Some Mothers At A Cafe

We walk into a small cafe, spot a table for two against the wall and seat ourselves.  The hostess walks by, drops off two menus and keeps going.  She looks like she'd rather be driving heavy equipment.  It would make loud grinding sounds, tear up pavement; she is not to be ignored, dammit.  She deserves better than her good-for-nothing husband who never lifts a hand with the kids.  She wears a small cross, a wedding ring, and moves from table to table like she intends to slap the back of any customer's head for misbehavior.  I decide to sit up straight.

The waitress comes to our table and looks at us, smiles and makes eye contact, a brave thing in this world when perfect strangers could be anything, but we are just middle-aged, not-even-close-to-crazy-but-you-never-know white people.  "Good morning, how are you doing today?" She looks a few years past college and into young motherhood, maybe nearly divorced or starting on a big idea like getting a real estate license but not sure of it yet.  She has brown hair pulled back, clean, not looking to flirt, doing her job.  We order, she nods, thanks us and whisks away to the clattering kitchen where sizzling sounds come from, filling gaps in conversations around the room.

We talk about lots of things like laundry needs doin', when's the next day we have off together and did you call whatsername.  We wake up sip by sip.

The food comes and the baby two tables closer to the window who looks just like wiggly six-month-old babies always look in cafes filled with slow-moving adults, starts doing that riding-a-wild-horse move that means either the diaper is full or is going to get full really quick unless we exit outta here, mom.  Mom, a sleepy-looking, young, almost-professional woman sitting there with baby's grandmother, misses the clues coming from bucking baby's rear end.  Vaguely, she holds out a forkful of food to him.  He flaps his arms no, bicycles his feet that dangle a few inches below the edge of the chair, squirms.

The hostess leads two older women past our table.  She is keeping it at a simmer, that anger.  I get my elbows off the table, chew with my mouth closed, imagine smiling at her but reconsider.

I notice my food is good - blackberry and banana pancake  - and that the baby begins riding two wild horses now and mom is offering him even more breakfast.  Grandma is staying out of it, seems resigned to a day of watching her daughter miss cues and love her wiggly little bald-as-a-cue-ball son all sideways, obviously a new mom with a lot to learn.

"How is everything?"  The waitress's jeans make that flapping denim jeans sound when one pant leg slaps against the other, shwipatt, shwipatt, shwipatt.

"Fine. We're good."

"More coffee?"

"Sure."

The baby is not making as much noise as a baby with a full diaper has a right to make when sitting in a high chair in a cafe with his sleepy mother.  He is doing pretty well but will make a good rodeo bull rider one day.  Eventually, he stops, and I don't want to imagine his diaper, but the more I try not to, the more I can't not imagine it.

My mind switches from this cafe to a few other cafes years ago with my own little buckeroo and her penchant for grabbing all the white sugars, fake sugars, any packet of any kind in small containers at the dinette booth table and how I just let her do it to keep her from taking off for the door or letting out a shriek that might peel the paint off the walls and kill my chances of eating out for a change.  It was a tacit agreement we reached without words, knowing how much either of us could tolerate and oh so slightly pushing the boundaries just beyond that.  I would leave a healthy tip and cleaned up the litter afterward, leaving before the first scream and right after the last bite.  I think it was more of an offering of thanks at an altar than a tip.

The jeans sound is shwipatting back to our table and the check lands there with a quick thanks from the brown-ponytail waitress.  We wave off a third or fourth cup of coffee - we've lost track - and feel very full of cafe and talk.  Sleepy mom and grandma are gathering up, rooting under and around the table and baby.  They load up three diaper bags, purses, pockets and baby who must surely stink by now, but mom still loves him anyway.  

The hostess comes by, stacks our plates quickly and her motions are like the motions of a person who has just about had it dammit.  I lean back and give her room, do not make eye contact, hope her husband stops lying to her, tells her she's as pretty as the day he met her and that he will help her with the kids.   Not a word.  The dishes, stacked harshly, disappear.  Four cups of coffee do not taste as good as three, I decide, and we get up to leave.  The check is on  the table with a good tip.  I'm pretty sure the sleepy mom has not left much for the help.  Her table is a wasteland, but they've long gone.

One Big Wish

I think it's about time I had super powers.  

You may reach a point in life where the things you've always done get a little predictable.  You can tell where the zippers are on the monsters in the movies, or the drummer you've been marching to has not turned out to be so different after all.  You had some good ideas for a while, then got sidetracked, stumbled, and now sit wondering why you're always choosing between gray, mauve and manilla.  Where did the bright ideas go?  

Happens to the best of us.  My ultimate wish is to shake a few good ideas loose and set them free, let them run wild in the universe.  And, just because it sounds so fun, I'd be able to zap them into reality.  Why not.  At this juncture, caring about propriety and conforming to normalcy just does not have the appeal it once did.  

So, I'm thinking a magic wand would be pretty darned cool. You know, bright blue with lots of rhinestones, and it would make a loud crazy noise when I'd wave it.  Time to throw off some cobwebs, shake things up, get back to whatever it is that really sets your hair on fire.  With a magic wand I'd seek out unrestricted ideas, great dreams, and just zap the snarf out of them, make them come true.  

Do you deserve to experience your wildest dreams? Of course! Pow!  There you go, exactly what you've been hoping for all this time, finally, at last, once and for all.  No more fooling around with compromise.  Cool, huh?  

I'm thinking about one no-restrictions zap per person at random, now and again, then just sit back and watch the action unfold.  Even simply imagining being able to have the power to wave my wand and  change everything in an instant makes me feel pretty amazingly good.  Of course I need a really good superpower suit to wear.  I'm going to add flying to my repertoire, too.  I'd like that.  Fly around a little, zap, snap, and there you go, thank you very much.  Next!

The trick is to be that person whom I'd hear making a grand wish.  I know a lot of people kinda sorta wish for little things sometimes, but when push comes to shove, I'd bet not that many of us have really fully visualized in every way what it is they most wish for.  We feel defeated, disorganized, embarassed, and pessimistic.  All those things prevent our imaginations from calling up the thrill that resides within our hearts, and we just sit there and complain and get ugly inside. Then the paint peels off the wall, the flies all die on the windowsill and the neighbor backs out of his driveway and hits our car.  

Meanwhile, I am shopping for a magic wand and looking for a way to grant one giant wonderful wish to someone with a vivid, excited imagination.  Those are the people who make our world change, create possibility, who soar without restrictions.  Those are my kinda people.  The search is on...

Real Sunlight For A Change

The bay is cerulean blue and has slopping waves at its edges.  You can feel there is fog out there a few miles offshore, but the sun is leaning against it with riches and glory.  Fog is skulking somewhere, sending a scurrying little breeze in to shore to scout a path inland, but it will be much later in the afternoon.  Now, in the full glare of a summer sky,  everyone is waving their hands and exclaiming about the way summer has suddenly appeared.  Heaven looks so blue today, a sweet shade, with trees reaching up into it.

