What Is It About Dying

I attended a funeral this morning for a woman who died on Christmas day.  She was 80 and had lived a very full life.  There were tears and a quiet solemnity that was facilitated warmly by a uniquely gifted priest. He found a graceful balance between warm loving kindness, respect for the grief and loss among close relatives and friends.  The ritual of the Mass and the design of the service had meaning and power for we who attended, providing us with guidance and then room for our own thoughts and memories.

If there is ever a time for considering The Return, as defined in Joseph Campbell's mono myth called The Hero's Journey, a funeral is it.  Life is a journey, we agree.  Our myths and legends represent that journey in heroic proportions, and we are inspired and informed by them.  But journeys end, and we must take time to learn something from them, or we are lost and become fearful and depressed.

There before our eyes was Death and its unknowable dimensions, the unavoidable disappearance of self that ends Life.  The priest pointed out that symbolically death was a return to our origin, to heaven, where we are eternal and unblemished by difficulties.  It soothed our hearts and minds to be turned in a hopeful direction, but we still do not trust death to be a very simple or easy thing.  How can we when preservation of life is what we strive for all our lives? Suddenly, you just aren't a someone anymore.  You stop being.  

I thought about Gabriel, my grand nephew, so new to the world.  He came from somewhere else, an unknown dimension.  Did he just assemble himself from bits of substance and become a living being?  I do not understand it any more than I understand where Mary went when she died.  Did her energy and life just dissipate?

Becoming alive is far preferable to becoming dead.  In day-to-day life, I would rather hear, "Welcome! Come on in and join us!" than "Time to leave.  We'll miss you.  Good-bye."  We welcome new life to us and become anxious when life leaves.  Or rather, that which we can see we understand and become familiar with.  That which is undetectable is fearsome and suspicious.  For those with full-fledged faith in the hereafter, in a place called Heaven, the concept of dying may be less uncertain, even a welcome thing.

I don't know how I feel about death.  I don't feel ready to die, I miss people who have died (I can't talk to them and know them anymore), and I know I can't sit down afterward with living people and say, "You know, when I died, it was pretty amazing."

This journey called living is a very peculiar thing, being bookended as it is by such vast unknown spaces.  I think the only option is to love and live well.  I hope the rest will take care of itself, all in due time.

Writing Resolution

I read about different writers who are considered a success, significant in some way, creative and ingenious.  I was told I might be able to write and make some sense now and again, but the trouble was a lack of belief and resolve to jump into the fray and begin.  I have a bookshelf next to my bed piled up with books that I see when I open my eyes every morning first thing.  There are a lot of books.  The stack is high.

I think to myself, "A writer sat at a table for a lot of hours, a very large number of hours, to make that book and that book and that one.  What are you going to do?"

I got the brilliant idea to start a blog nearly two years ago and kind of liked the idea.  Then, I was A Blogger.  I only impressed myself, believe me.  If you look, you'll see I didn't write every day in 2009.  I kind of toyed with the idea.  I noticed that writers were saying that they write every day. I felt dismayed because I wasn't doing that, but I liked the idea of calling myself a writer.  But, when I said it, I knew I was lying.  I felt intense admiration for writers who had successfully published good books, but it was obvious that what they were doing and what I was doing were two very different things.  They practiced writing.  It was their discipline, just like any other physical or mental discipline.

A year ago, come New Year's Eve two days from now, I finally decided it was high time to walk my talk and get down to business.  Time to take on the practice of writing.  So I made a resolution.  The promise was:  Write every day of the year, no excuses.

So I did.

Oh, my poor husband.  He supported and encouraged my journey, but I don't think he knew he was helping create a monster.

The more I wrote, the more I realized I had no idea what was required to know.  Big gaping holes in my knowledge of writing - the craft - yawned before me.  Terms I'd never heard of were bandied about by writers, left and right.  I think I fell in and nearly drowned with embarrassment. What was a trope, a precis, a koan?  Would it be possible to write anonymously?  With a bag figuratively placed over my head to maintain my invisibility? I barely grasped point of view or plot structure. What the heck is passive and active voice?  Writers had agents, editors, publishers, and web pages.  They went on book tours, spoke to groups, and they wrote.  A lot.

In late winter or early spring, I noticed that Belle Yang mentioned Red Room on Facebook, so I checked it out and asked to join.  Bless their hearts, they let me, and I felt both like a poseur and a very thrilled neophyte.  On Red Room, writers generously discussed their ideas, writing practice and successes; they shared wisdom and misgivings.  One author, Jessica Barksdale Inclan, posted the name of a writing workshop in Northern California's Lost Coast area. It was a big step, and I hesitated to go, but I finally signed on and spent the best week of the summer in the company of other writers.  It was another huge  step for me.

Frustration accompanied my excitement and amazement.  I work full time in nursing and find myself being jealous of my time, unwilling to squander it on other hobbies and work when I could be writing.  Of course, if I write all the time, I have nothing to write about, so I have to not write, too.  I have to live in order to write.  But, I find I am writing in order to feel enlivened.

I took a short-story writing class this past Fall and learned some more.  Gradually, I'm weeding through my ideas, just like a gardener thrashing through a weed patch, preparing it for spring planting.

Something will come of all this writing, something more than daily postings on my blog.  Possibility is the one thing I have come to believe in.  That and balance.

My husband has taught me a lot about surrender, giving up the resistance to change, understanding that I am not in charge here.  I have just set the ball rolling with writing, but I am very certain that I do not really call the shots; I am just holding the stick while something else guides it to hit the cue ball, (to extend a metaphor).

My resolution of writing daily, making it a habit, is one of the few promises I have ever kept through the course of a year.  In my whole meandering life, this blog is the result of a successful New Year resolution.  It is humbling and exciting and mysterious, but that's pretty much what creativity always is.  Just like a garden, I am sowing seeds.  I just don't know yet what the harvest will be.

Thank you very much for reading.

Playing In The Rain

Rain is descending in splattering waves from the darkness high overhead, and it seems the world is entirely wet.  It reminds me of walking to school the few blocks uphill that we had to go when I was a kid.  When it was as wet as it is right now, gullies and gutters coursed with streams of runoff.  When you have galoshes on - rain boots - and a thick raincoat, being out there in blowing wetness is no concern.  

