me as gold piled up to the ceiling; if it's a running stream, fresh and cool, I know there is a god.

At 7 this morning we were beachcombing at the ocean's edge with the morning light throwing sand, rocks and wind-riffled waves into sharp relief.  It was quiet and still except for small waves breaking lightly, shushing themselves.  It made the ocean sound like it was breathing.

No fog today; blue sky arched from yesterday to tomorrow and the slightest of air moved through everything.  Memorial Day visitors are getting an eyeful of what our region is renowned for:  A beauty that's both soft and rugged, a condition of contrasts and compelling iconic scenery.  Trees grow out of rocks.  Steep cliffs are sprinkled with tiny brilliant flowers.  The soft blue ocean is bitterly cold.

We drove far up Carmel Valley from the coast to say hello to friends at The Cachagua General Store, which cannot be described in usual ways.  Suffice it to say that far up the valley, even amid vineyards and ranches, is a small parallel universe of folks who have eddied out of the mainstream, thumbing their noses at convention and conformity, rambling down life's path to the beat of a roughshod drummer who drinks beer, loves real dogs and keeps guns as a god-given right.  Cachagua is the anti-Carmel, a tattooed and sometimes drug-bedeviled community of rebellious misfits, some with hearts of gold and good intentions, some not so.  Michael Jones is the chef, inveterate soccer fan, ravenous consumer of all things literary and crazy man at the helm of A Moveable Feast, catering events all over the county and beyond. You do not want to offend this man; he plays with fire and knives, and he's Irish.  That should be enough warning for you.

You can get a rich and decadent eggs benedict if the place is open on Sunday for brunch, which we did today.  It was satisfying to be in a place where the owner's dog stopped by for a backrub, Simon and Garfunkel sang on the stereo and the "waitress" wondered if we were there to eat.  People stop by to say hi all the time, so she checks.

The hills were showing signs of early summer drying, but wildflowers were blooming in the shade of oaks and laurel trees on the way to the county reservoir called Los Padres.  It had been years since I'd been there, far too long.  After our meal, we set out to see how Spring was laying on the hills up there.  

There's a walk of about a mile or less to the dam from a dirt parking lot near a gate.  It's very wide and very easy for most people.  Loaded down with food in our bellies, the going was a tad slow.  I thought about how differently we walk when barefooted and with shoes on, how dominant one feels when shod.

The dam water was flowing over its spillway, producing a soothing and lulling steady sound.  When the rains have been heavy, the place thunders and shakes; the entire spillway is a torrent.  The lake behind the dam was very serene with one kayaker off in the distance fishing for trout.  There was a riffling scuff of wind on its dark blue surface.

We poked around and explored, enjoying the experience of being alone in a semi-natural place.  The air was sweet with riparian woods and fresh running water.  I could have sat by the water in the shade down below the spillway for a long time.  I felt like a visitor, a foreigner, out of place only because I do not make time to go to places like that often enough.

I remembered how off balance I had felt yesterday and earlier this morning. I was reminded yet again that foregoing perverse and disturbing aspects of human behavior for long bouts of time in nature is absolutely and undeniably what I need to be stable and healthy.

Science Tries to Explain Tiny Super Heroes

Hollywood is fascinated with superheroes now, unlikely creatures who overcome adversity to do good in the world, using super powers and abilities.  Like Iron Man, Superman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Johnny Depp.  Oh, well, anyway....

CGI, computer-generated images, dominate blockbuster movies to an extreme, with high drama, ridiculous odds stacked against determined good guys.  Their bodies are transformed from weak and powerless to blazing strength or unusual powers with which they can overcome their mortal enemies.

I was back in my garden today and noticed a few superheroes right here in Pacific Grove.  I'm talking about bugs.  Butterflies and bumblebees.  Yep, unsung heroes flitting around right under our noses every day.

Butterflies are pretty, but it's amazing that they can fly; it goes against all aerodynamic design principles.  Bumblebees, same thing.  Not really meant to be flying at all if you look closely at them.  I mean, compared to a peregrine falcon divebombing at 120 mph, a bumblebee or a butterfly is darned close to being laughable.  But, they end up flying hundreds of miles on migration routes.  They can walk up walls, eat pollen and turn it into energy and they start off life as a pupa, for goodness sake.  

If you look at wing design and body weight, bumblebees are supposed to be, well, not flying.  Their wings are stubby transparent and have to flap like the devil in order to just lift off.  But, fly they do.  And they make honey, which in my book is equivalent to any miracle performed in biblical times by anyone.

I saw a chart once that showed how efficient each and every flying or moving machine is.  Bicycles, jets, cars, trains, bumblebees were among many machines measured.  It compared how much energy it takes for the thing to go forward a measured distance, like say 50 feet or so.  A bicycle can coast, just rolling forward almost without effort, using less energy than it takes to walk on foot.  A jet is fast but it costs a fortune to fuel up.

A bumblebee is an efficiency disaster.  It's fuzzy, round, heavy and its wings are not long, nor do they provide lift.  A butterfly is something else altogether.  Watch one fly and you see Attention Deficit Disorder in action, but it's pretty, so they get away with it.

Scientists, who hate not to know things, have mapped out how a butterfly's wings work when they flap and how it is that they can actually move anywhere intentionally.  I'll bet that took patience.  They concluded that the butterfly is shoving air into a whorl of air and then using that to push themselves forward.  Very similar to making your own tornado which blows you forward, but on a teeny tiny scale. Definitely not fuel efficient, but effective enough that butterflies are making it work all over the world.

But, they migrate hundreds of miles, sometimes thousands.  We have famous migrating butterflies in our town ("Butterfly Town, USA!") called Monarchs that come from Mexico.  I personally think I would not be able to get from here to Mexico very easily if I had to walk under my own power.

Next butterfly you see, take a close look if it will let you.  I'm telling you, you do not need computer-generated imagery to get super power action to watch.  A butterfly or bumblebee is a tiny super hero, wings beating like mad, almost no brain on board, doing things humans can only dream of.  Just one of those wonders of nature we almost always overlook, ready to amaze us if we notice.

A House Well Loved

In regard to houses, love is a force of nature.  It fends off gravity, wind, and heat.  

It doesn't take long for an abandoned house to really look shabby, dog eared, long in the tooth.  If a house stands empty for long at all, even if the folks who live in it are only gone for a few weeks, dust, leaves and weeds start creeping in.  I think old left-behind houses look senile and bedraggled, unhappy.

I went for a walk today and noticed one or two houses on my route that have been left to their own devices for a long time.  Paint is peeling, wood is cracking; dirt is sifting into cracks and splits in the paving bricks. Little weeds are taking a toehold and turning them into real land claims, splitting pavement pieces farther apart.  The inexorable forces of nature are turning them into hovels, little by little.

I've noticed that wallpaper hanging on the walls needs warm bodies walking past to remain smooth.  The carpet on the floors needs feet padding across it to stay supple.  Windows need voices vibrating off of them to keep them crack free.  Seems as soon as a house is left alone for a while, it realizes it and its windows all break and the place looks bedraggled and sad.

We build our houses and they need us inside of them as much as we need to be inside them.  There might be something else to it, but I think it's love, one way or another.

Taurus's Spring

The merrie, merrie month of May is settling up its accounts and preparing to leave town.  The fifth month began under the reign of Taurus the Bull, one of the most powerful signs of the Zodiac calendar.  Bulls, if you have not met one up close and personal, are big powerful beasts with fearsome appearances, and are generally not welcome in china shops.

When you can see the stars at night and know where the giant Orion is, imagine him fending off Taurus with his sword.  The Bull is charging at him, frozen in mid stride with head lowered, ready to skewer the massive Greek hero, glaring at him with a bloodshot eye.

Taurus is associated with the renewal of Spring, so he occupies a prominent position at the height of the Zodiac calendar.  Pretty much intent on getting after all the cows he could,  he was considered an emblem of virility and male strength, probably inspiring many a Greek teenager chasing after young maidens in the Mediterranean countryside.

