Seeing It's Not Ordinary

If I learned anything today, it's that there is complex beauty in the ordinary things around me. It sure is easy to overlook them, though, if I take the same route, walk at the same pace and believe that other places far away are more interesting.

On my walk today, I paused and looked at a little scuff of blue paint on the weathered wood, a wrinkle in the glass of the old house on the corner that reflects light in such a curious way. I had to ask:  What am I really seeing? The more persistent question became:  What have I been overlooking?

I had to walk backwards, bend over, crouch down, squint my eyes. I looked from different angles than I usually do. I found it created a sort of visual warp through which I could enter, a way to exist differently, if only through my eyes.

It's funny I think that leaves are green or that flowers are soft and delicate, that glass is flat or that the the sky is blue. Seems like the natural world has all kinds of ways of showing me that it's anything but ordinary.

Seattle: Darkness and Light

This is Sunday, I am in a hotel room somewhere in the United States. Where am I? I ask myself, disoriented and uncertain. I've lost my bearings, veered away from something. I've gone elsewhere, beyond the boundary lines, but of what? of Monterey County that I am so used to and know like the back of my hand? I am so familiar with my own routine, it seems, that I don't even remember what I'm about, what's important, where the ground is, so to speak. I am drifting spiritually, unmoored, not too unhappy, but I am vaguely dissatisfied with the unmooring and know I need to do something about it.

After I sit up and take stock of the hotel room, my mind clearly recalls that I am in Seattle. Ah, good. A new city, a fresh start.

There are a few breaths left in the month of October; it's not gone yet. Shivering maples and poplars line the avenue outside our hotel entrance. Leaves spin and dance when gusts of cold air pull them, stem from twig, in urgent rushes. In a ballet of spinning color, the spiraling colors drift quietly to the dark streets.

Uphill from the hotel on First Avenue is Pikes Place Market, one of the most famous of all American marketplaces. Seattle is hilly, not as severely as is San Francisco, but it does pose a few challenges on certain streets. There is a steep downslope from our street to the waterline further west, indicating that this was a bluff or cliff top in the past. Every hill we see near and far is encrusted with houses, businesses and industry. Ferries and cargo ships move silently across the open bay. Humanity is moving busily, and even though there is a roar from the engines, it seems silent and remote somehow. I have not yet found a connection to it other than the simple fact that it is a city.

Creosote, fish and yeasted breads are pungent in the air as we round the corner and find ourselves face to face with the market street. Cobbles and bricks, neon and painted signs point to the interior of the buildings before us. It's The Market, the gathering point of produce, meat, fish, and prepared goods. Come in, sample, try me out, it all says, I am here before you in my weatherbeaten glory, with stories to tell.

Once inside the market, the energy and exuberance of a real place, one that has heart and soul, simmers and moves. It is labyrinthine and carnival in nature, but it is nothing if not alive. So, we begin to explore. Above my head and eyes, arrows outlined in neon point left or right. I am a sucker for color, see each one and turn to look. In this dark autumn morning, the shouting fishmongers, vivid neon and fragrant food booths tackle my senses and lead me astray. I am handed slices of d'anjou pear, dabs of marionberry jelly, drops of blueberry vinegar and a spoonful of cranberry chutney. It's dazzling, a confusion, a riot of distractions. It roots me to the ground and sends my mind in a spiral.  Why cannot all of life be like this festival? Has it always been so and I've missed it? I try to discern the ebb and flow of energy around me and pull out into quiet corners once in a while, watch the movement and listen to the sounds, the pulse at the heart of it all.

The men and women who work here seem carnie-like, remind me of the midway at the county fair. They are jaded by the shuffling mobs of tourists they see every day, need to hustle hard to make a dollar, compete with each other for the attention of the bewildered hordes.

Just when we reach overload and feel our eyes glazing over, we eject ourselves into the bright daylight outside on the cobbled street of Pike Place and stand blinking, inhaling deep breaths of air, gripping our purchases. I feel like I've just left a stream of energy, the flow too much for me to cope with. I've eddied out.

We walk north along the sidewalk and shoulder past the entrances of small artisanal bakeries, a cheese factory, indoor malls containing aromas from India, China, and Thailand. The enticements seem to be unlimited. We're well past our usual breakfast time, so the hunt begins for a suitable place to rest our feet and eat something. We have no idea. One French bistro-like restaurant up an incline from our street is jammed; no room today. We continue north on Pike Place and find Etta's. What great luck.