Actually, being impervious to soaking, we seized the chance to play in the thick of it, to make streaming gutters into diverted flows, dam up waterways and float small rafts of leaves and sticks on the little torrents streaming down the street.  

My brother and I had occasion to find large rocks, ones with some real heft, and drop them resoundingly into giant puddles of standing water when we saw them.  To make a huge splash and make a deep gurgling smacking sound and then shout and yell about the quality of the noise was an unparalleled experience for us on a wet, rain-sodden day.  He was older and stronger and a few times picked up a real whopper of a rock and sent it arching to what he'd estimated was the deepest zone of a large brown muddy puddle and jumped back to avoid the wide wet splat.  It was exciting and challenging stuff to make puddles empty themselves of water when a perfect big rock was launched into its center.  Yes, sir, that was finesse at its best.  

Wearing a yellow raincoat, the thick kind with levered clamps instead of buttons, allowed us to abandon restraint and heave mighty missiles into the drink.  Blam!  "Whoa ho ho!  Did you see THAT?" It was nearly an addiction.  After each one, we'd stand there reveling in the dimensions of depth, heft, sound, and quantity of liquid we'd seen fly.   

Another ultimate high could be achieved when we were driving in our car with mom at the wheel.  All five of us or at least most of us kids would spot a big puddle on the side of road.  Then our requests and pleas for her to drive through the puddle and launch a big sheet of water with the tires began.  "That puddle is HUGE! Drive through it!  Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaase!" We begged and wheedled relentlessly, hoping she would risk all and go for it.  We wanted to send puddle water into geyser-like shooting sprays and hear the water roaring under the tires.  

The point was to keep a running Guinness Book of Puddle Records in mind and to bolster our awe of the unknown, represented by big mean lakes of standing water, which were actually a little bit vertigo inducing if we waded out into the middle of one while out walking on our own.  Puddles held a fascination because they were large bodies of water that had just come into being, resulting from ferociously wet downpours.  They were a sort of indicator that while we had been safe indoors during the worst rain, disaster was near at hand.  You never really knew if a puddle might swallow a car up or if the rain would just come smashing into the windows.  For a kid, anything was possible.  

Sometimes mom did drive through, and then we went into orbit with delight, yelling and screaming when the car's tires plowed through the edge of the puddle.  You had to know how to hit the right speed and angle so the water didn't just hit the bottom of the car, preventing it from spraying out sideways.  She would protest that if she drove too fast into a puddle that was opaque with brown silt, she might hit a big rock and ruin the tires.  We negotiated with her and made arguments in favor of huge splashes and tried to reassure her that her tires would not be ruined.  But, how could we know for sure, we secretly thought.  When the big puddles sprayed in a vast arc of whooshing brown, we kids were subdued in awe, "Ohhhhhhhhh, that's so cool!"  

When we had heard heavy rain on the roof all night, our eyes unable to close, we felt small and the rain powerful. Flowing rivulets rushed down the street and, pooling into big brown lurking collections of water, had the same appeal to us as a sleeping lion does to a gang of monkeys who tease and torment it.  With every heave of rock into the maw of a giant puddle, we regained some sense of invulnerability and power.  It was a matter of respect to whack a puddle with a big rock.  We defined ourselves and the water itself by challenging it, but we didn't know that then.  On gray soggy days wearing our raincoats and boots, calm brown puddles of water were just too tempting to ignore.  Sure beats sitting in front of a computer, you know?  

The Color of Life

Since November when I wandered off to Hawaii and back again, I have noticed Christmas colors gradually seep into the vistas and fine details of Honolulu and Hanalei and back again to San Juan Bautista, Monterey and Carmel.  Reflections of ochre and forest greens shine in window panes, wet streets, and metallic fabrics everywhere I turn.  The colors have been a curious mix of subtly dark earthen hues and then quick flashes of hammered gold and pounded silver.  The dashes of brilliance have been small, compressed, and vibrant, as if they were fire itself.  The season is pulsing with a tempered organic vitality, a dampened but hardly suppressed vigor that wants to spring free and grow.  There is possibility, a kinetic potential of poised energy awaiting its moment..  A dancer feels it as the moment just before the first downbeat of the music.

It has been a visual feast of a season but a quiet one, one in which delicate sounds have been more noticeable than powerful ones.  That very thing, though, emphasizes the feeling of coiled energy, as if the world has hushed to a whisper and rustle as it realizes the dancer is ready to begin.

I spent a good part of the day with friends in Carmel with Christmas glittering and shining in bits and pieces as we walked to town, and flowing before me on the beach at sunset.  

Carmel is a very small city surrounded on three sides by scenery so beautiful it makes your eyes blur with tears sometimes.  On the fourth side is a highway busy with traffic and human industry.  In the middle of it all is a peculiar and unique collection of people, their homes and their dogs.  Because it is all so unique and peculiar, it is odd.  Beauty and oddity is eccentric and that is really what Carmelites delight in.  Even if they don't delight in it, their peculiarities persist and they remain eccentric.  They insist on doing so many fussy and unusual things, collectively, that it gets to a point that if they did not have their own little city to live in, they might not really be able to survive anywhere else.  They, and their dogs, are rare breeds who require excessive amounts of attention and deference.  But, they are good people nonetheless and care deeply.

All that being said, I still love Carmel.  I don't spend much time in town even though it's very pretty.  Instead, I get to points south of Carmel where I have more breathing room and can feast my eyes on the exact thing that has brought all those peculiar people to Carmel:  The ocean and the land that meets it there.

At the end of the day my friends and I went to Carmel River State Beach.  There, we breathed deeply and stood still.  Christmas faded away from my mind and so did the rest of the universe.  In every direction there was natural splendor, and I was a squeak, a twinkle, a dot.  Then the forces of life and nature get on with their show, dancing with bright banners and pennants, flinging plumes and leaping spray, a booming shorebreak and hissing foam.

There's this thing about sunsets at that particular beach that I saw today:  It is emblematic of change and transition.  Far out in the western sky the blazing sun descends through layers of shifting cirrus clouds, sinking inexorably to the horizon.  To the south, surf pounds and leaps against stalwart cliffs that gradually crumble.  The flying surf atomizes into a drifting haze of mist that drifts inland.  Nearby, the Carmel River flows sinuously but quietly across the sloping beach to meet the thumping waves.  One form of water flows into another and then becomes cloud again, shifting and eddying, lifting and falling.  Gulls and pelicans stitch between breakers and sky, all through time.  None of it needs us to see it; it is fine on its own.