I'm hoping May will go charging out with a bit more heat and vigor than it has been showing of late.  The Bull this year has been a bit docile and anemic.  But, it is Spring and we are doing fine with all the showers and rain.  Just today, it rained for an hour.  The sun is peeking out now, and the Groove is looking renewed and refreshed, just in time for a long Memorial Day weekend.  Then, we'll see what June might bring.

Specific Changes to Specific Groove

In case you haven't been here lately at Specific Groove, I have a new look!  I've been exploring the settings on the blog site to perk up the appearances, update information and change the settings.  It's been fun; I'll change things around every now and then to keep your interest up as well as mine.  In addition to this blog, I am working on a professional website which I hope to launch by the middle of June.

If you can, take a minute to tell me how the changes are working out.  I think I've reached the point in this process where I can only make it worse instead of better unless I take a break and look again later with fresh eyes.  I'll be looking forward to hearing from you.

Also, feel free to pass along my blog URL:  www.specificgroove.blogspot.com to friends and friends of friends when you think of it.  I know the odd post now and again gets into the hands of new readers, so my fame is spreading (well, I like to flatter myself every once in a while).

Eventually, the site will "migrate" so I can incorporate other features I don't get to use now, including video clips and slide shows, among other things.  For now, this is what I've come up with.

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Comments?  Feel free........

Beauty at the Farmer's Market

Farmers laid out their wares in Pacific Grove at the Farmer's Market.  Attendance seemed sparse.  I was very happy to be there and wished I'd had a lot more money with me to spend on armfuls of flowers.  As it was, I bought petrale sole, squash and red flame raisins, took pictures and kept memories, which I've been enjoying.  If only the flowers had the power to fend off the cold wind that's been blowing since then.

I have a few examples of beauty to show you, so enjoy.  I'll be back writing again tomorrow...

Automatic Breakfast

In the morning, after a night's sleep that left me feeling like I had suffered some sort of defeat at the hands of an unruly mob, I stand in the kitchen and try to focus.  Coffee has been made and is cooling slowly in the coffee pot.  I rub my eyes and recall odd images from my sleep, feel unsure of my balance, just a little.  Why did I get up, I wonder.  Shouldn't I be sleeping longer than this?

I can't figure out what to do.  I take two steps toward the sink and stop.  No.  Not time for food yet. Two steps back toward the bedroom.  I stop again, rub my eyes some more, frown.

Back into the kitchen and stop.  Coffee?  I decide yes coffee.  I can't remember what that means though.  Mug?  Yes, mug.

Find mug, shuffle to coffee pot, pour some into the mug I find in the cupboard.  Set it on the table.  Food?  No, not food.  Food later.

I go to the fridge and open it, overriding my own decision.  It's an instinct, I guess, a reflex action.  Stand me in front of a fridge and I will reach in and get food out and cook it.  Well, it looks like no food after all.  Fridge is pretty empty.  Some primitive wrinkled Neanderthal part of my brain takes as a challenge:  Make something from nothing.  I take stock and formulate a plan, but it takes a while.  Brain synapses are wearing frumpy sweaters and complaining.  I go and get the mug from the table, sip the strong liquid, hoping to feel fortified and more alive sometime soon.

Somehow with the moving and shuffling, I am feeling reassembled.   Coffee is running around my brain throwing circuits back on, turning on the lights.  It's weird, but I can feel it happening.

Ancient inborn reactions to food are occurring:  I am in a kitchen, there is an onion in my hand.  Must be time to cook.  I feel like a detached observer of my own hands, which are flying into action.

Pan on the burner, blue flame is licking underneath.  Onion on cutting board is stripped of its paper, stem end cut off.  Sharp knife slices end to end and the onion falls into two halves.  Radial cuts of the cool onion and then cross cuts formed small cubes.  Pan's hot; in goes olive oil and some butter, which wrinkle and squirm as they warm quickly over the heat.  Onion dashes into the pan and hisses in surprise.  A minced quarter of red pepper joins the onion.  They soften steadily, and their aroma lifts up into the kitchen, right past my nose.  A flick of salt, a few grinds of pepper, dust it with dill, a pinch of oregano, a few leaves of basil.  Looks and smells pretty respectable.  

Two eggs are cracked into a bowl and beaten rapidly.  They foam and swirl to a soft yellow.  The onion sizzle is good; time to fold egg into the pan, so in it goes.  A bit more butter.  Grated parmigiano like a little snowstorm drifts over the nearly done frittata.  One tortilla left in the whole universe and it's landing in a warm pan next to the egg pan.  It puffs up, sending up the warm nutty fragrance of toasting grain. The food is done, ready to eat.  

I set the plated food down and look at it steaming before me.  I warm up the cuppa joe with more from the pot and sit down to something like a miracle: Food prepared by an expert.  Everything's quiet again. What just happened?  I'm feeling like someone else just cooked in some parallel universe kitchen and handed the food across to me.  It's good, tender, and my mean dreams are all gone with the night.  More coffee and I can call it a morning.

Now it's time to write.

Innocent

It's Sunday.

My mother is handing me a small circle of lace and a couple of bobby pins.  I am meant to pin it to my hair in preparation for attending mass at our church.  She has already started a roast in the oven which is now cooking slowly, and its embedded garlic cloves are aromatic, devilishly tantalizing.

"Why do I have to wear this thing?"  I ask.  "It will just come off.  See?"  I try to pull it off, but her hand stops mine.  I think about how to get sick really fast so I can stay home from church.  Nothing comes to mind.  I am unhappy for a moment, but I smell the roast cooking.  I think that's what heaven must smell like.    

"It's a sign of reverence," says my mother as she helps me pin on the lace.  She's looking around for her rosary and makes sure I have mine.

My sisters are looking for kittens outside in the backyard even though they have their best Sunday clothes on.  I want to see those kittens, too, I think.  I'm not very sure what reverent really is.  I feel exasperated and impatient.  I am beginning to feel my stomach rumble with appetite.

"Boys don't have to.  Why do I?"  I complain.  Boys get to be altar boys; girls don't.  Boys get to ring the bells and do important work at the altar.  Girls get to do nothing at all.  I feel demoted to second class.

The answers are vague to me, unfathomable:  "Because.  I said so.  They were supposed to teach you that in catechism."

She looks at my lace circlet, pats my head, then turns around and calls my sisters in.  I hear them out in back, excited about the new litter of kittens hidden under a bush at the side of the house.  They seem like a litter, too:  Unruly, curious, not ready for going to mass. They are shooed back into the house, then out the front door and into the car.  My brother, an altar boy, is gone already on his bike to get ready for  mass at the church.  I want to ride a bike to church and wear pants.  I don't want to wear a token lace head covering and be reverent.  

We are off to mass finally.  I begin hoping that Father John will make it quick today so we'll be able to go home again and eat a big Sunday dinner and then play outside.  We have "fasted" the night before, eating fish sticks and salad.  Fish sticks!  The words themselves reek with grease and processed seafood.  I think of cat food and the kittens under the bush, hiding with their mother.  I wonder if they're also Catholic, like we are.

"Mom, are cats Catholic?  Why do we have to eat fish on Friday?  Can't we just give it to the cats?"  I was at an age where magic was just as strong as truth.  I want the kittens to go to heaven with me someday and hope they'll be reverent so they can make it.

"It's penance."

"What's penance?" Is penance a kind of magic, I wonder.  It doesn't seem so because of the way she is saying it.  It seems like punishment.  To get to heaven, I have to be reverent and get penance.  There are a lot of rules, mysteries, obstacles.

Little by little I am learning that not much makes very much sense. Getting to heaven is going to be complicated.  It seems like the rules are not really rules, the stories wild confabulations, the standards different for everyone.  The bible stories are wild and disconnected.  Pillars of salt, water turning into wine, walking on water.  God seems like a mean guy a lot of the time, but Jesus is interesting.  He has special powers and likes children.