I took off for the pool as soon as I was sure there would be bright sun, jumped in and swam and swam.  My shadow moved back and forth along the bottom, songs ran through my head and my friends joined in, with their own songs in their minds, too.  Even though we swim every day that we can, the sight of brilliantly flashing droplets flying from our fingertips and arms as we swam was beautiful, a delight.  The drops could have been diamonds; I imagined they were sometimes.

When the fog sits around for so long, as it has lately, it is as unwelcome as a freeloading visitor with no intention of doing anything, withholding warmth and comfort.  In comparison, the sun is sheer perfection when it shines again, holding all the power of the universe, transforming moods and scenery in the span of one second.  What a contrast it can be when it happens, and how giddy we become, drenched in the unaccustomed glare of true unadulterated sunlight.

A Tiny Fly

I noticed the tiniest fly I'd ever seen in my life today.  I suppose it was a fly; it had wings and landed on my computer like one, but it was so small I could hardly see it.  It seemed to have actually made a decision to land on my keyboard, but how?  I can't imagine it had a brain.  Something else, a remote control?  I'm talking about a speck of a fly the size of the tip of a pin.  The tip!

I usually don't care much about insects, but this one was exceptional, almost like a dimensional shift from some other realm.  I guess I assumed it was innocent and had no potential to infect or invade my skin, but I may have been wrong.  An oversized six- or eight-legged creature whose exoskeleton crunches when swatted or whose guts spurt out when flattened is, I automatically assume, intensely poisonous and horrible.  But, I really don't know.  I don't get very far beyond the initial blood-curdling scream and subsequent assault with weapons of mass destruction.

My squeamishness about slithering, creeping and jittering insects who dart suddenly from crevices and cracks has never abated in my whole entire life.  They look different, creepy.  Kill them, I say.

And yet I believe that all living things make up a complex and interrelated web of life.  It's my prerogative to annihilate the few that come into my house.  The rest I leave alone.  Obviously not quite a Buddhist, I try to tolerate most living things.  But not spiders, ever.  Apologies to readers who enjoy spiders for some completely unfathomable reason.  Consciously, I know spiders eat species known to be annoying to people - like flies for instance - but my subconscious says no way, kill it, ruin it, smash it to bits.

The infinitesimally small fly I saw today survived me because it was such a curiosity, being so small and capable of doing everything fly, possibly without any brain whatsoever.  Quite a strategy.  I think the military could adopt this somehow, don't you?

Past Sleeping Sisters

One girl in a room with brown wooden bunks and three sisters lying askew in their own beds, breathing softly through dreams and rag-doll sleep, their abandoned bodies heaped in strange positions under quilts and on pillows soft with their puffing breaths.  Shifting cool light and quiet moments before sunup tick one by one past her.  Too much of a peculiar and succulent dawn outside, too curious a mind, too restless a body.  She is moving silently past the slumbering small sisters, to see, to watch, to be out in the world in solitude.

Missing Rhythms

A black silhouette of a crow alights on the phone wire and pole outside, and then stands still as stone.

I look past it, up at the fog, a gray blank, a cool, still, unyielding cover over everything as far as I can see.  This nonweather has no pulse, no variation, no obvious challenge to me, but now I begin to think of weather differently.  I feel tested in some new way by this, but the test seems unclear, the rules vague, aggravating.

In winter, a heavy downpour or a lightning storm rivets my attention.  Its danger is exhilarating, violent even; it reminds me that disaster may come at any time, and I may be called upon to be resilient and resourceful, face frightening things and stare them down in order to survive.  My ancient forebears could have survived great threat from the forces of nature in order to survive.  In a storm, the drama of side-slanting rain slashing past my window reminds me that I exist, that there is a wild form to life and its patterns, but there is a known potential for harm.  I am thrilled when I think how severe the drenching cold would be if I were caught in it.  I feel the wild pulse of danger; it is palpable and immediate.

But, fog?  It is brooding, persistent, dully unchanging, and instigates a creeping mood, misgivings, and uncertainties within me.  The insidious sameness of it day after day and its tendency to negate any sense of being in step with time and natural cycles is unnerving.  I make no plans, feel there is no potential for the day, have no sense of progress or accomplishment.

Now there are several dark crows sitting on the phone lines outside my window, walking back and forth on the thick wires, the small feathers on their shoulders ruffled by a slight breeze.  Their folded wings are hunched and the black-on-black forms look like cutouts from the sky rather than living birds, a sort of negative space, placeholders for real birds that will arrive once the sun shines again.  I've heard no songbirds lately; the spring migration is long over.  The crows, unlike the songbirds, reside here; they're just biding time, patiently resting, and provide commentary with jagged monotonous cawing, a tuneless punctuation for the fog's gray sameness.

The fog diminishes any sense of the passage of time, makes me feel as if I have entered a limbo or suspended animation.  I find myself listening to things that might help me sense differences in the world.  When the fog is draped so heavily on us for so many days, even the accustomed afternoon wind fails.  In a preponderantly fog-bound existence, it's light out and then it's not.  Day is simply not night, and then night replaces it.  The stars, the sun and moon are missing.  Those now-unseen heralds of change in the universe cannot tell me anything in the fog.  I'm on my own.  I have no inner resources to cope with the monotony of these doldrums.  I may be just as lost as if I were in the wildest storm.  What saves me from this uncertain sameness when I am used to the signs and contrasts, cycles and rhythms of nature?  What shall inform me of life out there, of my ability to live?

Sitting quietly here at my table, I watch the silhouetted crows whose small black feathers lift and fall in the light air, and I feel my heart beat.  It's almost quiet enough that I can hear it, too.  I hold very still and breathe quietly.  All my attention is on my heart, its rhythm, the tiny cycle of lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.  It's so reassuring, and yet so basically natural; I always take it for granted.  I look back at the crows and imagine their beating hearts, small as they are, and the beating hearts of every creature on the planet.

The crows shuffle their wing feathers and settle on the wires, facing east.  Again, they are very still.  They seem to become two-dimensional images of themselves for a moment but then spring into full form again as I sense that they, too, may be feeling the beat of their own hearts and awaiting subtle changes in the world.    

Big Sur: Her Quiet Song

Big Sur is singing its deep quiet song today.  Everyone hears it differently, but it's there, one that is heard best in a redwood grove or at the river's edge. Its voice is joined by redtail hawks, jays, juncos, gurgling river currents and rustling dry grasses of midsummer.