It is not great luck; it is fantastic luck. The food is unusually wonderful, and the place fills quickly after we arrive until there is no room left at all. I choose a corned beef hash that bears almost no resemblance to the Hormel's product I've chewed on in leaner times. It is savory and hearty, and I believe I have been cured of what ails me. But, then again, maybe I'm just not hungry anymore.

We leave the heaven of Etta's and are drawn back to the market, enter there, turn and bend along the courses of its interior. There are many pathways in the market building, many levels, lots of doorways, alleyways, stairs and doorways. It's a blood stream, a river, a crazy place with twists and turns, dead ends and long straightaways. It pulses and flows with the buying and selling all through its innards. I had no idea. It spits me out again. I take more deep drafts of air and calm down little by little.

Uphill we walk until we reach a plaza where an indoor shopping mall faces us. We dive into it and find a more modern and planned mall environment. It is nothing in comparison to the wail and call of Pike Place Market. We are heading for the monorail ride to the space needle, which was built in 1962. The ride is approximately a mile long and feels like a Disneyland jaunt in Futureland. It costs $4 roundtrip.

Frank Geary designed the building that folds and undulates around the Electronic Music Project (EMP). The monorail's track curves through the middle of two of the sections of the building, stops, and we step off the train through doors that glide open soundlessly. A park surrounds the area, which is pleasant and quiet today. There is a building called Seattle Center where we snack and rest. Suddenly, we see a sign for La Dia De Los Muertos, a Mexican tradition honoring deceased relatives and friends. Elaborate altars, rejuvenation of grave sites and special celebrations are held in remembrance of loved ones lost. I remember my own as look at the decorations and celebrants. It is tender and loving, honest and simple, handmade, real.

The EMP is a place celebrating electronic music. Jimi Hendrix had hoped for a church of sorts where people could come together to appreciate the power of amplified sound, he said, and its ability to transport the mind and spirit to a different place. They have built a Sky Church within the space that is impressively automated. It strives to surround one with music and visual spectacle. For me, it seems complicated, one-dimensional, hollow and meaningless. I find no love in it at all. No tenderness of memories gained one precious moment at at time over years and years. It is all lost on me and leaves me cold. Odd. I love music. But I love love a lot more. What is represented in a few handmade altars and in the faces of the relatives framed on them speaks to me much more clearly.

The darkness of a soulless place, even though it is filled with strobed and pulsing extravaganzas, cannot provide nearly the uplift and depth of emotion a few silent moments in front of a dozen flickering candles give me.

Seattle is a roaring modern city within which I found a pulsing heart in its marketplace. In one day, I have recalled faces and words when I saw a few flickering candle flames. Did I need to come to a darker, colder place to provide counterpoint to the eternal warmth of love?

Seattle: Travel Day

I'm in a mood to flee as I board my flight for Seattle. The previous few months have been a grind and seem to be disjointed and themeless in my mind. I have had no sense of real focus despite my routine schedule. I have been a hamster on a wheel, stuck on fast forward without gaining any sense of accomplishment. I need a break, even if it's only four days. I'm bound for the northwest, a new corner of the country for me. A lifetime ago, my family lived in a small town near Portland, but I hardly remember it now, having left when I was only three. I'm going, I say to myself. Going to get on that plane and go. Go to breathe, live a little differently, let a new town open itself up to me.

Travel is so much more than moving from one point to another. Every journey has its unique limitations, discoveries and uncertainties, but at some point it all begins when the need to seek new ideas and horizons outweighs complacency. Off I must go every so often. With a healthy sense of irony, I am dusting off mental cobwebs at Halloween. Perfect.

The flight from San Jose is smooth as glass, the jet arcing north as the sun sets in a streak of gold and ochre beyond the western Pacific. I'm sitting on the inland side of the cabin and spot each of the snow-clad Cascade peaks one by one until the craggy and grand Mt. Rainier emerges and then quickly disappears in the twilight mists and clouds.

SeaTac Airport is very quiet this Saturday evening. We snag our luggage and hike the five-minute walk to the Link Light Rail train station. For $2.75 we get a 30-minute ride to downtown Seattle, a no-brainer alternative to taxis and rental cars.** Our hotel is about a four-block walk downhill and then three south along Pike Street. Check-in at the Alexis Hotel is just as easy, and we're here. Just like that.