But, I am stuck on this penance stuff.

"It means you have to give something up for your sins."  It sounds like subtraction, like a math problem.  Now the baffling idea of what my sins might be stops me again.  I don't think I have committed any sins.  I am pretty sure of it actually.  Sins are things like killing people, coveting your neighbor's wife, stealing, taking God's name in vain.

Seems like I have to add coveting to penance and reverence.   The list of big Catholic ideas that are strange and unwieldy for a girl like me is growing.

"What sins?"  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.  I stole my sister's stuffed animal.  My sister didn't have a stuffed animal that I wanted.   I remembered the dark reaches of the small confessional where the priest pretending to be God needed to hear me say something, so I made up a story.   He tells me to say three Hail Marys and five Our Fathers.

I don't want to miss out on heaven.  I think about jumping around in white billowing clouds and perfection and gold everywhere.  I want the kittens to jump around up there with me and eat the fish sticks so I don't have to anymore.  I want the roast beef with garlic tucked in its sides and mashed potatoes and gravy and dessert.  

"Eat your fish sticks and then you can have dessert," my mom had said to me last Friday night, hoping bribery would quell my consternation and puzzlement.

"I have to eat fish sticks, but I can have dessert?"

"We give up meat on Fridays as a sign of penance.  It's a way of paying for the sins of the world."

The sins of the whole world?  I'm a kid!  It's an impossibility.  Perversely, it makes me want to go do something wrong, bad, mean, so I can feel my own actual guilt instead of taking on the guilt of all the other people in the world, who are mostly grown-ups anyway.

Mass is long and there is a lot of standing, sitting, standing and then kneeling.  I see my brother up there with three other boys doing the rituals at the right time.  He gets to ring the bells that signal when the host is raised up high and when the priest drinks wine and then blesses the little white communion disks.  Everyone shuffles up in a line for their turn to be given a disk on their tongue.  I get one, and it has no flavor.  I try to make it last a long time in my mouth, but it melts quickly away.  Body of Christ.  I try to think of Jesus, and he is tasteless, like Wonder Bread, and it's very disappointing.

Finally, we're free, set loose into the sunshine and I yank the floppy lace doily off my head and hand it over to my mom, who stuffs it into her purse while she's talking with the other moms and ladies of the church, out on the asphalt in the courtyard.  They're talking a lot, and it seems interminable, pointless.  

I just want food, to go home and eat the savory beef and be free to play and live outside and see little cats playing in the yard.  I want nothing to do with penance and guilt and coveting.  My spirit is filled with the sunshine and fresh blowing breeze, and it blows the feelings of demotion far away.  I am eight years old and my soul is all my own, unscathed by life's coming wounds, still years away.

Sun and Food - A Song To Listen To

With the fridge door wide open, a few cheeses, a red bell pepper, mushrooms, tortillas, lettuce and some leftover chicken tomato sauce looked back at me and began a song I hear if I'm listening.  

The brie called to me more clearly than the jack and cheddar did, so I pulled it out of its bin.  Tortillas joined chicken tomato sauce on the countertop.  Sunshine splashed on the floor and blazed outside.  I went out into it; it washed over me.

I sat in the sun with my bare feet on warm wooden steps.  A breeze rustled the trees.  The brie did not hold up to the sauce, of course, it being too mild and tender to do so, but I separated the two of them with tortilla bites, and we were all satisfied, glad to be in the warm daylight, listening to the day and our song.

After the tortilla was gone, I put away the rest of the sauce.  Then, raisins and honey were singing to me on their shelves with light voices.  I set them down next to another tortilla and the brie.  The tortilla was eaten cold with a plop of semisolid honey in its middle joined by a small gathering of raisins.  I saw a Meyer lemon  resting in the fruit bowl, so I squeezed it over the tortilla, and its juice wandered through the neighborhood of raisins singing of Sicily.  Brie, with its rind giving a little resistance to each bite, told me about cows in pastures and the nature of patience and aging gracefully.

If you notice, raisins are not simply sweet but also taste of pepper and dirt, or the way dirt smells when it's a little damp and aromatic.  Your mouth waters when you eat a few raisins, in sympathy with their dessication. The honey was joy itself, old and young all at once.  

My appetite was telling me one thing:  Eat.  My mouth was telling me another:  Taste.  My food was telling me the third:  We have lived and been patient during our short lives, we have lived among the bees and raindrops and bring their songs to you.

The sun is very bright.  It recognized the raisins, honey, tortillas and cheese, of course.  How could it not? Food should always be eaten outdoors when the sun is shining.  It's music and color and time that never changes.

200th Post

I am in the groove, there's no doubt about it.  A milestone has been reached.  This is my 200th post on this blog site.  Woo hoooo!!!

I'm a little surprised a big number has rolled around so quickly.

I post daily, and that is piling up a sizable amount of material.  I set the goal to write every single day back in January.  Every author I've ever read about says they write every day, without fail.  So, I'm sticking with that.

Being in a specific groove where writing daily is my requirement for myself has required patience, understanding and great support from my husband, which I appreciate enormously.

What I've found is that using a computer website as my forum requires a power source in addition to my battery.  Also, I need wifi or a computer with internet access to use when I'm traveling.  I like to add pictures, so I take one camera or another with me when I go somewhere.  Writers still use actual paper and so do it at times, but virtual space where I spend a good amount of time daily.  It's slowly but surely becoming a habit, a practice, definitely a commitment.

I am planning blog site tweaks in the coming months and hope to "migrate" my blog site to another "platform," but I'm still in a steep learning curve about how to do that successfully without losing my content and the readers I have already (thank you, everybody, for reading!).  The point of that is to have a web site and include my blog site as a part of it and add in other creative aspects that further represent me as a freelance writer and photographer and....who knows!  Don't worry, so far I'm limiting my singing to the shower.  I dance with the broom and cook for my family and friends.

So, Pacific Grove, Monterey, and the whole county will be my domain for many more blog posts to come.  When I get to the really big number of 1,000 I'll see what I might want to do next.  'Til then, I hope you keep reading.

Pacific Grove Has a Random Plant Killer

"I'm a plant killer.  I try to grow things and they just die.  Do I love them too much?"

A pretty young woman standing in the middle of the greenhouse garden shop looked around at the loveliness surrounding her.  It was a space wafting negative ions into the morning atmosphere, where the morning's bright light was diffused by stained-glass window panels hanging above repurposed dressers and sideboards.  Every little detail of the delicate and beautiful array of garden accessories and gifts was perfect counterpoint to the charm and health of orchids, azaleas, lillies and tea roses; their vitality and freshness perfumed the air.

The clerk smiled benignly.  "I see.  Where do you live in the area?"

Plant Killer described an area beset with cuffing winds and salt air, where the native trees are stunted and lean sideways permanently, at the far western edge of town.  The ocean with its seaweed and gnarled rocks were a stone's throw away from her yard.

This was quite a challenge, even for master gardeners.  At best, local natives could be grown, but there would have to be protection from deer and marauding insects when the plants were babies.

I looked around at the plant selection and saw not one native plant in sight.  Local flora have adapted over zillions of years to the worst that our climate has to offer including hordes of deer, fire and and long droughts in the summer months.  The wind is always a tough adversary, often bringing enthusiastic gardeners to their knees, begging for mercy and whimpering sadly.  The clerk I believe realized she had no chance for a sale today but offered a small suggestion.

"You could start with one indoor plant and see how you do.  Then, maybe later try something outdoors again once you feel more confident."

"I tried an orchid, but it turned black and had mold.  I thought there was a chance I wouldn't kill it, but it's super dead now.  Really dead.  Like, it's crispy."  Plant Killer frowned.  "I really want to grow things!"

I looked at the tender maidenhair fern near me.  I think it trembled.   It wouldn't last a second.  I stood in front of it, guarded it protectively.