You drive from Monterey south on Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) under the gray cap of fog that sits low on the brow of the coastal range.  The cliffs and steep ravines angling down to the Pacific are dotted with wildflowers, strewn with granite boulders.  After 30 miles, a wide view opens up to you at Andrew Molera State Park with its beautiful ranch land on your left.  Just in front of you, all visual lines point to the Big Sur Valley, a narrow cleft formed by coastal hills to its right and the Ventana Wilderness mountains to the left.  Down the middle winds the Big Sur River, and groves of redwood trees reach straight up, ruddy and tall, with capes of green draping off their shoulders.

The fog lifts just before you enter Big Sur, the temperature is warm and the air fragrant.  Rain, heat, sorrow and love are all more intense than in Monterey.  Salvation and redemption are often felt to be more possible, but so, too, can be the depths of sadness.  The vivid quality of nature stimulates senses to a more unmistakable degree here and if you are unprepared, you may be undone by it.

I could tell you that I went to Big Sur today, and it would be true, but it hardly tells you anything.  Big Sur has an effect on people that special places do.  We slow down, we look more closely, we breathe more deeply there.  But, the experience is in the place itself, in the wildness of its surrounding.

It so happened we had breakfast at the River Inn because we like to see the river as we eat breakfast and then walk by it for a while.  It's a place that, while you're there, makes you wonder why in the world all rivers are not enjoyed this way, sitting in an Adirondack chair midstream with a canopy of leafy green overhead.

As has happened every time I have been to Big Sur, I felt as if mother nature herself was exerting a more powerful influence on me, casting a deeper spell.  There is a gentle loveliness at the river's edge.  Reluctant to go back north just yet, we walked along an easy trail at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park down the road a mile and found more river trails to follow.  Soon enough, we found ourselves hiking on a winding uphill path called Buzzard's Roost Trail through cool towering and shade-giving oaks, laurel and redwood.

After descending again, sweaty and relaxed from our effort, we walked again by the river in shady areas back to our car.  It is plain that the California State Park system is beautiful but facilities are ragged and unkempt as the state sags into insolvency; much infrastructure is lying in ruin.  Big Sur exacts a toll on the man-made structures in the park in good times.  During fire or flood, damage is accelerated.  Compared to days I'd spent here as a child, the park appears heavily used and almost loved too much.  It's sad to see the decline, to be sure.

The car drove home somehow.  We were quieter on the way north.  It's what happens, what Big Sur does to you, sings to you her age-old song using rhythms of life and death.  You listen with more than your ears, sense it with your whole self, an abiding song we don't always find time to listen to as we rush around all day.  But, what a fine song it is.

Caveman Dilemma

A caveman just wants sex, has no language and sees a cavewoman coming up from the river.  What does he do?

Once, way far back in time when humans were something new to the scene and language didn't exist yet, there were no words.  What was there?

Consonant noises, hissing, howling, blowing raspberries, and all the varied shouts, howls and wails were the beginning. But, how did one particular sound become the accepted noise that was the word for, say, rock.  Why didn't flug become the word for a rock?

It's thought that babies make noises and then realize that the sound they are making is pretty close to the word we use for something.  Muh, muh, muh, muh is repeated as mamamama.  Baby notices that "mama" seems special to the adult, and the longer string of similar sounds is not.  Baby learns mama is a good sound to keep in its head and then that mama is the one with food and kisses.  Pretty simple.  Older kids learn words faster if other kids are interested in the object that's attached to the word.  A ball is interesting and something all the kids want to get their hands on, so the word ball is crucial to learn.

So, my thought is the first word caveman wanted to form was whatever sound attracted a female.   If she dropped her rocks on the ground and came closer, he was a happy caveman.  The more sounds he made that she liked quickly became memorized sounds and he got his family started.  So much the better if the sounds were attached to things she really liked, whatever they might have been.

You could argue that men are still using this technique today, and I think I'd agree with you, but it sure has gotten complicated - so many words and so many fine shades of meaning.  All Grug wanted in the first place was sex and he got a whole language.

Pacific Grove Suffers For You

I just looked outside and noticed the fog was a shade brighter than it has been for the past few days.  This is cause for joyous celebration, so I am going to take a walk.  But first, I'm adding a few splashes of color to this page just in case the brightness fades and Pacific Grove is plunged back into colder shades of foggy gloom.

I suffer for you, you readers who live in roasting hot climates, but I also envy you sometimes.  I know what it's like to shade all windows in the middle of the day, turn on fans, keep plenty of ice on hand for cool drinks.  I have lived in places that felt like I was living in a pizza oven, sort of, and kept me flattened to cool walls or begging for a nice cool swim.

Because of your climate, I have mine.  The Pacific Ocean is massively huge and deep, and very cold.  Our fair beaches boast an average water temperature of about 54 degrees Fahrenheit or colder most of the year.  One dash into that cold and you are sure to come screaming out again with blue lips and goose bumps all over your body.

When your day heats up into triple digits, the air where you are rises - usually - and creates a low-pressure vacuum that pulls our cold air inland to you.  Because you are feeling like a melted blob of gum on the pavement when you go outdoors, I feel like a popsicle when I step outside here.

So, with numbed, stiffened fingers, I sit here at the only warmth in the house, the keyboard of my Macbook.  I am literally wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, jeans and multiple warm layers of things on my feet.  And I'm still cold.  It's this way every year here in the Groove.  So it's fogburns for us in order that you may have a somewhat cooler breeze where you are.  When your area cools down later in the year, it will be wonderful here at last and we can have a leftover summer.  We accept it; we are stoic and love fleece, wool, and down.  It's part of being in the groove, shuffling along to the beat of a really cold drummer.

Sigh. There went the brightness, just now.  And I'm ready to go for a walk so I can warm up for a while in the middle of July.  Let's see, where are my mittens and hat.....

Writer's Retreat: A Journey Home Again

I left Camp Mattole, which had hosted the Lost Coast Writer's Retreat, driving south, the opposite direction than I'd come in on, past the minuscule community called Honeydew.  I felt light and content after resting and writing for six days.  The road I'd taken last weekend switched and bucked, and so did this one.  It's a characteristic style of road here, I guessed, perhaps a wry joke by road builders who might sit by on quiet afternoons to see if tourists end up in deep ravines or not.

Speed limit signs said 10 mph; many 180-degree switchbacks had to be negotiated carefully or I'd have launched into the sweet hereafter, off guardrail-less inclines.  The road climbed up and up for miles until I reached a level but still narrow vista point called Panther Gap.  I wanted to hear a screaming mountain lion or the mournful howl of a wolf, but since this was broad daylight and nowhere near a movie theater, the drama was all in the spectacular view.  Ridge after blue ridge played out to the southwest, the truly wild region bounded by the Lost Coast.