Millions and millions of people have come and gone from Carmel, admired its man-made beauty and determination to be different, but it would not be worth a red cent if it did not have that incredible ocean moving restlessly at its flank.  I saw scarlet, crimson, gold and silver shining in the windows of Carmel, windows decorated with lights and expensive trinkets and goods.  But the colors of life itself spread themselves in shimmering perfection at sunset.  Life is kinetic energy represented in the colors of Christmas that I've been seeing this winter.  Life is waiting, biding its time, signaling its presence in the colors of a golden sunset and every wet reflection and glistening drop of water.

Monterey Sicilian Tradition: Cioppino

The Christmas day of celebration is now two days past.  Rolling into view is New Year's Eve.  For me, this means an especially unique event is yet to arrive:  Cioppino Night, our family's annual traditional meal.

A little background:

Locally here in Monterey, fishermen from Sicily began to immigrate in about 1895 until - at the peak of settlement - 1930 or so.  The sardine industry was at its most ferocious level of activity in the 30s and 40s, and scores of Sicilian families owned fishing boats and then canneries and related businesses.  This was true up and down the California coast including San Francisco where cioppino was "invented."

Basically, the lore that has been passed down tells us that at the end of their long arduous fishing days, the Sicilian fishermen ate some of the nonmarketable fish catch themselves, throwing many hunks of what extra seafood they had into a large stew pot of basic tomato sauce.  That was accompanied by coarse bread, pasta of course and red wine.  That's it.  Simplicity ruled the day because the men were poor and probably only had the most basic cooking tools on board.  But, simplicity is far from boring in this case.  Cioppino is a slurpy, engaging and deliciously unique one-dish meal that takes time to eat.  Sleeves are rolled up, bibs tied on and everyone toasts everyone else. You can't rush the cooking and you can't rush the eating.  But why would you want to?  

Since most Sicilian fishermen were Catholic and were in the habit of abstaining from meat before a Holy Day of Obligation or Feast Day, their families eventually began a local tradition of having a lavish seafood dinner on Christmas Eve.  Being Sicilian, flavors were robust and wonderful.  Cioppino filled the bill perfectly for local families and is now very popular to cook during the Christmas holiday season when dungeness crab is in season.  Dungeness is a meaty and flavorful crustacean, yielding a lot of tender meat per crab.  You can bet that in every home that's serving it this December, you hear loud conversation, laughter, clattering dishes, clinking glasses and satisfied groans at the end of the meal.  

Our family got together to have our annual cioppino feast on Christmas Eve for years.  Now, to avoid schedule and travel difficulties at Christmas Eve, we've moved the feast to the weekend closest to New Year's Eve.  The meal is rustic in style, local in origin and our longest-standing family tradition.  Planning and preparation has begun already; everyone takes part in some way.  

Cioppino is best eaten with the hands.  The traditional cioppino made here includes dungeness crab and large prawns in a fairly spicy sauce.  Large bowls of steaming seafood are consumed and other bowls fill steadily with shells sucked clean of meat and sauce. Other items on the menu are a simple crusty bread, pasta noodles, wine, salad and Sicilian cookies for dessert with coffee.  I'd share the recipe here, but unless you've got the taste and fragrance deeply set in your memory, my guess is that it would not be the same.  So, someday I'll cook some for you so you can learn the real way - by experience.  There's no other way.

A la famiglia!

Christmas Moon

In the velvet darkness, a fat and rounded orb with one side flattened hangs serenely in the quiet night.  It is, at one quarter short of full, a gibbous moon, and lovely.  

If the moon could call out, I wonder, what would I hear?  One long ringing bell note?  Or would it be hoarse and dry, a hiss?  It is solitary but loyal to our planet, circling us on our looping journey through the mysteries of space and time, lingering up there in view long after the sun has milked the dark night pale again.  Ah, good moon, sweet endearing moon, I count on you.  

There it is, our shy escort through the heavens, pulling at the oceans, sending them rushing through inlets and bays, back and forth, at its whim.  Its gentle influence may be weak compared to bolder and fiercer ones, but it is patient.  

Half the human species times itself to the moon; the moon and women are kin, swelling and thinning congruently, fecund and not, all in rhythm, keeping time with one another.  

The sun lights the moon's pale face whose reflection silvers the cupped surfaces of a restless ocean.  There it glistens like dancing whispers.  This is the abiding grace of eternity, this bellied moon, whose outline blurs with mist and vapors, a shape changer, a mystic.  

Santa's Little Helper

A small boy visited me today, riding on his mother's hip and leaning out over all he surveyed with twinkling interest in his blue-gray eyes.

Our little grand-nephew Gabriel the New is almost five months old.  His hat proclaims him Santa's Little Helper, but all he can do is wriggle.  In his jaunty red snap-closed jumper, he rolled and squeaked on the floor while the giant adults all around him watched, delighted.

Nothing quite compares to a cute baby in a good mood.  This one, of course, is our current favorite and barely has to move to set everybody within shouting distance rushing to his aid, which he loves.  In truth, his expression says he is somewhat amused by what goes on around him, but show him a cell phone or other small gadget and his attention is riveted.  His feet kick, his body bucks and bounces and his hands reach slowly toward the dazzling gizmo.  His eyes lock onto it and his mouth forms an O.  I hope teachers in his future can get that kind of response to what they need to teach him.

All 15 pounds of Gabriel are healthy and will increase to 16 pounds soon and beyond.  He is well loved and has oodles of confidence and basks in the secure comfort of total affection, a lucky boy, captain of his ship and master of a tiny universe.  There is no cringe or ducking shyness in this little one.  No, he will be a handful when he gets his feet under himself.  Until then, every last member of the family and friends everywhere adore him and love is innocent immobility for now.  I kissed him for luck and hope I see him again soon.

Cloves and Old Memories

There was a "haunted house" at our school carnival.  It was a darkened classroom that had been rigged by a busy group of parents so that when you handed over your admission ticket you were led into a very dark and frightening place filled with sounds of creaking doors and wailing cats.  There was a table where you were led and told to plunge your hands into a deep bowl of "brains" (pasta noodles) or "eyeballs" (olives) and then a witch screamed in a corner and a light flashed on and off.  Her face was green and her hair was snarled and gray. 