The clerk reached for a succulent, a jade plant.  "This is a plant that grows really easily and should do well in your area of town."  Just water it once a week, she said, and don't let it stand in the water; let it drain out, but keep the soil damp, and she told Plant Killer to touch some dirt in another pot to understand the nature of dampness.  "This is just damp.  You don't want wet; you want damp.  If it gets dry, the little roots inside the dirt will be stressed and it will suffer."  She looked up at Plant Killer and studied her and then repeated the instructions.  "Keep it indoors in a bright area of your house where it will get lots of sun. The more sun it gets, the more likely it will dry out quickly, so you have to watch it.  Check it every day."

Plant Killer was listening, leaning into the information, trying to absorb it and understand the needs of plants.  "I really love flowers, but they die on me.  I mean, how hard can it be to grow a flower, you know?  But, that's me.  I just kill them and then I feel so bad," she wailed, "like I'm just pure poison or something.  Here, look.  Is my thumb black to you?" She didn't look murderous nor inept, but apparently she was.  I imagined a black cast to her thumb, like she was made of charcoal, but I was a distance away and trying to look like I wasn't listening.

The clerk gripped the jade plant's pot and seemed to be considering her responsibility to all plant life, her duty to intervene and prevent the certain death of this innocent life form.  I shifted my stance to guard more plants near me.

The clerk went on. "You know, you could just hire a gardener and get some basic plants kind of off and running that way and then see how it's done.  Learn by watching kind of thing, right?"  She set the jade plant down.

Plant Killer considered this and nodded.  "Yeah, I could do that.  Here I'll buy that little sucker plant and let someone else come over and take care of it."

"It's a succulent, really, and I guess that'll be fine.  $2.95 for this."  She asked if there would be anything else.  "No," was the reply, "thank you anyway. I don't feel so deadly now.  I feel like there's hope."

I watched her walk out of the greenhouse, taking a winding path along the crushed granite walkways, gazing at the tender glories on all sides.  She was cradling her new purchase in the crook of her elbow and reaching for her purse on her right.  Good luck, I thought.

A few heartbeats later there was the unmistakable dull cracking smack of a dirt-filled ceramic pot hitting the sidewalk.

"Oh, noooo! I did it already!"  Plant Killer is loose in the city, last seen on Lighthouse Avenue, heading west.  Known to have a very black thumb.

Curtains, Colors and Style - Oh My

About 10 years ago I painted my kitchen "August Morning," a color made by Benjamin Moore that falls in the category of earth tones.  I like it.  A lot.  Then, I painted four other colors in various sections of the room.  So, there are five colors, all told.  I couldn't decide on just one color, so I found a piece of art that I like and used it as a color guide for the kitchen, which then turned into a guide for the whole place.

Today, on the advice of a feng shui expert I consulted back in December, I got busy with a project to balance the colors in my kitchen differently, to accentuate the element of metal in the southwest part of the room, plus to add a bit of the element of water as well.  This is pretty challenging.  I'd long since come up with a balance in the room that I liked, but I was ready for a change and was curious to give feng shui a try.  I think the jury's still out on that one.

Changing colors in an already comfortable room feels the same as when you learn to dance in certain shoes and can move instinctively and well in them, but then you change shoes and your step is a bit off.

The project is coming along okay, but it's in the phase where you are considering about six ideas and none of them are really winning out over any of the others; they all seem worthy of attention and experimentation.  Either that or I'm just not ready to make a decision.  I'm holding out for the wow factor that hasn't shown up yet.

As part of the same project, in order to introduce the element of metal into that part of the room, we bought an antique clock, a Vienna Regulator that has a single brass weight and a swinging brass pendulum.  It's a wall clock, built in 1864, that's simple and trim in its walnut cabinet, a fine, efficient clock that is just the right size and style for our tastes.

Now, I'm regarding two curtain choices and trying to figure out if I want valances, tie backs.  I am looking at color combinations, textures, styles.  The process of shopping and deciding on what I want is infuriating and fun all at once.  It's a love-hate kind of thing because I know in my mind how I'd love to have it all look in the end but almost surely will not be able to get exactly that.  I try to coax myself into compromise for the sake of shortening the time I spend on the project, but at the same time I know I'll just be a grouch about it if I do.  It's just going to take as long as it takes.

In the small bedroom, we are both thrilled with the outcome of the changes we've made and love to be in that part of the house.  There are lots of red accents and the walls are painted to look like aged plaster.  Four colors there, too, but layered, and it looks great.  The rest of the place is, well, evolving.  Now -- back in the kitchen again -- I'm looking for turquoise, silver, and gold.  The idea is to have whimsy and warmth in the room, a home that hugs me with its color.

I put the kabosh on white walls a long time ago, started down a more colorful path of home decor that I've found to be very satisfying.  I'm wobbling down the path right now, full of ideas, trying to keep my eyes on the goal.  Could be awhile though if today is an indicator.

Cannery Row: Love Conquers All

Spring is in the air today - literally.  A seagull sailed overhead, its voice sounded like a rusty hinge, and its mouth stuffed so full of grass and twigs that it could have been mistaken for a flying shrub.  It landed on a rooftop in the neighborhood and continued its call, then presented the shrubbery to its mate, pleased with its success.  

In the last three days I have seen more spring nesting activity than I ever have before.  Yesterday, as I walked past an abandoned commercial lot filled with weeds, trash and detritus on Cannery Row, I saw a large gull walking around in circles, looking around for sticks and dried leaves.  He appeared to be anxious, rather manic if you ask me, and took aim at a scraggly fennel stalk, eyeing it critically.  I don't know how a seagull eyes anything critically, but this seagull had enough focus and intention to look at this fennel with a very intent stare.  Then, he lunged at it, grabbing a large twig in his bill, assuming he was going to fly away with it.  He was obviously thinking he had to get back to the pregnant missus quickly.  My guess was he had forgotten to bring her some of her favorite fish scraps from the wharf and was about to be sent to the proverbial doghouse unless he made up for it with prime nest-worthy twigs.  I heard her scolding in the distance, at the water's edge beyond the cement foundations and crumbled walls.  

The twig was attached firmly to its stalk and wasn't about to surrender, only to become nesting material.  It was rooted firmly in the cracked cement, clinging dearly to what life it had left to it.  The gull was stopped short, and he was very surprised.  He backed up a step and yanked vigorously, and then again, and again.  No luck.

The gull dropped the twig and looked even more intently at the whole plant.  It was a baleful stare this time, the look of a determined, irritated male unwilling to be made a fool of by a mere itinerant weed occupying cast-off space in an overgrown junk yard.  Heck no.  Mind you, the lot was full of other twiggy plants and clumps of grass.  A thousand seagulls descending on the lot to shop for dried material for their dream nests would have all gone away replete, satisfied, happy with the bargains they would have discovered littering the yard.  He could have easily gathered up huge mouthfuls in other areas.  His stubbornness precluded any other options.  The die was cast.  His whole being said, "You and me, bush, this is it.  You're mine."

The gull stood before the mocking fennel.  He looked like a general contractor regarding inferior material laid before him by a second-rate supplier, disgust all over his face.  He lifted his feathers and settled them down again quickly.  He grabbed the base of the plant and clamped down hard with his strong bill and then yanked backwards again.  The plant began to give in.  It made a little shredding sound.  Sensing his moment, he hauled off and yanked one last time.  Snap!  The twig, and the whole rest of the plant was suddenly uprooted from the cracked cement.

Then the gull dropped the offending plant in front of him, vindicated.  He lifted his beak and yelled about it once or twice, then snagged it back up into his beak and took off, sighing with relief I'm sure.  His mate would be happy once again.  No doghouse for this guy, no way.  

I watched all this from my vantage point on my side of the chain link fence, seeing the perfect metaphor for American family life played out right before my eyes.  More specifically, it seemed this gull was a bird straight from the 50s, a bit paunchy, overbearing, his mate a stay-at-home female who was literally feathering her nest, readying for the two chicks to come.  It was kind of weird, but I had no problem imagining martinis shaken and poured at 5 PM, a La-Z-Boy nearby, and bowling shirts hanging in their closet.