I saw very few cars.  On my own, driving in contemplative solitude, I was lost in thought.  California has few places left unspoiled by hordes of people, with far more places to be alone in Northern California than in the south.  A quick glance at a state map will tell you that.  This winding drunken road, called Mattole Road, had been described as beautiful and a great drive,  and so it was proving to be.  I was hoping I'd not missed a turn and wasn't exactly sure of the distance I'd still have to drive to get back to Hwy 101.  I felt excited to be exploring.

I began my descent which looped and turned sharply downward into a narrow tree-covered valley.  The road headed down into the redwoods, a remnant forest of old-growth trees.  Without any real warning, I was plunged abruptly into the depths of a very dense stand of the tall giants, just as if I'd actually driven straight into a sacred cathedral. It's called the Rockefeller Grove and is simply gorgeous, thick with tall living pillars.  The road allows no more than 25 mph and literally winds between the giant trunks of the redwoods.

I rolled down all my windows, slowed, and inhaled deep whiffs of the scented air, peering through the cool echoing gloom.  How wonderful, I thought.

I rounded a turn and saw a Toyota minivan driving slowly toward me with a white-haired woman at the wheel.  She was looking around and smiling, just like me.  A small truck was driving right smack behind her.  Just as the minivan was about even with me in the opposite direction, a terrible screaming voice shattered all peace for miles:  "JUST PULL OVER!"

It was the driver behind the minivan, turning herself inside out with frustration and an unholy rage.  As if they were a nightmare come to life; as soon as they'd materialized they were gone again, the tormentor and the tormented.  Just like that.  It was a shriek from hell that startled me severely.

I was left with a deep jolt of stunned amazement and a worming fear. There was no resolution to the scene that had exploded before me; it seemed to echo over and over, reverberating in an endless sound loop.

I parked in a lot, decided to walk.  A sign pointed to The Tall Tree (356 ft tall) amid groves of magnificently beautiful ancient giants.  Still, the notes of hatred, intolerance and ugliness in the screaming voice echoed on.

I had to look for a long time at the trees and think about what they'd lived through for centuries.  Not that I think trees see and hear, just that they endure, mostly by luck and amazing genetic resilience, the forces around them that take down other lesser beings.  The green canopy far overhead shrouded the tips of trees, vectors of energy connecting heaven above and earth below.

Would the screaming driver ever find peace?  What was that indescribably awful note in her voice?  I sat in the sacred space of the forest, as sacred as Chartres or Notre Dame and doubly grand, thinking about the concept of heaven, hell, eternity and what humans make of it all, how we create our own heaven, live in the hell of hatred and suffering we create for each other.

The trees stood quietly beside me.  I felt the cool shade and an enveloping calm.  I walked among them for a little while, grateful for the soft breath of nature on my face.  Just that morning I had awakened in a quiet, tranquil haven in the company of peaceful people.  Remembering that, I drank in deep breaths of peace and turned my attention to my surroundings.  Hikers passed by, chatting, striding along a quiet trail.  Visitors nearby murmured between themselves, looking up at bits of sky and sifting beams of light.

Without nature to heal us, will we survive ourselves?

Lost Coast Writers Retreat: Endangered Treasure

Subsequent days at the Lost Coast Writers Retreat (see my previous posts) blended seamlessly one to another for a five-day-long span of time.  Presenters each day had unique approaches to their craft and gave us plenty to think about.  It was up to us to make the tools our own if we wished.  My intention was to write as much as possible and listen to suggestions and feedback about my work; I don't currently have a writing group, so that was a new dimension in writing for me and very eye opening.

Jim, one of the staff members spent a great deal of time in conversation with me and others and gave objective responses to material I'd written.  I felt my confidence wax and wane, but it was all due to pressure I was putting on myself.  Staff members kept a neutral hands-off approach unless asked to give feedback and coaching.  That's not to say they were not warm and kind-hearted.  Calm generosity of spirit as well as respect allowed everyone to be at ease.

Daryl Ngee Chinn, poet and teacher, read his work and the work of other poets and then gave prompts for us to use as a starting point for our work, but he did set short time limits on writing.  At first, this seemed to be intimidating, but it proved to be exactly what I needed to produce quick-response imagery and emotion.  Later, we literally made books with Daryl and Linda (the angel in disguise), who belongs to a bookmaker's guild in her area.

Jeff DeMark, storyteller and comic, presented a work-in-progress as well as his thinking process as he created a new routine; we gave feedback to him as he worked out loud.  Odd, but I had never considered comedians and storytelling actors to be writers first, but it's now obvious to me.

Jessica Barksdale Inclan, novelist and teacher, spoke about setting scenes in story and was able to zero right in on what was going on - or not - in our work.  Her high energy and vivid use of imagination was very stimulating.  She gave us one-to-one time for half-hour workshops in the afternoon.

Noelle Oxenhandler, memoir writer and teacher, talked about finding a unique situation or picture and using it to prompt new thinking about things we had perhaps passed over before.  Her contention is that you don't need to have dramatic sweeping sagas to tell an intriguing tale.  She, too, was very perceptive in her feedback and allowed us plenty of time, had lots of patience.  Her unique prompt is this:  Find a photograph and ask:  What's in the picture?  What isn't in the picture that has happened "off camera?" What question do you have to ask yourself because of this?

Finally, we said good-bye and parted company.  I had slipped so easily into the routine of the camp that I really could have continued for a whole month.  It was good to have a community, a colony if you will, of creative, thinking people around me who had every intention to write, converse and play without contentiousness.  I grew up without much TV or commercialism around me, so it was like going home again in the best possible way.  I came away feeling more self-directed, more engaged in the creative world of writing and definitely filled with plenty of new ideas.

Sadly, this workshop retreat is threatened with extinction due to lack of funding, but I believe that if word gets out to enough people who will then support the Redwood Writing Project, it will thrive.  It's too valuable a treasure to let fall by the wayside.  The core staff is highly dedicated to seeing it continue. I look forward personally to returning and encourage anyone who has any writing aspirations whatsoever to attend.  If for no other reason than to escape to a lovely nowhere for a week, you will never regret it.

Redwood Writing Project: Stephen Most, screenwriter, playwright

Each of five authors took their turn explaining the creative process, their workflow, their experience as writers at the Lost Coast Writers' Retreat last week.  We campers, there from as far away as Pennsylvania, absorbed the quiet wisdom available to us in talks, workshops, one-on-one discussions and in small-group response sessions.

Each of the five days of the retreat was structured to allow for didactic instruction but made plenty of room for us to disperse and soak up fresh air and the warm sun, especially the lovely, peaceful atmosphere of the river flowing softly nearby.

On the very first evening, after hellos had been exchanged all 'round, it was immediately and totally apparent that any magic spell that might be cast during the week would be solely due to the deep commitment to the camps' success by each staff member.