So, why am I thinking about all this at Christmas? 

In the same room was another table at which you were to feel, taste, or smell things with your eyes covered by a blindfold and guess what they were.  It was a simple game, and with adrenaline shooting your senses into full alert, the experience was ingrained into deep memory cells.  One of the fragrances was cloves, one that I happen to like. 

I've been making Christmas cookies the past two days and cooking more food than usual. I used cloves in a traditional cookie recipe and the fragrance connected me instantaneously to the clove-sniffing moment in the haunted house. Odors are powerful that way.  You can probably think of a list of some very strong memories connected to very specific odors, and memories - vivid ones - come flooding back to you. 

People who have brain surgery when they're awake recall things like particular fragrances when one area of the brain is touched by the surgeon. Or, if you inhale some innocuous odor, you are immediately reminded of your grandmother or the old cat you used to have or a beautiful girl you once kissed.  Or, in my case, that handsome guy's after shave. 

A lot of the things we do during the holidays are intensely connected to familiar odors.  I can replicate a recipe my grandmother gave me if I inhale the dough's fragrance and know I've gotten it right. If I smell pine pitch, I think of a certain place or time, and usually that kind of memory will be the most significant one that's cemented in my mind by adrenaline or excitement that I was in the middle of when I smelled the odor.

Perfume makers in Paris have a whole host of essences that they create signature perfumes with.   Mothers who have only smelled their new babies one time after birth have its scent imprinted in their minds and know when a baby is not their own. The part of the brain that knows and remembers odors is one of the first to develop in our brains as we grow; it's very primitive and elemental. But, wouldn't you know it, our wise brain - the frontal lobes - develops last.  

Close your eyes and experience the fragrance of balsam or burning pine logs or slow-braised onions and see where your memory takes you.  Cloves took me to a haunted mansion experience, one that I have only recalled because I detected the cloves' fragrance, and one I had no idea would come to me until the very moment it happened.  You can use "good" fragrances to trigger pleasurable memories and help yourself take your mind off of what you're in the middle of now.  A caution though:  If the stress is too high while you are experiencing the old beloved fragrance, your mind will associate it with the more-adrenalized stressful moment of now instead of then. 

Hot mulled wine? Barbecued steak? Campfire smoke?  Ah yes....I recall...

Misha The Therapy Dog Plays Santa

A very large dog that could have been mistaken for a very small horse with a long pink tongue came to work wearing a very unique costume.  Jingling bells, a flared red skirt and a santa hat made up her ensemble, and she wore it with flair and style.

This is Misha, a mellow Great Dane therapy dog.  She comes to work dressed in holiday regalia and delights patients and staff alike.  Misha is about
150 lb and is about three and a half years old.  She has been selected and trained to go around the hospital cheering people up and giving them something to smile about, and sometimes just the sight of an animal or being able to touch her soft clean fur triggers a positive, healing response in people.  I wonder if little kids see her as an equal.  Surely, she is much bigger than most of them.  Sometimes people pour their hearts out to therapy dogs when no one else has been able to gain their trust.  A dog simply shows up and stands there; the rest is magic.

There are quite a few dogs whose owners volunteer to bring them in for visits every few days.  They're on a schedule, and these quiet canines take their job seriously.  When they put on their official green vests, they know where they're going and what is expected.

In the squadron, as I call it, are a bichon, a doberman, an Australian shepherd, and a standard-sized poodle.  Misha showed up in her nose-to-tail finery and never blinked an eye, standing quietly on her leash and accepting comments, praise and dog cookies whenever offered.  When she wants to relax, she swings her hind quarters around and sets them down on a chair.  It's easy for her since her back goes nearly up to my waist.  She has her toenails painted red, has a blinking lighted collar and a few accessories I doubt many other dogs would put up with but that she doesn't mind in the slightest.  Considering she had the entire staff crowded around her smiling and laughing, the job she does is unique and very much appreciated.

Winter Begins With The Solstice

This is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, and beginning of winter.  This is why we decorate Christmas trees, really.  Back in our forebears' days, they would chop down an evergreen tree and bring it into the hut, castle or cave and decorate with fruits, ribbons or other small things and drink down some cups of mulled wine.  Dancing would commence and celebrations of all sorts were made in recognition of the fact that life would renew itself and days become longer once again.

Our little tree is glowing quietly near the window and our neighbors have strung lights in their yards in defiance of eternal darkness and desolation.  Well, also in remembrance of the story of a birth in Bethlehem heralded by a bright star in the night sky.  All the events throughout recorded western history are blurred now into what we now recognize as Christmas, but the fact is we will now undergo ever-lengthening days until the summer solstice.

This is a fine thing, my favorite aspect of Christmas, the lights and decorations.  Fire itself is powerful and iconic to our primitive minds; even small modern lights have that ability to enchant us.  Those early evergreen trees did not have lights on them.  Instead, the seeming eternal nature of a green tree in winter symbolized life itself, a definite sign that not all things were dead, life still pulsed in the woods somewhere.  The Germans, as I understand it, could have been the first to attach candles to the trees.  Some trees went up in flames when pitch caught fire, but most of the time, candlelight was so pretty that the custom spread.  Later, Christians added a bright star on top to symbolize the star of Bethlehem.

People who practice other faiths have other ways of celebrating the longest winter night, mostly using flames and special foods.  As for Christmas trees, nowadays Americans assume it's an American tradition and almost feel a national pride as they look at their trees.  Truly, though, a "winter-green tree"  is a symbol and tradition not to be messed with.  With intense nostalgia piqued by the merest glimpse of a decorated evergreen tree, we know an icon when we see one.

Happy Winter Solstice, ye dwellers in the dark.  Mulled wine and hearty food will get you through the night and put your mind at ease.  Though winter officially begins today, daylight hours will now be getting longer by a few minutes each day until they are equal again at the vernal equinox in March.

Candy Cane Lane and Pea Soup Andersen's: What Decade Is This?

We said good-bye to Nevada City midmorning today, a rain-soaked little town in the Sierra foothills all decorated for the holidays.  Our friends were back to work and we had four hours of driving ahead of us, but instead of just saying good-bye and going home, it seemed like we were traveling back in time.