In contrast, a community of cormorants balanced serenely on the high cross-members of cannery ruins as they adjusted the nests at their feet.  They lifted their bills in the air when the breeze intensified briefly, sniffing for delicacies and possibilities in the calm sea below their perches.  They took turns diving into the water and dredging up sea lettuce, which they held lightly in their long hooked beaks as they returned to their nests.  Something about their stances and attitudes spoke to me of their work in the shallows of the oceans, swimming with swift strokes, looking for little fish among the rocks and kelp.  They were elegant and keen to socialize but at the same time kept a perfect distance of a wing's length between themselves and their neighbors on either side.  It would have been an affront to them to stare openly, so I averted my eyes when they were exchanging bits of kelp from beak to beak at the nest.

No one has ever seen such a Spring, full of vigor and green life, birds hard at work readying for parenthood.  First came volumes of rain, over and over, with plants of all kinds responding with lush growth and full larders for animal and bird alike.  Now that mating has been accomplished, the next phase of preparation is in full swing.  From all apparent signs, there is a baby boom to come, and it's really going to be something.  I wonder if that gull has considered a minivan yet.  

Home of The Bagel Bakery - Pacific Grove Has Lox of Love

Years ago, in the ebb of the hippie tide, The Bagel Bakery hung its shingle in Pacific Grove and introduced us to bagels.    New Yorkers had long since been noshing bagels, but we granola-ites in California took notice of this ethnic bakery and really dug it.  At the time, everyone was growing sprouts in jars, making their own cheese and growing coleus and spider plants in hand-thrown pots.  We had packing-crate furniture and wine barrels sawed in half for tables.  Right on.

Birkenstock sandals, a leather jacket with fringes on the sleeves, embroidery-decorated jeans and yogurt makers had been on the scene for a while.  Definitely, hair was long and free flowing.  If you knew about the Bagel Bakery, you got bagels there nearly every day.  Bagels could be toasted, covered in herbed cream cheese, date nut cream cheese or honey butter. Kuppermans Delight was a bagel piled with alfalfa sprouts, cream cheese, tomato and a bit of onion.  The bagels were large, had a little bit of doughiness, a bit of crisp crust, an al dente quality that good honest fresh bread has. The bagels available in supermarkets now are tasteless and have a weaker character in comparison.

Bagel Bakery bagels have been a staple menu item at lunch and breakfast potlucks and buffets at businesses around town for four decades now.  Going to the beach in the morning?  Go by one of the Bakeries and grab a half dozen and various cream cheese spreads to share with your friends.  They're good for hikes at Pt Lobos or to take down to Big Sur for a walk at Andrew Molera State Park or a few dozen other places.  They hold up well in conditions like that, much better than muffins or rolls which get squishy or crumbly.  No, the lowly BB bagel is a road-tested local staple, proven long since.

Back in the day Bakery cooks wore floppy cook's hats - a modified beret - over dreadlocks or long braids.  The Grateful Dead played on the stereo speakers, or the Who.  Pink Floyd, too.  Bagels were bagged fresh out of the ovens, piping hot.  The bakery had figured out how to bake their product in the true, classic style using unbleached flours and they were encrusted with sesame seeds, toasted bits of onion or poppy seeds.  Most importantly, the bagels were produced with a key step:  Floating the rising yeast in a salt-water bath, actually a sort of water-borne float trip for the dough circles before they got to the oven for baking.  The bakery cranked out hundreds of dozens of bagels every day, and before long they had opened up several other branches all over the area.

Like almost all cafes and restaurants of the day, the interior of the bakery was made of unfinished pine with rounded corners and hand-lettered signs.  Everything was as hand-made as possible; it was the ethic of the times.  Espresso machines were very rare as were tattoos, Chinese manufacturing and plastics.  Farmers Brothers brewed coffee was still the thing, although tea was making a strong inroad, especially chamomile.    

Things have changed, of course.  Hippies became yuppies and went corporate, lapping up lattes.  The bakeries were sold and are now a modified version of what they originally were, although some of the favorites remain on the menu.  They are tasty, definitely, but the organic energy that was the basis for the bakeries' success has morphed into a local deli atmosphere, which is fine.

So today, I went down memory lane heading straight for the Bakery.  My car was struggling and needed repair.  Lucky for me, the repair garage is just uphill from the strip mall on Forest Avenue where the bakery lives now.  (There are about five other locations including Carmel, Monterey and Salinas.)  With a little time to kill,  I walked in and ordered a still-warm sesame seed bagel slathered in cream cheese, piled with thinly sliced tomatoes and red onion and then a few tender sheets of lox.  Bless you, broken car, for giving me an opportunity to relax and savor bagel-ness once again.  

Aromas do trigger vivid memories, and so it is with the fragrance of bagels coming to life in the ovens.  At least the flavor and aroma is still the same even if the tie-dyed shirts and headbands have long since faded away.

Monterey - Becalmed

"Shuuuureeeee!"  Starting low down in the tenor range, then climbing to a hoarse squeal, odd screeching cries of seagulls echoed from fog-soaked rooftops, cement pilings and desultory reaches of the shore.  Dew and splattering runoff sprayed from rusted downspouts to the dampened streets and sidewalks alike.  The ocean looked as flat as a big smooth pond, tranquil and very quiet.  

I was out early for a walk at the shore.  The tide at 7:30 this morning was -1.1 and the swell was only 1-2 feet.  Waves were less than one foot high.  That translates to a sea that's slick as glass.  Seaweed, sea anemones and starfish were naked and exposed to air far above the water level, rarely seen shoreline that's only visible two or three times a year.

When the ocean is that quiet, small sounds made out on the water are easy to hear.  I saw kayakers offshore paddling slowly through kelp beds and sitting still, fishing from their craft.  When I stood still, I could hear the click and bump of their oars.  Small wavelets shushed and lapped on the beach sand.

At that hour, the rocky shore and bits of beach here and there were abandoned, still and quiet.  For once, there weren't any otters in sight.  Gangs of sea lions whose bellowing barks echoed off the hillsides, lay about in heaps and piles at the base of the Coast Guard Pier, hundreds and hundreds of them. A buoy anchored half a mile offshore bobbed every so slightly in the swell.  Its bell sounded mournful and listless, a muffled clang now and then.  The gloom of the chilling fog penetrated every sense, flattened the light, subdued ambition.  No one was about.

Chilled and a little spooked by the unusual quiet, I kept moving, exploring the shore, beachcombing.  Remembering warm days at other shorelines, it was clear that with a splash of sunlight everything would have been transformed, dazzling.  As it was, it felt like huddled expectation, as if a performance were being prepared.

I was slipping between sheets and layers of time this morning, with the world holding its breath, ready to exhale and then get back to the more common dimensions of time and energy.  Any initiative for change would have to come from offshore, miles away.  The soft gonging clamor of the buoy offshore continued to ring, and sealife was murmuring to itself,  becalmed as the sea itself.  Stillness prevailed and required me to accept that quietude was enough, in and of itself.  No further events were to occur.  It was just a simply peaceful and very quiet time, the very essence of living silence.  

Pacific Grove - Is Summer Really Winter?

"Summer's back in Pacific Grove," say the locals, laughing but shivering.  We're all freezing to death and turning on our heaters.  Coffee houses are doing a booming business with fireplaces lit and customers huddled, holding their coffee mugs like handwarmers.  Fog enshrouds every feature of landscape and trees drip with moisture like miniature rainstorms.  Seagulls sit forlornly in the chill morning air, unwilling to fly.  Chances are slim for any glimpse of sun if you are within ten miles of the coast.