After I unpacked my things, claimed a bunk and had a quick look around, I found myself looking into turquoise blue eyes and listening to a quiet voice asking me a question.  "Is there anything I can get you or help you with?"  So sincerely did Linda ask that I thought, "Well, if I tell her anything but the absolute truth, she will evaporate and go straight back to heaven, and I will be banished to a dark closet for a long time."

Mike Bickford ("Bick") sat with me at dinner and we talked sports, teaching, camping, baseball, and generally chewed the fat for a while.  He used to be a staff member but elected to simply join in this year, bringing his brother-in-law Jody ("The Kitchen Wrench" - there used to be a Kitchen Wench, but she bowed out this year) to man the stoves, much to our worshipful delight.  Man, can that guy make a mean scone.  Bick proved to be funny, kind and seemed immensely pleased to be back at the camp.  They all did, and all fell into a comfortable routine born of contentment and satisfaction.

Will handed me his hand-made travel-sized guitar with beautiful inlaid mother-of-pearl decoration on the fretboard and said I could play it any ol' time I wanted.  I did once, but my fingers were not callused nor limber.  I was happy just to hear him practice and get to know my fellows as the evening faded into darkness.

I was bunking in the main building and found myself sharing the room with Maggie, an impish and quiet lady from Warren, PA, who was there after her friend Kathleen convinced her this would be the perfect camp to attend.  Maggie writes a newsletter for a nature group she belongs to and hadn't been able to explore Northern California up until now.  Kathleen was bunking in one of the small cabins and brought two kayaks, two bicycles and her car filled with her things.  They'd already been to Yosemite and the little town of Volcano before this camp.

Early next morning, about the time the earliest birds were peeping in the trees, Jody clomped to the kitchen and began to corral breakfast foods and baking something that set my mouth to watering.  I believe the first day brought us tender blueberry muffins, country-style potatoes stirred with onions, summer fruit, gallons of rich coffee and toast.  We chatted and wrote, sorted ourselves out here and there, some taking walks and others wandering in later with sleep in their eyes.

Bob, a tall man with a neat beard and a quiet demeanor, taught us how response groups were to work, how to listen to work read aloud and supportive ways to give feedback so as not to traumatize the hearts of our fellow neophyte writers.  It was, like the entire week, a valuable and generous tool.

Stephen Most was our first speaker ("River of Renewal," a book and documentary film).  Steve, as we came to call him, talked about how he had faced 200 hours of film material about a long contentious fight over the Yakima River as he began to work on his script.  His challenge was to make a story that entertained, engaged and educated his audience, was accurate in its perspective, he said, and lasted one hour.

After lunch, we spent several hours writing, in small groups with Steve, by ourselves or in response groups.  I felt like I'd begun a quiet float down a river with 16 mellow and peaceful friends, but we were all using writing implements to travel with.  Dreamlike, quiet, tranquil; the real river provided a soft, gurgling white noise that was punctuated by birdsong and murmuring voices.

At dinnertime we bellied up to the kitchen's counter for more delectables and out to the deck to eat together in the gathering twilight.  "Do you always eat like this here?" we wondered.  "It's one of the main things we all agree on and insist on," they laughed.

Guy sang and laughed, guitars and a drum came out, we rested and then dispersed again, rejoining each other later after evening chores.  We watched Steven's dramatic film, felt a fine kinship and sense of having spent a stimulating yet restful day.

Pacific Grove Celebrates Its Farmers Market

Wild times in The Groove today:  The Farmer's Market changed location from Lighthouse Avenue to the corner of Central and Grand, right next to Jewel Park and the Natural History Museum.  The location was fodder for several puns such as, "Central to Pagrovians' heart is the grand idea of a farmer's market.  And it's been a jewel of an idea today."  Get it?  Thus spoke the Sustainable Harvest spokeswoman who made a speech of grand introduction before a giant purple ribbon was cut and the new locale was made official.  SH is the coordinating group that organizes all farmers' markets in the county.

In spite of a bracing wind from the Pacific and a heavy cover of dark fog, Groovers were out en force for the occasion, slinging cash about in exchange for fine produce and goods purveyed by the many vendors at the market.  It was announced by Moe Ammar, voice of the Chamber of Commerce, that - tah dah! - new toilets can be expected to appear in the park in three weeks' time, too.  This to great cheering and relief on the faces of elderly men.

After the ribbon cutting and official remarks by the assembled city council persons, the huddled crowd dispersed and a great time was had by all.

My choices today?  Fresh nectarines, mushrooms, and a Jordanian wrap, which you eat - you do not enclose yourself within its folds as the word might signify.  Also, blueberries.  I asked the blueberry man what a blueberry bush looks like and he tried to explain, indicating a bush oh, say, about this high (two feet), with berries all through it that requires lots of thrashing into the bush (shown by lots of hand waving and diving motions into a small space).

I also had a bit of an interesting interchange with a large cluster of grapes, a giant artichoke ("she has a wonderful heart," says Mr. Ammar), and a long-haired carrot.  They all posed for me and I went on my way, amazed to have found such a large collection of Groovers all in one place, in spite of the cold.

Camp Mattole: Retreat!

With a bugle at my lips and riding a fast horse, my retreat into the mists of The Lost Coast would have been no less dramatic than it turned out to be.  I watched Ferndale recede in my rear-view mirror, drove 35 miles on a twitching and nervous tail of a road to the middle of nowhere.  There, I was cut off from all radio, newspaper, internet, TV, and cell phone access.  No one really knew where I was or when I would be seen again.  Cell phone service was sketchy in Ferndale, but as soon as my car faced west and I began the drive, it ended for good.  I was on my own, I thought.  No looking back anymore.

The Mattole Road is the highway builder's equivalent of the flight of a butterfly, going up, down, sideways, inside out to get from here to there and beyond.  In the circumstances of getting lost on purpose, I could not have taken a more zig-zaggy road; the twists and turns made me drive as if by the seat of my pants.  I saw giant bulls with rolling eyes grazing on the treetops - or so it seemed. I saw islands in the distant mist, hills furred with golden grasses and flanked by bristling redwood forests.  Bouquets of flowers, millions of them, danced at the side of the road.  On I drove.  I had no choice.

I had decided months before to put as much of modern life out of my mind and get back to the simplest living possible.  Work, media, oil spills, war, poverty, overpopulation - all the negativity of all that junk - felt heavy and dispiriting, sickening really.  (Run for my life! Retreat!)  It felt like I needed to shove it all aside and flee, jump the sinking ship and save my soul.  I looked around and found exactly I was looking for:  The Lost Coast Writers' Retreat.

Ask the universe in no uncertain terms for something and you will get it.  In exact measure; no more, no less.