Heading south on Interstate 5, with our quick vacation to the foothills' Christmas festivities receding in the rearview mirror, the idea of stopping at Pea Soup Andersen's popped up.  The thought of it made my mind go spinning back in time.  In the late 50s and early 60s, road trips in big station wagons with a family of baby boom kids and parents were punctuated by kitschy restaurants, billboards and mediocre mass-marketed food.  As an example, I give you Pea Soup Andersen's.  You will see billboards announcing your distance from one of them at least 120 miles out, just to be sure you have at least an hour to consider making it your choice for lunch or dinner.  One of them is near Gustine in the Central Valley, the second of two locations.  The original is in Buellton, farther south.

The pea soup for which this nostalgia trap is known for is a silky smooth, dark green liquid that has been served in both locations for half a century.  I remember stopping off once or twice as a kid with my family if my parents ever dared take us all on a road trip.  Nearly everyone in California has stopped at one or both Pea Soup locations at least once when traveling on Interstate 5.  You just do, mostly out of curiosity but also because you desperately need something other than food eaten in the confines of your car.  Certainly, the prices are on par with any family restaurant you'd find anywhere, and based on price it is far less interesting or digestible food than local places offer.  Sorry, it just is.  But, if nostalgia and comfort are what you're after, you will be happy.  For families with small children, the waitresses, tables, booths and other features are very durable, dependable, and the whole place absorbs squeals from kids nicely.

From there, it takes about an 60 or 75 minutes to get to the Monterey Peninsula, a fairly uneventful route these days, which was not true in the past.  You have to go over Pacheco Pass to exit the Central Valley and gain the coast.  The road used to be a hair-raising two-lane highway that cut a few poor souls' lives short when they overshot curves or passed other cars on blind curves.  Trucks carrying heavy loads frequently lost their brakes and caused major wrecks along the route.  Now, it's not much of a challenge, and we made it home in good time.

After dark we ventured back in time once again, revisiting more than a few happy holiday memories.  Candy Cane Lane, a local neighborhood in Pacific Grove - The Groove! - blinks to life for a month between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, much to the wonder and delight of kids and used-to-be kids.  The several flat and safe-to-walk blocks make up a fine old traditional neighborhood of people who spend hundreds of dollars on Halloween candy every year and then spend hundreds of hours decorating for Christmas.  This is such a tradition now at Christmas that homeowners who sell their homes must inform new buyers that they will be expected to be part of it all come the holidays.

Thousands of cars roll slowly past, and people walk along the streets and sidewalks, stopping to admire the life-sized cartoon characters standing amidst what seem like miles of holiday lights wrapped around trees, bushes and along the features of every home.  A small park in the neighborhood's center features some decorations that have been used every year since I was small.

In another part of the neighborhood, a huge mechanical tin soldier raises his sword and grins at everyone down below while his two eyes (light bulbs) glow in a way that always looked more demonic than anything to me.  This may be the only place carolers show up regularly.  All of it - decorations, lighting, set-up and maintenance of the displays is voluntary.  It always has been.

As we joined the other oglers, I could easily hear the voices of my siblings in my ears: "Oooohhh, look at THAT santa.  Ahhhhh, that's cooooooooool," exactly like the voices of kids looking at them now.

Pizza, Puddles, Shopping and Showers

Today in Nevada City, the morning dawned wet, cold and laced with sounds of gurgling water.  The creek in the ravine below this house is unnamed but certainly making its presence known.  There are steep grassy and tree-covered slopes on either side of its winding banks, and it drains the streets and paths that wind and twist through town.  Our friends were concerned that if the wind became gusty, the tall trees in the forest might begin to topple, but that hasn't happened yet.

After a quick and satisfying cup of coffee in the morning, we decided to go for a walk down into town, a distance of perhaps five rickety blocks lined with tall and attractive Victorian Homes.  Of course, just as we left and had walked about a block, the rain began to come down in torrents, worse than yesterday.  Not to worry, we ducked into a cafe and sipped some refreshing juice for a little while.  The rain persisted, so we modified our plan to walk a distance around town.  I finished up some essential gift buying and we were given a lift back to the house to regroup.

The rain stopped but the sky remained cold and dark with heavy clouds.  Considering this a lucky break considering the past 48 hours of steady rain, we all got into our friends' Toyota van and took Hwy 49 to the Yuba River State Park to see what had become of the river in all the rain.

Just east of a more modern bridge used for the highway, a graceful arching bridge built in 1921 is closed to traffic and affords a dramatic view of the stream and rapids down below.  What had been a calm series of water holes locals love to swim and inner tube in has become a mocha-colored torrent that would easily kill anyone foolish enough to venture into the cold and wet.  The water is roaring and tumbling over huge granite boulders; it looks like a living thing now, constantly jostling and surging along its course.

The air was cold and sometimes gusting, but we took a hike along the stream eastward through the flanking forest to see other parts of the river upstream.  Madrone was glistening and sinewy, a dark and dense ruddy wood compared to the sodden oak and pine.  Ferns coat older oaks like feathery pantaloons, and always the roar of continuous rapids in the river below us continued.  It was beautiful, dramatic and wonderful.  I wanted to hike for hours, but we were concerned about the potential for renewed showers, so we turned back after only about a 3/4 mile distance.

Well, that whipped up an appetite, so off we went to Northridge Restaurant for Popeye pizza (spinach and pine nuts) and Greek pizza (feta and olives).  The consensus we reached is that when hiking or skiing is popular in an area, the pizza is fantastic.  Go there; you will be intensely happy it, and life will become instantly improved.  Ours was, certainly, so we toasted ourselves, everyone else alive on the planet and life itself.  That's pretty good pizza.

The best tradition of winter in Nevada City is Victorian Christmas.  Merchants are open for business all over town, but street vendors dressed in Victorian costumes also sell food, crafts, and gift items.  It's intensely cute, quaint and Christmas good cheer bubbles up in even the most Scrooge-like individuals.  The rain had returned again, but then abated, and we lit out for downtown to enjoy what we could.  Fewer than usual craftspeople had braved the elements to sell their wares, but we still got a sense of the potential popularity of the event.

At twilight, lights were glowing, and the air temperature began to plunge again.  Snow is now predicted for tomorrow, but we should be fine and will return to our familiar coast, our own specific groove.