We have hit a steady 57 degrees for the midday high, and that's without wind chill.  It's really odd to go through a 14-hour daylight period of time and never be able to tell what time of day it really is.  8 AM looks exactly like noon, which looks exactly like 4 PM.  You lose your sense of direction.  People stagger a bit.  Fog legs are like sea legs.  You live in the fog for a while and go to sunny places, and you feel exposed, uncertain, blinded.

In a total display of atmospheric irony, people getting baked to death who live inland in the Central Valley in Modesto or Fresno or Stockton come to the coast for relief and feel refreshed, enlivened and thrilled to have escaped the heat.  At the same time, we fog-shriveled coast dwellers jump in our cars and head for the heat, hoping desperately to be able to see our own shadow for a few hours and dry out our clothes and hair.

"Well, I'm layin' out my winter clothes and wishin' I was home, goin' home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me."  - excerpt from The Boxer by Paul Simon

I used to listen to that song all the time and wonder what winter clothes were, being a kid growing up in sunny California.  I did have a jacket for winter, but a whole set of clothes for the winter season?  Nyah...

Now that I've been in Pacific Grove for a while, I wonder if there are anything but winter clothes.  I've been wearing the same things every day for the past year except for the time I spent in Hawaii in February.  I don't expect to have anything but the shivers for a few more months.

Time to go raid REI for some new summer gloves and maybe a pair of fleece-lined summer pants.  It's just part of the specific groove of living here.  Fungus Corners, aka Pacific Grove is truly cool.  Right on, baby, that's awesome.  Warm fuzzy clothes in the summertime.

Food Choices and Cherimoyas

I've been trying out unusual food items from the store lately - unusual to me, anyway.  I set up a few rules for myself based on my own ethics (low carbon footprint, if possible; organic; produced by an independent farmer or manufacturer) and then see what I can find.  

Last week, I tried a cherimoya for the first time, produced on a farm in Santa Barbara.  It has the exact same color as a raw artichoke, is shaped like a pointed globe and has curious segments on the outside that look like a finger has smoothed the skin of the fruit one stroke at a time.  Inside, the fruit has a soft creamy color and texture like a papaya or mango.  The flavor is very delicate, sweet and fragrant; maybe an odd cross between a very mild strawberry and a pineapple.  There is an interesting array of large seeds inside, kind of like apple seeds on steroids, that are not edible.

You cut the fruit from top to bottom in half and lay it open.  The seeds are immediately visible and must be scooped out one by one with a spoon.  A grapefruit spoon would be good to use if you had one.  Scooping out the flesh like you would from an avocado, you remove it from the tough green skin discarding the skin and seeds.

We sampled the fruity soft inside with some fresh pineapple, but it would also be good with several other fruits that have a slightly more acid note.  Strawberries, kiwi, berries.  With practice you could develop some finesse about scooping the fruit out and preserving some form, but ours was a little messy.  Fun to try it out; a new choice to add to the list for spring fruit.

This brings us to what are called heirloom fruits.  For a long span of time - 40-50 years - farmers were interested in finding varieties of apples, strawberries, peaches, plums and so on that could survive shipping from one side of the globe to the other, and that quality became a determining factor in selecting hybrids for planting.

When you grow your own strawberries at home, you end up with much smaller, redder, juicier and much more intensely flavored berries than you find at Safeway or Food Mart.  I've heard people say when they taste their own fruit for the first time, "Wow, is that really an apple?  It's so different."

Heirloom fruits are those that have been kept in gardens and grafted or propagated by home gardeners or very small farms.  They are the same fruits that our forebears ate, one of the few things we have in living form that we can experience just as they did.  Through natural selection, grafting and cross pollination, new varieties were developed, a form of genetic manipulation that favored color and flavor.

Recently, corporate farmers are become increasintly interested in finding varieties of apples, strawberries, peaches, plums and so on that could survive shipping from one side of the globe to the other, and that quality became a determining factor in selecting hybrids for planting.

These days, due to manipulation of the very genes of the plants - genetic engineering - gene splicing is being done in a way that allows for far less variability in the resulting plant.  As a matter of fact, cloning is much more prevalent than anything else.  Breeds of plants are developed in labs.  Durability, growing time and cost are determining factors in breed selection.

So, oftentimes, you see a huge field of exactly the same plant x one million, in the case of a big field of spinach or lettuce over in the Salinas Valley or in California's Central Valley.  They are essentially desertlands of only one genetic package.  There's no chance for variation or adaptability in the plant.

So what?

Genetic manufacturing companies want to create the highest degree of sameness and predictability with our foods.  Predictable span of time from farm to table with the least amount of spoilage.  If the food happens to taste like an apple, great.  If not, and it just looks like an apple, that's okay too.

I'm personally not interested in eating an apple that looks like two or three million other apples.  I want to eat an apple grown in real soil that's not fumigated and gassed with poisons.  I'm willing not to eat an apple at all if it's not able to be grown within a hundred-mile distance of my home.

There is a whole lot more about genetic modification and cloning that leaves me cold.  I am able to make a choice for small farms, small markets, genetic variability and resilience based on that.  We have given up a lot by choosing sameness, shelf life over variety.  The choice has to be thought through and made with some focus on the long-term effects of our farming practices.  It's wonderful that we can make a choice, especially in California.  My learning process is ongoing.  Just think how much was prompted by one funny-looking fruit at our local store:  a little cherimoya.

New In Pacific Grove

Pacific Grove is sporting some new stores along its main streets.  From one end of town to the other, along Lighthouse Avenue and up and down crossing streets, entrepreneurs are giving it a go, filling up once-empty storefronts and feeling optimistic.  

There is a fine new restaurant that's open from 4 PM to closing at the corner of Fountain and Lighthouse, occupying a corner location in the big Holman's building.  It's a French country-style place called Le Normandie whose sure hit is coq au vin, according to many.  The onion soup will send the chill right out of your bones.  This is not a place to find experimental high-priced or highfalutin Cal-Euro food. Instead long-loved classic French favorites are cooked to a delicious turn on a nightly basis.  During our currently cool and breezy weather conditions, you feel well-fortified after a meal, content, satisfied.  It opened very quietly a few months ago and is doing well by all accounts.  The owner will greet you with a smile and lovely hospitality when you go.

Further along Lighthouse Avenue, heading west toward the post office, you will notice a new venture called Carried Away that has only been open a week.  They feature ladies handbags, accessories and small items for the home.  The proprietress also owns, with her husband, Miss Trawick's Garden Shop, a popular garden and home gift shop found around and below the Red House Cafe.  Both shops are fun to browse around and chat with the owner.  Very friendly and both very pretty shops.  Guests who stay down at the Centrella Inn or at the Gosby House Inn - two popular B&Bs in town - enjoy a very short and easy stroll to find gift shops, book stores, cafes and beauty boutiques nearby.

On Forest Avenue, just down from Grove Market is a new baby supply boutique shop called Sprout Baby Boutique, filled with unusual and unique clothing and small items for people newly arrived on earth.  The shop is very small, but the owner carries a full array of hard-to-find special shoes for babies and toddlers as well as things you may only otherwise find at boutique websites online.

Forest Avenue is now lined from top to bottom with all sorts of browseable small shops, most oriented to families and locals who style themselves non-Target, small-town locals.

Pacific Grove, like the entire Monterey Peninsula is anticipating a vigorous influx of visitors who will be here for the US Open Golf Championship in June.  Trees along Lighthouse are to be lit with thousands of sparkling lights in the evening.  US flags will flutter from the lamp posts and merchants will be fully stocked.

Carmel will be impacted during the tournament with people who love to poke and wander around.  They will be rewarded with fine restaurants, cafes and enough art galleries to satisfy the most energetic and determined art collectors; there are over a hundred galleries.  However, the prices are high in Carmel and parking is at a premium.  

The new stores on Lighthouse are good signs of economic energy, and every store owner is ready to welcome you.  We may have cold air here in PG, but we have warm hearts.