It took one hour and a chunk of another to go 35 miles.  Then, I spent a week going nowhere but up.  I was at Camp Mattole hard by the Mattole River in Humboldt County, seven miles from the Pacific Ocean as the crow flies.  It's halfway exactly between two little what'sitcalled towns where a collection of our fellow citizens live, part of a scattered and remote population partly made up of "farmers." I hardly saw anyone as I drove.  

The intention topmost in my mind and the stated reason for the retreat was to, well, retreat!, but also to learn more about the craft of writing from other writers and teachers who love literature and writing.  I wanted to meet people who care about the written word.  I got lucky and found about 20 such folk.  The perks? They also love good food, acoustic music, conversation, nature, rivers, and a few other things I enjoy.  Lots of common ground, tons of it, almost for the first time in my life.

I think that's called finding your tribe.

The camp is an outgrowth of The National Writing Project.  These days, the local chapter of that group calls itself The Redwood Writing Project, and carries on the work locally in Humboldt County.  They develop teachers to use best practices in their profession in order to teach students about writing.  A teacher who can write better can teach better, they say, and can teach writing using new ideas and appreciation for the craft.

They know it's a lot of work to formulate a concept and communicate it through words. As with all other art forms, good writing is nuanced and leaves plenty to the imagination, spurs more ideas, pries open our minds and nudges us to think.  Teachers who have experienced this through writing of their own then pass it along to their classes.  

My car rolled to a stop. Tall redwoods, a long clearing covered by a lawn that was dotted by small wooden cabins, spread out before me.  There stood a large building with a broad deck and wide steps, surrounded by the lawn.  Down below me, beyond a stand of pines, oaks, and redwoods flowed a gurgling gentle river whose sweeping graveled banks beckoned and invited exploration.  Tranquility and beauty smiled from all sides.  The caretaker walked up to me with a big grin on his face, his dog Rusty at his side, and said, "You're early, but it only means you have the whole place to yourself to enjoy.  Help yourself!"

Later, after I'd napped, walked and left stress and worry in my car, I began to meet staff members as they arrived followed by other campers.  Dan and Vinnie, apparently in the Poet Mobile, came first and said hello.  Dan travels throughout several school systems in Humboldt County and beyond, teaching poetry in the schools.  Vinnie teaches in a middle school and writes poetry, sharpens his wit quietly and listens very attentively, I found later.

Jim arrived, said he works as a mediator and has taught many levels of school in his career, and is retired from law.  Linda and Will came next, two kind people who have taught for a combined 60 years between them.  She photographs, makes books and could very well wear a halo.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to bet she does.  Will is a luthier and writes songs as well as teaches in a middle school.  Guy and Cindy have also taught for over 60 years. He's retired now and sings his way through life with a rich baritone voice and a love of almost everything. Cindy, with penetrating blue eyes and a kind, supportive nature, teaches yoga and writes poetry as well as teaching recalcitrant kids to be human.  Bob, who teaches teachers all the time now, loves riding trail horses and is the de facto leader of the staff, having been with the RWP the longest.

I had asked, and I was beginning to receive - almost immediately - help with my ability to see myself as a writer.  Now the fun would begin.

Chautauqua at Mt Madonna: The Return From the Hero's Journey

More than a week ago, I spent a final day at the Chautauqua on Mt Madonna learning about what Joseph Campbell called The Return.  Author Peter Block and Mt. Madonna School teacher Ward Maillard teamed with other facilitators to effect change in the way we approach problems in our work and in our lives.

As described in the meta myth The Hero's Journey, the hero returns to his home or village and brings with him that which he has won or captured, through use of his wit, strength, courage and determination.  On his Journey, he encounters obstacles, meets resistance, time and again.  He perhaps is nearly killed, barely survives, may lose his identity.  He is tempted to quit, and distractions abound.  He renews his resolve, conquers his fears and may slay an evil opponent or perform a great deed.

The questions we learned to ask were: What will you do with what you've learned?  What changed in you because you journeyed?

Bringing meaning to life, even to the small events in a day, through reflection, was clarifying and significant.  We, the attendees of the Chautauqua, examined the brief "journey" we had taken together through conversation, group discussion, music, art, teamwork at tasks and writing.  We took time to listen and consider.  We were witnesses as well as "travelers."

What did you do, how did you cope, what was going through your mind?  The Return from a journey, long and intentional, or short and unintentional - if you are to gain wisdom from it - is the completion of the experience.

What changed in me because of the Chautauqua?  I have a heightened sense of awareness about the effects of isolation and separation people feel and how it manifests as depression .  If - and generalizations are really tricky - people are given a true chance to explain the experience of making an effort (taking a Journey) that is important to them, they become more productive and resilient.  The effort must be their own, must be something that matters, and their community must take time to ask important questions of them, to bear witness, in order for the journey to gain deeper meaning.

Until next year when we convene again, we are now scattered to points all over the country and Canada, teachers, leaders, authors, students, business people, officials and some in transition.  I am back at work writing and applying theory to practice, listening differently to my colleagues and patients, a more intentional version of myself.

Ferndale: A Place Less Well Travelled By

I knew I was going someplace unusual when I walked onto the turboprop airplane this morning and hit my head on the ceiling.  Big jets go to big airports.  Little puddle jumpers fly to places not well travelled by, and Ferndale is one of them.

Lumpy rugged hills line up in fading shades of blue to the eastern horizon, and they are quilted with stands of pine and redwood.  Ferndale is 30 ft above sea level on the coast and is enveloped in fog just like Pacific Grove is much of the time.

This is not LA.  And who would want to be when you can be as gently quirky as this place is?  Only about 1,400 people live here, and folks are good at heart, keep their town tidy and neat, have good intentions and no idea what to tell you about when you push them a bit, a sweet, shy naievete that is practically invigorating.  

Having had very little to eat by the time I arrived in town and feeling a nagging appetite, a burger at the Tavern at the Victorian Inn was just terrific.  The Inn is a very large two-story building laden with gingerbread flourishes and grand style.  It's now painted to accentuate its glorious facade's details.  One may dine there or simply eat in the tavern, which I did, and one may stay if one wishes and has a good roll of cash.

When I asked, the bartender, dressed in old-timey vest and bow tie, stumbled on "what's fun around here?" and looked perplexed.  The waitress couldn't even answer and deferred to him.  She appeared to be startled by the question.  He recovered and suggested going to the cemetery, checking out the three pubs on main street or going to a local park where I could see redwoods and the ferns that gave Ferndale its name.  "Oh, and be sure to see the Kinetic Museum, too." He warmed up to the idea that a stranger was interested in diversions about town, told me about some movies that have been filmed there (Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman, and The Majestic with Jim Carrey).  