Nevada City Shopping In The Rain

Rain is falling steadily everywhere all day long in big heavy drops. It sounds even and patient; it's not going to end anytime soon.  Little Deer Creek runs through the east side of town and is brown and turbulent but not flooding.  It's course is fairly steep and pooling generally doesn't  happen readily except in a few areas.  Everything is wet and soggy with the rain.  At 2,500 feet, we are not getting snow, but it's cold out.  

We're staying in Nevada City with friends for a couple of days and taking the opportunity to take a new look around town.

This town's gold mines were so productive of the yellow metal in 1849 and a few years following that Nevada City became the county seat and housed prominent and well-educated people very quickly.  Thousands of brick and batten houses were built followed by the addition of hundreds if not thousands more Victorian-era homes encrusted with "gingerbread" and elaborate decorative features.

After the rush was over, the town gradually declined and fell into disrepair.  Eventually, in the early 70s the state decided to build Hwy 20 through the area and began a campaign of imminent domain, tearing out at least 500 of the beautiful but declining structures.  A couple of far-sighted citizens realized to their horror that the old beauties would all be lost forever unless a revival was undertaken and history preserved.


Today, the city is a bedroom community for about half of its residents, perhaps fewer, who commute to Sacramento or other larger cities for work.  There is a mix of older more conservative folks as well as young new-age younger people interested in skiing, massage, hand crafts and outdoor sports.  A predominance of stores stock merchandise reflecting heavy interest in meditation, Pacific Rim-influenced design, new-age spiritualism as well as Buddhist and Hindu religious icons.  This is nothing new to you if you've been in most Northern California college towns.

Scores of businesses now inhabit the old saloon, market and original downtown buildings, and they stock all sorts of interesting and artistic gift items.  A few restaurants and cafes offer delicious foods and drinks.  The tourist industry is strong, especially during the Victorian Christmas weekends and summertime.

The rain has not abated all day, so we just went out in it and ducked into shops to warm up when we needed to.  Streets are narrow, windy and sometimes steep, but charming to explore and certainly do not lack enticing stores to spend time in.

Our favorite cafe was jammed at lunch time.  It's the South Pine Cafe near the corner of Broad and Pine Streets.  I had - I know it sounds odd - eggplant parmesan soup with a nut burger.  What can I say?  It was delicious and I couldn't eat it all.  My companions were all very satisfied with their choices.  After lunch, we shopped around and poked our heads into a few gift boutiques, a couple of coffee shops and then headed back home, pretty damp but none the worse for wetness.

J.J. Jackson's Gift Shop is brimming with beautiful and imaginative home items and gift cards that were surprisingly original.  The Gray Goose has probably the most irreverent and nutty stuff you'd want to buy for an appreciative friend.  It's on Broad Street Right across from the historic and venerable old National Hotel.

More shopping tomorrow.  We're also going to head over to the Yuba River for a look and a walk if conditions allow.  It's wild and scenic in certain stretches.  After all, how can you be in the foothills and not go to a river?  The rivers are what created the conditions that the miners in '49 found so irresistible.  It's rugged and beautiful here whether you're wet or dry, inside or out.

Road Trip to Nevada City - Rain-Soaked Travel Day

On the road again, and this time we're in Nevada City, California after driving from the Monterey Peninsula to Auburn along a wet and crowded Interstate 5 for much of the way.  No problems that really slowed us down, but still the going was sloggier than we'd have liked.  It takes us about four hours to make the drive on a clear day; today was an hour longer due to Friday commute traffic and the rain.

Auburn is on Highway 49, a route that bears exploring.  It's named after the famous year - 1849 - when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill near Auburn, starting a feverish rush to the area from all parts of the world.  Most towns along Hwy 49 are charming and interesting, but in the year or two it took to create many of them, times were wild and wooly.  Men and some women were elbowing their way to stake claims or make their fortunes as entrepreneurs who supplied or entertained the miners.

Nevada City sprang up in a matter of a year and became home to over 50,000 people almost overnight.  It became home to some of the richest gold mines ever known to the gold rush and is now the county seat of Nevada County.  Hwy 49 intersects Hwy 20 right at the edge of town, and two creeks flow down through the hills and along the streets of town.  It has the typical rugged mining town ambience with steeply pitched rooftops, brick buildings, hitching posts, remnant ore mining artifacts and a few cemeteries that are the resting place for original citizens of the town.

More to see, more to tell, but we've just arrived and the rain is gurgling in the gutters.

The Big Sur Coast: Wild Untamed Beauty

Imagine being in a jostling crowd, shoulder to shoulder with dozens of other people.  You must shift your weight, turn, twist about and excuse yourself as you bump accidentally but repeatedly into all the people around you.  Then, you pop out of the snarl and away from them, leave them behind, and you begin to breathe deeply as you enter another room where there is peace.  It's calmer, quieter and a hundred times more pleasant.

That's what it feels like to drive down the Big Sur coast away from civilization.

At first, you see open hilly ranch land and a few regional and state parks on this and then that side of the road.  You drive past a stretch of golden beach where you swear you're at eye level with the ocean off to your right.  It's a treacherous but absolutely beautiful crescent of coast that serves as a visual frame for Point Lobos State Park.  Never been there?  Any photographer worth their salt has made fascinating and haunting images of the rocks, surf and trees there.  Put it on your bucket list.

You are driving into increasingly more twisting and dramatic coastal land now, and you must slow for the community of Carmel Highlands, which actually has its own post office, gas station and galleries.  Architecturally, it offers everything from low-slung ranch-style homes to rugged stone castles.  Be very careful driving on the coast from now on because people new to the area are often stunned into immobility in their cars and pull onto the shoulder - of you're lucky - or just stop right smack in the road to gape at all the soaring beauty.  It makes you want to compose arias, tell all your friends, kiss someone passionately, scream, run around or cry.  It's pretty nice as coasts go.

Past the Highlands, the sinuous quality of the road continues for another 75 or 80 miles.  You are presented with views, vistas, grand scale and proportion that requires every superlative you can remember.  Then, since the colors and atmosphere are constantly changing, you feel compelled to redescribe it all, all over again at every turn.  Finally, you just fall down in a heap of exhausted happiness, jaw slack and eyes glazed.  The best place to do that is at the inns and parks in Big Sur itself.