Ride That Bike

By the time you read this, it will be or will even have been Bike To Work Day.  CycleAware, in Pacific Grove is offering a free breakfast for bike commuters who take part in the effort to ride to work instead of drive.

I used to ride my bike everywhere.  I carried a lock, stuffed what I needed in a backpack and pedaled my way around town, to and from every destination I could imagine.  I didn't get my driver's license until I was 21.  For a long time, I couldn't afford to have a car.  Even so, I thought riding my bike everywhere was cool.  I saved money and was really healthy.  What's not to like about that?

These days, I drive for 10 minutes to go four miles to the community college.  On my bike it took me 15 minutes.  I wasn't racing to get places; I rode steadily and did just fine.  When cars are stuck in commuter traffic, a bicycle can outdo a car by quite a lot.  Certainly, a bicycle is virtually silent in comparison to cars and motorcycles.  You definitely know more about the places you ride through; your senses are more alive.

Of course, riding is work at times, especially if you have to go up a few hills.  You need to account for time to regain your composure after you've just pedaled a few miles to your doctor's office or the movie theater, and you need a safe place to get your bike secured.

Things have changed for the better in a few ways for cyclists since I was riding a lot.  For instance, my bike then was heavier than the one I have now.  Biking products are sleeker, lighter and better looking compared to what was available back in the day.  Just for an obvious comparison, when I first began riding habitually, there were no hardshell helmets for cyclists.  Then, first-generation helmets looked like plastic buckets with stupid red stripes on them.  Not so cool.  Now, they are all colors of the rainbow and weigh about three ounces.

If riding is so darned cool and makes so much sense, why are you and I not riding our bikes hither and yon?  

As I look back over the past few decades, it's pretty simple:  Cars seduced me.  I gradually yielded to the forces of automotive allure, cultural peer pressure.  Face it, the sound of a big engine rumbling under the hood of a really fast car is fun.  I liked getting somewhere without being sweaty.  I got there faster.  I could get there on dark or rainy nights, and I could carry a lot more stuff with me, and I could get somewhere with my stereo playing cool songs on six speakers.  I could temperature control my world and ride in cushioned comfort.  I could take a few people with me if I wanted to.

Cars, as I don't even have to tell you, are bubbles of insouciance, insulating us from the world.  We hear what we want to hear, do whatever we want to do or say, and no one can penetrate our blissful cocoon unless we want them to.  We are separate, aloof, unconcerned, disconnected and just fine with that, thank you very much.

It definitely has been a trade-off, this switch away from cycling under my own power to powering along rivers of asphalt, encased in a steel-and-rubber universe, although it does seem like overkill to employ a one-ton machine to move a 150 lb. human around.  I can convince myself I'm independent and cool as long as I forget that I'm not as fit and I weigh more now.  I spend a lot more of my income on my transportation costs like insurance, maintenance, fuel, and parking fees.  My car takes up a lot more space.  And it pollutes.  You don't think your car pollutes?  Go breathe the exhaust and see how you like that.  A few hundred million cars all doing that to the air every day and you begin to feel sick.  At least I hope you do, because then I know you have a conscience about your effect on nature and your fellow creatures.  I know that my car-driving habits contribute to foul air and oil slicks that pollute the waters of the world, which is not only heartbreaking but murderous on so many levels I can't even list them.  So, add guilt to my list of reasons not to drive.

The humble bicycle is the most efficient man-made form of transportation ever invented by mankind.  Period.  Beats a car by a country mile.  Walking and running aren't even as efficient.  You are born to run or walk, but it takes a lot longer to get somewhere, and besides you can't coast downhill like you can on a bike.  

There are so many reasons to ride a bike.  So, why don't I do it?  Habit, or lack of it.  Well, I have to admit, there's a little bit of fear involved, too.  There you go:  It's hard to break old habits or form new ones, and there is fear of injury.  But, stop a minute.  Statistics tell us that driving around in cars like we do kills a large number of our citizenry every year.  It's a large number equivalent to a 747 flopping down out of the sky every single day, killing everyone on board.  So, maybe fear of injury is not a good argument after all.  But, still.  It's a concern.

There are quite a few more cars on the road now than when I was a young frisky cyclist.  Lots of those cars are driven by people talking on cell phones who are paying, at best, 50% of their attention to the road.  I want them to notice me when I'm out there riding my bike, and go around me, not over me. That is my concern.

The balance sheet showing the pros and cons relating to riding my bike is heavily weighted in favor of riding.  These days, I walk for most of my errands.  I drive to work, four miles uphill.  At the peak of my fitness 30+ years ago, I even rode there, too.  I'm not thinking I'll be ready for that anytime soon, but I think I can do my part and use my bike instead of my car for most trips.  I'm willing to give it a go and work up to rides of a more ambitious nature little by little.  

Might as well walk the talk, as they say.  Maybe that should be ride the talk.  One way or another, it's a win-win solution.  

A Growing Hobby

I spent a pretty good amount of time pruning, trimming, sweeping and transplanting today.  Several hours as a matter of fact.  The yard had begun to look like it was getting ready to take over the whole town.  It was a growing insurrection.  

Gardening is like most hobbies.  You are so innocent at the outset. You start out with a plant, a pot and some dirt.  You have a little bit of success, the plant lives for a while and, if it's edible - an herb, say - you get the idea you can grow something else that's useful. Before too long, you have several plants and a few odds and ends, pots, saucers, a trowel.  It's pretty fun!  Then, you get some gloves, then better gloves, and then a few snippers and some fertilizer.  One thing leads to another.  Seed catalogs, gardening books, hoses and watering cans gradually appear.  It's looking like you're ready to feed the whole family, and the bounty of the garden is becoming life-changing, inspirational.  

Then you meet your nemeses.

Bugs arrive in everyone's garden sooner or later.  Death on six (or more) legs.  One day you have beautiful flowers that bob happily in the spring breeze.  The next, you have a sickly yellowed mess.  En masse, bugs descend on your little beauties like Hells Angels arriving at a violin recital.  And there you are trying to fend them off with nontoxic (wimpy) products that you hope desperately will work.  You don't really want to poison anything, especially the earth you've become so proud of.  Earwigs, snails, slugs, aphids, spittlebugs.  Just their names give you the creeps.

Your gardening book says, "Give your plants a blast with the hose to remove aphids and other clinging pests."  Simple enough.  You blast away and really kind of enjoy it, a Valkyrie dispatching the enemy like the unworthy and sullen beings that they are.  Trouble is, the blasts of water also serve to disperse the bugs to other plants where they cling and thumb their noses at you, blow raspberries and plot certain revenge.

You keep trying, remembering the wonderful array of flowers and herbs you'd managed to grow before the Huns arrived in all their hordes, and you have a little luck.  You learn that beer set out in shallow dishes attracts snails and slugs.  You cheer for ladybugs who are said to eat aphids like candy.

You also learn to get out early in the day to check your plants before the little dears have been beaten down by the heat of the midday sun (well, okay, that doesn't often happen here in the Groove, but it's still wise to get out early even in the fog), check for damage overnight, admire the morning blooms of the day lilies and see the dew on the roses as they open.

The big payoff is always what you reap after the battles have been waged and your patience has been strained to the breaking point.  That is, you have an armful of flowers to set in a vase or you have a handful of food to add to the table for the next meal.  Bringing in a harvest, no matter how small, has few equals.  It's well worth the work, by any measure.

I brought in lemons and roses today.  I am thrilled to say I can pick mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary and lavendar when I need them.  Quite a few plants are budding or blooming.  Life is good and actually pretty simple; you really realize it out in a garden.  Just watch out for bugs on Harleys.

Trash or Treasure?

I have been arrested.  Brought to a standstill.  My attempt to begin spring cleaning has stopped almost as soon as I started.  I am not at the point of using goat paths through my home, but the snarl of objects, piles and unsorted collections is beginning to merge into a gyre of unwieldy proportions.  I don't know where to begin.