A curiously interesting cemetery rises up on a hillside that's visible from most of town, and it provides a pretty vista of the assembled buildings far below.  Even more curious though, there are guided tours of the cemetery by costumed guides who play the roles of notorious dead people who now populate the graves within.  Some towns show off a haunted hotel room or a place where a criminal met his demise, but Ferndale offers to show you every grave in the cemetery and bring it all back to life through story and costume.  It seems to tempt fate somehow, incite retribution from the beyond, but maybe not.  Perhaps the spirits of those whose stories are regaled enjoy the attention.

Intrigued, I took a walk up the steep hill.  About 150 years ago, says one plaque, the Shaw family came along, settled in and established much of what's here, lived prominent lives and then died.  Now they're up on the hill overlooking what's become of their town.  One epitaph of another long-gone citizen said, "He always left his camp cleaner than he found it."  The cemetery is steep, terraced and a lies in some dishevelment here and there.  It looks comfortable, though, well settled and at ease with itself.

After a reverent tour of the avenues housing the departed, I headed for the irreverent, down into town to see the Kinetic Museum.  There, the infamous Kinetic Grand Championship Sculptures that have rolled and floated from Arcata to Eureka and then to Ferndale are on display.  This is an event founded in 1974, by a man who wanted to build a more interesting tricycle.  He came up with a pentacycle and the race was on.  Artists and friends challenged each other, usually with a few beers under their belts, to build human-powered vehicles that had some elan, some style and certainly a lot of originality.

All vehicles are judged on appearance, water worthiness and ability to move forward with their Pilots ensconced within. In other words, winners must finish in fine style, and spectators are encouraged to leave their seriousness locked up at home. With tongue firmly in cheek, contestants create and then ride in outrageously adorned vehicles.  They must have brakes and must be able to float.  Beyond that, hilarity and creativity are valued to an immense degree.  There is a giant rubber ducky, a huge shoe with a smiling face at its toe, a flying saucer, a giant crayon with wheels.

Outside again, I kept walking.

A tiny farmer's market was just folding its tables up when I chanced along.  I met several members of the market association and bought bread from Lee and met Victoria and Gary who sell little fruit trees.  Farming has been tough this year, they say, with a whole crop of potatoes plowed under.  Their enthusiasm and pleasantries were very charming.

Shoulder to shoulder along main street are poignant, innocent businesses that are bravely holding up under strange market pressures out there in the big world.  Ferndale is small, but not too small, and it has enough grandeur and notable dignity to hang its hat on but doesn't take itself very seriously.  A citizen gets done milking the cows, goes to the Meat Market or the Mercantile or Poppa Joe's for breakfast with their buddies and catches up on news. They sip a cool beer over at one of the three bars later on, watch a ball game.  Maybe later, they shuffle into church, look forward to a rodeo or take the kids to the town park.  You can get along without taking much of it too darned seriously, from the looks of it here.

I'm in my motel now with windows open to let in the night air.  A chorus of frogs is singing in  the night.  A few peacocks are lending their loud caws to the din, and just now a loud volunteer fire department siren has gone off, which is just about right, a very small old town five miles off the freeway and light years away from what's wrong with the world.

Here and Gone: A Writer's Retreat On The Horizon

We've come down from the mountain; the leadership retreat is over.  

Mt. Madonna is behind me now; participants have dispersed.  I'm certainly feeling the after effects, which feels like I've been shaken and stirred, poured into a snow globe.  Now ordinary life is jiggling and turning everything up and down and back again.  Molecules are settling, slowly, ideas are sifting, energy is up and down.  It's a peculiar sensation.

The next step?  I'll be retreating to the Lost Coast of Northern California to study writing and spend uninterrupted time far away from The Groove.  Feels like adventure is afoot as well as plenty of serendipity.  All I know is there's a river, a big kitchen, other writers, writing instructors/facilitators and a cabin to sleep in.  Beyond that is where I'm flinging myself into the mosh pit of life.  Well, my version of it anyway.

Compared to folks who literally do leap into a screaming pit of thrashing crazed dancers, this promises to be very quiet and serene.  But, I'm excited anyway.

Time to gather my notebooks, pens, paperbacks and clothes and go away.  It's likely I won't be blogging for a week as the camp has no computer access.  But, I'm thinking handwriting might be a good idea for a while.  Me without my Mac is probably a lot like someone without their double-shot tall latte; I might have to bring my Tylenol and take deep breaths.  See?  Already, the flinging into the pit is happening.  Here I go!

The Hero's Journey: Leadership Through Inquiry

High on a redwood-flanked ridge top overlooking nearly all of Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz county, Mt. Madonna School and Conference Center are hosting a Chautauqua on learning and leadership.  There is a palpable sense of inquiry, positive regard and respect for what is possible.  

"How do you deal with disappointment?" We were asked.  It took all day to learn, entailed risking failure, working with strangers, and asking for help - none of the things professionals do readily.

Most of the 75 who have come from all over the country and parts of Canada are dedicated learners or educators in some way.  Ward Maillard, the lead facilitator working with Peter Block, is an instructor at the host school.  Ward takes his 12th grade students on a journey of discovery each year to places like South Africa to meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu or to India to meet the Dalai Lama.  He imparts a sophisticated but organic approach to learning that implies his students have as much value in the process of preparation as he does.  While he guides them in the planning process, he learns what they need to know and listens carefully to their conversations.  So, too, does he lead our group of adult learners through a process of self-reflection, small-group interaction and large-group exercises.

Following the pattern set forth in The Hero's Journey, the Chautauqua transitioned from answering The Call yesterday to taking The Journey today.  We came together first in a large group to review what had occurred the day before and listened to thought-provokingly simple but challenging ideas from Peter Block.  Peter constantly urged us to renew the process we are going through, bring it to our own work in our own disparate lives, always keeping the process of leadership simple and accessible.  He has a sense of urgency and immediacy about him, pushing attendees gently but firmly toward difficult solutions to problems that seem to have no easy answer.

Everyone acknowledges that most communities (like hometowns, workplaces, schools, institutions) are constantly changing and reflect the personalities and values of the membership; change is constant and always encounters resistance and potential for conflict.  Discussions about communities, systems, group thinking and personal vision were fascinating because they were often not what we were expecting to encounter at the outset.  The facilitators insisted on silence at times, that we seek people we knew the least to meet with, that we assess our journey and reflect on what it was that we were discovering as we moved through the exercises.  

This is tiring but enriching stuff and will require a good deal of reflection and observation in real time and space to learn how to apply what we've learned.  The arts are an integral part of this process - writers, artists, musicians, poets have all had a major part in giving dimension to the experience.  We wrap up tomorrow, an end point that will serve most of all as a beginning.

High on a Mountain Top: Chautauqua, Hero's Journey

I'm not where I was yesterday.