Now, if you're going to eat and contemplate life, God, the universe, love and every other thing you might want to wrap your mind around slowly and to great depth, Big Sur is exactly the place to do it.  No matter who you are, you can be assured that the steep mountains whose sides are awash with the Pacific surf or the Big Sur River will reveal the one exactly perfect aerie for you to breathe in and out.  Sit and think.  Hike.  Paint, write, eat, ride, walk, read, sing.  Be more human.

The coast that leaps into view as you are sprung from the pretty towns to its north is a wild living beast that is both beautiful and unruly.  It will always have the final say, no matter what the conversation is in your heart.  That is what is so freeing about it.  You are just so small and so helpless in the face of all that gorgeous, untamed wild earth.

This Isn't Hawaii Anymore, Koko

I am not in Hawaii anymore.  The memories are strong, but my body is telling me:  It is cold and you need to put on something besides a bathing suit.  I keep looking through my pictures and reliving the warm pleasure we experienced on Kauai.  

There's nothing you can do about the weather where you live, but you can go somewhere where the weather is better.  "Better" is a relative term.  Friends of mine are sinking into depression when they realize rain has melted a good bit of the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Skiing is everything to them but not to me.  When storms slide slowly over the west, skiiers get giddy with excitement.  Me?  I'm thinking about sand, beach towels and a snorkel.  Snow is not "better" weather except when it beomes stored snowpack to feed streams and rivers in spring and summer.

Rustling palms, plumeria blossoms scenting the air and naturally ripened pineapple?  Now we're talking.

No, I'm not in Hawaii anymore, and I have to turn up the heater and put on my bulky winter clothes every day.  It's the sad fact of life in Monterey.  I know even that is very mild compared to you readers in Canada and Russia.  Hats off to you, you rugged northerners.  I'm a wimp in comparison.

My plan this Christmas is to make a gingerbread Hawaii scene, so when I make it, I'll post a photo here.  Palm trees, sandy beach, outrigger canoe, all with dried fruits and nuts for decorations on the icing.  Not bad.

Levi 501s: He's Looking Good

Voluminous skirts and silk top hats gave way long ago to denim jeans.  Sometime in the future, jeans will give way to something else.  Already, Levi 501 classic jeans have stepped aside for comfort in the form  of fleece wear and stretch fabrics.  In some - probably many - places in the west, my favorite combination of clothes on men is worn with a certain handsome flair.  (By the way, I have no inkling of an idea why this has come to mind right now.  Nothing I have done or seen in the past six months would lead me to this eddy out of the main stream of my thinking.)

The look that turns my head is Levi 501 jeans, a fine belt and a crisp white shirt.  Must be an ingrained appeal, having grown up in a pretty horsey community where Western-style riding was favored over English.  I'm telling you men, your clothes say a lot, and if you dress well, girls are drawn to you like bees to honey.  Skip the baggy, boxer's-hanging-out whole idea.  It's about as sexy as a dumpster.  Look good, get her some flowers, and you will notice a difference.

Of course, I can name a few other "looks" that are nice to see on guys, but that'll do for starters.

Okay, back to business...work, getting ready for Christmas, looking for pool time during the semester break.  

Winter Wrapped Sky

I will be so delighted when the season rounds the bend and days at last become longer, minute by minute, every day, all the way to the summer solstice.  I only have to wait another week or so.

The moon is hanging its belly down, a fat and shimmering half orb in the cold night sky.  This is candle darkness, and it needs loud songs and banging drums to keep it at bay.

Soup and breads that are hearty and fragrant need cooking these days.  Music needs playing and the fire needs stoking, because there is nothing better than a warm crackling fire when the moon hangs its belly down on a night that has winter wrapped around it.

A Miracle Re-Enacted: La Virgen del Tepeyac in San Juan Bautista

A long-awaited event on our Christmas calendar arrived at last:  La Virgen del Tepeyac, a community theater performance of the famous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe put on by El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista.  Mission San Juan Bautista is only one of many historic and attractive structures to be seen, most of them arrayed around a broad grassy plaza.  It's free to see the park which always looks like you've been transported to another, more gracious and rustic time.

As it happens, today is the Feast Day for Our Lady of Guadalupe, which made the popularity of today's performance extra meaningful.  La Virgen is put on every other year by the Teatro, and every performance is eventually sold out.  Attendees are often so love the play that they attend several times in one season and travel from far outside the area.

The actual performance is a retelling of the true story that took place in 1531 wherein Juan Diego, a converted Aztec Indian man was injured while out walking one day and prayed for help.  Lo and behold an apparition appeared before him on a hillside, the virgin mother of Jesus, who requested that he speak to the Spanish bishop about building a temple in her honor.  Naturally, Juan Diego was ridiculed and suspected as a kook by lesser priests and his own people.  On two other occasions, the same apparition appeared to him and instructed him.  The story concludes with the re-enactment of a miraculous image imprinted on Juan Diego's cloak, that of the virgin, and also that, miraculously,  Castillian red roses cascaded from the cloak, proving to the bishop that the apparition was truly the mother of God and should be honored for her request.

The upshot of the whole legend is that a cathedral was built in what is now Mexico City to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, to honor the Indios (the Spaniards' name for the Aztec indians), and to unify the beliefs of the Catholic faith with that of the native Aztec people.  Juan Diego, poor ordinary shepherd, turned out to be quite a catalyst for change.

The performance is vivid and melodic, involving singing and dancing using the entire length and breadth of the inside of the San Juan Bautista mission church.  300 people at a time watch the play, which is in Spanish with an English libretto provided.  Drums, whistles, incense, dramatic lighting and operatic singing as well as folk music that can lift you right up out of your seat; and the energy of the story and performers is terrific.  Too bad photographs are not allowed; it is a visual feast and very unique.

Now Christmas - at least the Alta California styled one we love - is complete.  After touring Old Monterey's beautiful adobes last night  and then seeing the dramatic retelling of Our Lady's miracle today, all we really hope for is good health and peace for everyone we love.

Monterey Aglow: Christmas Tour In the Adobes

Perhaps a thousand people walked through the dark streets of Old Monterey, stepped across the thresholds of the oldest structures in town, between rows of luminarias and were greeted by costumed docents within. The 26th Annual Christmas in the Adobes Tour was conducted under a pale half moon tilted on its side and shrouded in a soft hazy mist.  