I am beginning to suspect that I am a magnet for stuff.  Barely-useful-enough stuff, even though it barely ever sees the light of day, tweaks long-forgotten memories and tugs at my heart.  I try putting on a CD and turn up the volume.  I pick up a box of baby clothes.  Five songs later, I realize I haven't heard a thing.

Diving into even one small closet can sometimes use up vast amounts of time as I inspect and reinspect, peruse nearly forgotten pamphlets, booklets, art projects and boxes full of stored supplies for never-begun ideas.  It's breathtaking to see how many times I've bought craft supplies and then stored them away.  I feel a little embarrassed by this; perhaps I am coming unglued (forgive the pun).  I stuff them away again where no one can see how many I've accumulated.  I'm glad I'm alone and no one's taking notes.

When I do empty a closet, I am surprised to see how many things are actually stored in what looks like a very small space.  Who knew closets were actually bottomless pits?  Jesus made water out of wine; my closet produces a mountain from a cubic foot of storage space.  It's miraculous.  But, I never hear a choir of angels as I start a cleaning project.  Instead, I hear a small whining dog called Guilt scratching at my resolve, begging me with sad eyes not to throw away a scrap of paper with a little drawing of a tree I scribbled when I was five.

Last year, I took many separate trips -- actually a truckload of odds and ends -- books, things, stuff, to the Goodwill collection center.  I don't remember what I took because there was so much of nothing consequential.  I thought I was being vigorous and firmly decisive about getting rid of lots of stuff, but I take stock now and see I didn't really make a dent.  I feel like a hamster on a wheel, facing forward with feet moving fast, not budging an inch.

I am in my garage looking at shelves that hold boxed and piled things.  I don't know where to start, where to begin to dig.  No X marks the spot.  At what point does something become useless and forgotten anyway?  Perhaps there is some sort of rubric for it:  Keep it out of sight for one exact year and if you've forgotten about it, get rid of it forever.

I wonder what will happen if I disappear and someone comes in and finds my stuff.  It does represent evidence of my life, lived as it has been on a modest scale.  If I leave enough weird stuff behind I could look pretty interesting after all, perhaps even impressive in an off-kilter kind of way.

The hardest part about stored stuff is disconnecting yourself from it.  You held that little lamp with a bit of excitement once and considered it quite a find, a good deal, just right for the bedroom.  You wonder if it might come in useful again or if someone you know could use it in the future, a year from now, or if its weight in your hand, igniting tender memories, is its true and enduring purpose.  It seems every object that you touch can transport you back in time, as if through a portal, to times and places otherwise forgotten.  

Here I stand regarding the still-stuffed garage shelves, hoping for a miracle, a way to sort everything all at once and not walk the lane of memories and the emotions attached to them.  I close my eyes and try to visualize space, roomy extravagant space, hoping it will manifest itself when I open my eyes again.

The push and pull is still there.  Giving in to sentimental feelings when I pick up some things and scoffing at the silliness of others, I set about sorting through piles and stacks.  I realize it's a stand-off, an equilibrium that is held between my heart and my mind:  I know I have to make way for the future, but my heart tells me to set down the past very, very gently.

I'm Just Like Her!

So, what about motherhood, anyway?

Some female someone, at one exact moment, conceived us, set is in motion.  Half of that person is rummaging around in our being as we live our own lives, showing up strangely in the middle of a sentence, or as the wrinkle at the corner of our eye, the lilt of our voice when we're calling to someone across the yard, or when we fling a towel over our shoulder and pat our hands dry -- exactly like she did.

Just when we think we are pleasingly unique and have got the good sense to know exactly who we are, that half of us, the half that was our mother before us, overtakes us and says, "You are exactly like me."

Oh, dear.

So, if that female, your mother is half of you, then half of that half is your grandmother and half of that is your great grandmother, and then genetics and all its implications pile you into a chair and you blubber with incomprehension, suddenly feeling confused about who you actually are.  It could be said you are comprised of a lot of other people; you are all of them in a new form, a new version of all who came before you.

Some cultures (and I agree with them on a biologically practical level) are matrilinear.  The mother side of the family matters in heritage and legacy.  The mother passes the energy packets (mitrochondria) carried within our cells to her children; the father does not.  Fathers are required, important, needed, of course, but the significance of what they pass from one living being to another is not the essence of life:  Energy.  It's a digression, perhaps splitting hairs, but it's significant.

I am only saying you cannot not know anything about your mother, because the very life force of her cells is within each of yours.  She is within you, you consist of her, she is you.

So, from the depths of your incomprehension and doubts about where you begin and your mother leaves off, God only knows, truly.

Today, Mother's Day, we are most of us following impulses to do something for our mothers, express our love and gratitude for their selfless giving and support.  It's the idealized version of the symbolic Mother, really.  We know that not all mothers are up to snuff; some fail miserably and some rule with iron fists worthy of Zeus.  Whatever our mothers are or were, they live on in us, showing up at the weirdest times, energizing us, providing a link to the time-shrouded past when the very first mother looked at the very first child and said, "Wait until your father gets home."

The More Things Change...

Pacific Grove is an elderly lady wearing a cardigan who sits on a park bench feeding fat pigeons who roost at her feet, uninterested but content.  The rest of the world is moving more quickly and has brush-ups with the law, feels randy once in a while, but this elderly lady sits with a vague smile on her face and admires her lace handkerchief.   She's been sitting like that for a 130 years now.

There is something peculiar about this little town, a subtle oddity that provokes the jittering malcontent  in me. That is, nothing changes.  There is always the same amount of movement, the cars always drive the same speed and the wind always blows from the same direction.  There are not riots and there is no public mourning, no overt displays of affection on a large scale.  There are only very small bits of modest change.  Perhaps a neighbor has planted a new type of ground cover or an unruly tree is being removed by the city arborist.  A lot of quietness exists here, so much so that small sounds are noticed on a grand scale.  A certain resident brought a neighbor to court for having a wind chime on their porch that he found to be annoyingly, well, chimey.  Both complainant and perpetrator were hushed and sent back home.  

The most heated moments come at high school football games when cheerleaders jump up and down together as the team hero scores a touchdown.  The young, filled with energy, go away and find that in other towns and cities people dance, shout, scream and command attention.  They begin to realize that life can be lived vigorously and is stimulating.  It's always a revelation, a splash of cold water to the face.  

So, is that a complaint; am I dissatisfied?  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure.  I feel hesitant to say it, but I wish something would happen.  Maybe a small geyser could erupt in the park or a circus could come to town so we could all gasp at the highwire acts and stare at a three-headed monkey.  Wonder and awe exist here, but almost entirely in relation to the sea.  It's beautiful, but it's not a beauty that drives you to song or inspires great works.  Instead, where at first you were walking briskly, you find yourself slowing, then stopping and finally shuffling unsteadily until you simply sit and then fall asleep.  Perhaps you wake again in 20 years, and if you do, you find that nothing has changed at all while you slept.

Nature itself conspires to keep life peaceful and quiet, uneventful.  Storms do not thunder; there is seldom lightning.  Parades are rained out, festivals are chilled to the bone, fireworks disappear into banks of misty fog and conversations held outdoors are blown away on the breeze.  There is a midday glare that is not quite bright.  It somehow dulls the senses and enwraps the citizenry in a slow-moving torpor normally found in the tropics but that here requires bundling up against even in the broad reaches of summer.

You find yourself wanting more of something, but at the same time you feel ungrateful, chastened for your discontent, uncertain of what exactly you really need but know it's something.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with all of this.  It's just the way it is.  I recommend coming here to everyone I meet, for everyone needs a nice break from the pell-mell rush of American life.  We are good at that, a little too good maybe.  It's the oddest thing, being bored with peace, but I think sameness, muffled sound and good behavior do breed discontent.

So, we shuffle and wander along the fine line drawn between chaos and placid sameness, erring on the side of quiet.  Evidently, someone long ago took the old saying to heart when they started this town:  Be careful what you ask for.