This is a condition to be wished, believe me.  I left home and wandered off to the northeast a bit and found myself in the company of people who are thinking about deep stuff high on a mountain top.  And they're not getting paid to do it.  As a matter of fact, they're paying for the privilege.

In a framework of taking The Hero's Journey made so famous by Joseph Campbell, about 50 varied and sundry adults who are connected in some way with education, community building and organizational development - among other things - have assembled at Mt. Madonna School in Gilroy, California.  The presence of Angeles Arrien and Peter Block, who have written a dozen books between them, coalesces the energy of the group and gives it form, guidance and wisdom.  But, as they like to say, the wisdom is in the room.  As Angeles has said, "Let's find out what's workin' you."

It calls itself a Chautauqua, a special meeting of teachers and students focusing on one subject, be it political, educational, religious or scientific.  This chautauqua is meant to explore that which inspires us and propels us forward on our spiritual or intellectual journey in life.

Peter and Angeles as well as many of the teaching staff of Mt. Madonna School have crafted a program through which we, the assembled, are exploring ideas about how to be more effective in our jobs, examining government and teaching systems, and delving into areas of self-development.  We're taking time to reflect, inquire, question and listen to what we are dealing with in our pursuit of community and self-realization.

Today we took the hero's first step - The Call  to action or purpose.  50 people have stepped out of their usual roles as educators, scientists, researchers, community leaders, and students to face challenging questions and explore difficulties that usually prevent success or progress in their work.  We got acquainted, spent some time thinking about what our personal Call might be and what we as a group might do to answer the Call.  It's kind of fuzzy and nebulous stuff, but the facilitators are skilled, wise and patient, supporting our efforts to express ideas and form friendships and a brief community in this particular setting while gaining new perspectives.

Ninja Macbook Standoff

In martial arts movies, darting ninjas throw flying spiked disks that fwwwwwoooonngggg into wooden posts right next to the hero's head, mere inches away.  Kicks and blows are countered in a blinding flurries, left, right, left, right!  Whack, whack, whack!  Haaaaiiii Yaaaaaa!  No ground is given and none gained.  That's what I feel like sitting here trying to get past the three-dimensional reality of the computer's screen and keyboard and on into my imagination.

It's a standoff.

My computer is a ninja master and I am just trying to get across the bridge to the beautiful garden filled with brilliant colors, cool breezes and some handsome protagonist named something like Jean-Claude, who has strong beautiful hands.  Or a heroine who has hot wired a Maserati in Milano and is desperately driving on the wrong side of the autostrada toward an alpine pass when she sees a sinister black helicopter lift up over the pass and begin to descend in her direction.

My shoulders are loose, my house is quiet.  And my mind is wandering...right off the page and over to the freezer where it's reaching for the ice cream.  I bring it back and consider the autostrada again and the sound of an expensive engine hitting the red zone and tires screaming on pavement as the car shrieks up the highway to the crest of a winding open road above treeline.  There are no guardrails and the flanks of the mountain fall away, a blurring periphery that our heroine doesn't even see.  Her eyes are narrowed and arms are taut as the vibration of the leather-covered wheel she's gripping....oops, stuck.  Hmm...not sure where I want to go with this.  Need to refer to the outline.  What's her name anyway?

I go past my bookshelf and stroke my favorite books with total admiration.  I always want to know how much time and what process the author used as the book was written.  I want to applaud the effort and champion the work it probably took, the missteps, the time in solitude the writer needed to set aside to get the words pullled down out of the universe and wrestled to the page.

Tonight, my ninja Macbook is holding me off.  I've feinted left and tried to make a sneak approach by pretending I'm going to quit for the night, but the screen is just as opaque and unforgiving as before.  I may try writing a few emails and get back to the real writing, kind of a fake-it-till-you-make-it thing.

I do need to get the heroine off the autostrada before the sinister black helicopter gets to her though.

Let's see now...

Independence Day: Pacific Grove's Little Event

It's difficult to remember a prettier day than today has been for the Fourth of July in Pacific Grove.  With the merest hint of a cool breeze nudging my wind chime, the day is idling quietly by.  A few hours ago, we celebrated Independence Day along with our fellow townspeople the way we do here - very modestly and with no fanfare whatsoever.

Now it's time for a nap.

In years past, the City of Monterey, our neighbor to the east, hosted a popular fireworks display over the harbor that the whole Peninsula enjoyed.  Thousands watched the exciting spectacle from the circle of beaches around the bay.  Not this year.  Like so much of the state and the whole country, cutbacks in the city budget have forced cancellation of the show.  And, to add boredom to dullness, home fireworks are not being allowed either.  This, say officials, is to prevent fires and injury.  Seaside, the rougher, more blue-collar town on the other side of Monterey, is allowing fireworks to be sold by civic groups, but there are no fireworks allowed in public places.

At this time of year, and on into the early part of November, California's native plants are in a dormant state in order to survive summer's drought conditions.  Grasses and scrub oak as well as chaparral are usually crispy dry and snap into open flame with very little provocation.  Fireworks and sparklers have been problematic in the past, so nearly all cities have put the kibosh on them.  Oh well.

In spite of the lack of explosive excitement we've come to consider a tradition in most parts of the USA, each town here on the Monterey Peninsula is hosting a public barbecue.  Pacific Grove's was held in Caledonia Park behind the Post Office, a small neighborhood park squeezed in between two narrow lanes of tidy Victorians.  A band played heart-felt covers of favorite rock hits, while barbecued chicken, beans and salad with garlic bread was served up for $10 a pop for adults, $5 for kids.  Pagrovians, young and mostly old, strolled over to the park sporting red, white and blue and then sat down to visit and blink and gaze around at the festive bunting and bright balloons.    

A young blond boy named Tanner was chosen to pick a winner from among dancing citizens who were interpreting music in their own special way (proving once again white folks can't dance but sure do try).  Tanner will one day be Mayor of Pacific Grove.  He did just fine as judge and had the confidence and spark needed to perform his duty with aplomb.

The celebration lasted from 11 until 2 when the band stopped and packed up and left.  No, indeed, Pacific Grove is not a town that celebrates wildly, but the simple charm of ordinary citizens turning out for a traditional day at the park was quaint and true to itself.  No fuss, no muss.  Three hours is quite long enough to be celebrating anything, thank you.

There are several small events and parades that come out of hiding, each taking their turn during the year, peeking out for a quick look, and then retiring to some obscure place to think it all over.  Is it that this town is contemplative? Shy? Listless?  Or just fine with itself and needn't howl at the moon at all?  A bit of all that, I suppose.  The sunshine felt good to everyone and for whatever odd or groovy reason, PG was out in its low-key force, happy to be warm for a change.