We started by buying our tickets at the Cooper Molera Adobe and then walked east to the Stevenson House, so called because Robert Luis Stevenson boarded there for almost four months one year at the turn of the last century.  There, a bagpiper stood in a darkened courtyard and played stirring marches and tunes on his pipes.  Inside, the house was festooned in plaid with fresh green swags of juniper.  Tea and shortbread cookies were served.

Onward to the Casa Abrego and then Casa Pacheco, which was originally built by a wealthy landowner on a prime piece of property in the heart of the town then with striking views of the bay.  In his day, Senior Pacheco had a clear vista from there across the harbor and near bay because fewer trees grew in town back then compared to now.  It's a mens' social club and sports a rich and comfortable interior, usually only available to members.  It had served as a hospital upstairs.  Babies were delivered there, and it is said that three current members of the men's club (Pacheco Club) were born in the building.

The San Carlos Cathedral was next on our list, the very first cathedral built in the state.  It has recently undergone a much-needed overhaul and refurbishment.  Redwood tree roots and water wicking into its walls were destroying the 300-year-old structure.  It has been functioning continuously ever since it was built in about 1730 and is luminous inside, its masterfully done remodel now complete. Panels in its current walls show original portions of the walls uncovered during restoration.

Other stops on our list were Colton Hall, the first capitol building in the new state of California where the state's constitution was written; The First Theater that's rarely open to the public; and Casa del Oro, also known as the Boston Store.  This little store was perfumed with the old-fashioned fragrance of sarsparilla and anise-seed candies that they sell there.  It is quaint and pretty.  It also holds the first secure safe ever shipped to the west coast.  Gold miners would bring feather quills with hollow nibs filled with gold dust and store their bounty in the safe.  Thus the name of the building - House of Gold (casa del oro).  There were such tidbits to be learned about each of the 22 stops on the tour.  Only the most determined tour goers would stop at each place, possible if you use the full four available hours, but we only hit the high spots this year.  Even so, we walked two miles on our modified route.

Last of all we hurried over to The Custom House to see its interior where docents dressed in period finery danced quadrilles and waltzes to the quaint sounds of Heartstrings, a group of musicians who play stringed instruments.  The dancing, music and atmosphere held the audience spellbound.  Warm applause afterward filled the room and spilled out into the plaza nearby where mist blurred distant streetlights and an ice skating rink whirling with revelers.  

What makes the evening so special - and this was probably one of the most pleasant versions of the tour I've seen because the weather was so balmy - is that the lighting, the costumes, the fragrances of fresh boughs and baked goods all signal a gentle nostalgia and charm.  All the adobes were decorated for the holidays, using a style typical of the early 1800s to 1880s - well, except for strings of lights here and there.

Monterey is a fine small town whose history stretches back to the times of the Rumsen people, an indigenous nation established in the area for perhaps 10,000 years before the Spanish settlers sailed into the bay in the 1600s.  Their culture and society is exhibited at the Pacific House and is well worth a visit. Most of the structures open for tour tonight are part of Monterey State Historic Park Association or the California State Park system.  The thousand or so people who did the walking tour gave the Park a well-deserved shot in the arm for funding.  And we all were treated to a very fine experience indeed.

Theory at the End of the Day: KISS

What has fallen by the wayside that once captured your imagination?  What have you given up on that once stirred you and gave you inspiration?  What were you good at and knew it, but set aside?

Personally, my thumbnail theory says you pretty much know who you are when you're about seven years old.  After that, you become a more complex version of that original child.  Part of that theory says that older people are not necessarily wiser than young people - some are - just because they make things complicated and stern.

The things I was interested in back then, I am still taken by even now:  Visual details, beautiful water, speed, good flavors, talent, a mysterious story.

The key to life?  Keep things simple, appreciate good health and look for love.  In a nutshell, Keep It Simple, Sweetie.

Breathing Between Clouds

The sky and ocean have blurred into one atmospheric mystery, and the fragrance of kelp and fish in atomized salt water lingers without moving.  There is no breeze, no motion, only living things exhaling delicate puffs of moisture, invisible and indiscrete.  The very ocean itself has exhaled into the air and the clouds have descended to the sea's surface where they hesitate to ascend again.  It is all a sigh.  

If it were twilight now, lights would form haloes and glow in a shrouded softness.  This is the in between, the lingering dreams from the now-gone night, where light and water and air have become one another.  This meteorologic formlessness is a slumber, a pause between one moment and the next where the shapeless murk of daylight mist is indistinguishable from midnight cloud.

It is reality and unreality blended in a visibly imagined incoherence.  What is a cloud but liminal?

Christmas, Monterey Style: Adobes and Angels

Swimming felt good today as the weather changed from balmy to cold and back again.  The two weeks I lost while on vacation set me back. It feels so great to be swimming again that even if I've lost some fitness, just being in the water is great.

After the swim, I was off on errands around downtown Monterey, where I saw the familiar angels of Christmas up in trees, on the sides of buildings and on lamp posts.  The ladies with wings were first painted by artists in the community back in the 60s or 70s if memory serves, and they've been displayed every year since then with a few re-dos of hair, costume and beaming smiles.  It's a quaint touch, especially because they are mostly seen along the Path of History in Old Monterey.

The Path includes the adobe buildings built in the 1700s and 1800s, including California's first theater, the first capitol building of California called Colton Hall, and the Customs House where ships had to declare their cargo before it was dispersed.

So, while taking in a bit of Monterey's history, I took a quick walk around a few blocks to see what was new and interesting.  The Stokes Adobe is being refurbished after a long stint as a fine restaurant.  A long line of cement pillars has been put in place across the street from that adobe to create what looks like might be a new footbridge along the creek running there.

Many of the adobes  will be open and candles lit tomorrow night and Saturday night for the annual Christmas In The Adobes Walking Tour.  If you're in town and have a couple of hours to spare, this is perhaps the very best and most unique look at Monterey and its history.  Docents will be dressed in costumes, the main buildings will offer refreshments and live acoustic music.  It's a big effort by the State Parks as well as Monterey Historical Society.  Tickets cost $20 for a self-paced tour.  Highly recommended.  

Monterey is bustling.  It's a fine little town, attractive, beautiful and very layered with human history dating back 400 years.  Fall colors are still clinging to some trees, especially maples, and they look especially dramatic when found near Carmel sandstone walls and buildings.  Seems like every corner offers a postcard view every day of the year.