Three deep breaths and then we are out the door again for dinner across the street at Boka. Halloween is here, drifting past our restaurant window in groups of three and four. A party of eight arrives, including Fred Flintstone, John MacEnroe, a cruise ship captain, a floozie, and a few others. Uncle Sam rides by outside on a tall bicycle, wearing a very tall hat. A young vampire is eating a burger with his three pretty wenches next to us.  My dinner of quail stuffed with sausage over cannellini beans is a savory treat that hits the spot, and I'm satisfied. It's too dark to tell what Seattle looks like at this hour.

Cloaked now in darkness, the street and city have not yet emerged in my consciousness. I caught a few glimpses of waterways and stadiums when the jet roared northward earlier, but when we circled down to the airport, I lost my bearings.  I have no sense of place yet. This savory meal has only served as a hint of what may come. We'll be on foot and taking public transit on this trip; details are more easily grasped that way, and I prefer it. Time to rest and let go of Monterey so that Seattle may emerge in the morning.

Small Bird, Big Problem

A small bird crashes headlong into a pane of glass, nearly killing himself. He flutters to a perch up off the ground and then sits quietly in a daze, his senses gradually clearing. That's when I see him. I am with two others, and we are all alarmed at his appearance. He is panting slowly with his beak agape, and his eyes are closed. He looks like a little wreck, feathers askew and call silenced.

A house finch is a very small bird, almost ordinary as birds go, except for their courting songs in springtime. Then, very few birds are as lyrical and sweet to hear. They call and sing as if doing so sets their very souls a-flight. I've listened for finches ever since I first noticed them as a child. While dour and stern scientists hesitate to apply terms such as "merry" and "happy" to mere birds, these are the exact words that always come to mind when I hear their warbling trills. They sing with wild abandon, as if throwing themselves into the effort like feathered rock-star flutists. It's just beautiful.

The bird's head, shoulders and chest have a blush of red, as if an artist has just dusted him with red ochre. He has a short stout beak and bright black eyes. The rest of his feathers are barred, medium brown and pale duff, easily providing camouflage when he's hunting for seeds in the dry grasses in this area.

The stunned bird perches with his feet gripping the iron bar beneath him. He seems to be maintaining his balance and I am relieved the air is still; a stiff breeze might send him reeling.  Many birds die by hitting window panes; the rude shock of a full-force slam nearly always breaks necks or crushes bones. We watch the finch for a while and wonder what to do next. I've found juvenile birds grounded by such crashes before and helped them briefly to recover and then let them go. This little male is already up out of harm's way and appears to be marginally functional already; it would stress him further to be captured, so we just watch and wait, we three observers gathered below.

Once again the weird intrusion of man's inventions on the patterns of natural life is shown to harmful effect. A bird in flight has been brought down by something it had no defense or preparation for:  A pane of glass. For all intents and purposes, the very air had become solid and impenetrable and the bird was nearly ruined. Pure luck of positioning on impact was all that allowed him to live on.

If I were to experience a similarly deadly and terrifying event, I would get out of bed in the morning and find no floor to stand on, or find that all the items in my car had turned to water or evaporated in a puff of dust when I touched them.  It would make no sense to my brain just as the glass made no sense to the bird. If he could make sense of things before, I doubt he can now. Such a sudden impact against an immovable object has surely caused some internal damage, most likely his brain and internal organs.

Creatures in the natural world are paying a big price so that we can be comfortable and maintain a luxurious lifestyle. Even our pets create havoc even as they seem benign and cute. An example:  Songbirds are consumed in the millions every year by our fluffy, dear house cats. Who knows how many animals become road kill or drown in leftover nets and fishing line.

What's remarkable is that other living species have been able to live somehow as we have spread and multiplied year after year all over the globe.  The little finch seems to have survived, but just barely. He may be killed in some other way soon enough, his capacity to flee predators perhaps diminished by his concussion.

We leave him to his fate eventually. Wild things are better off most of the time without us intervening and imposing our sense of order on them. I just wish his crash wasn't such a perfect metaphor for our day and age and the natural world.

Pausing For A Moment

It's Fall. We had Winter all Summer and now have Summer in Autumn. Today was one of the most beautiful days of the year, equal to any wonderful summer day of gilded childhood memory, but it's October. Shouldn't it be cool and crisp?

I can hear the ocean waves pounding all around the edges of Pacific Grove, a low rumbling continuous heart beat, a steady hum of energy.  I stop to think for a moment and realize that the waves have been rushing and foaming exactly that way since forever.  Nothing has changed about that. Except that the ocean is continually changing the shore, grain by grain of sand. So, in constancy there is change. It has been a light-on-the-heart day. I loved it.

This is my 555th post, kind of a cool number. It's hard to believe I've written that much. I guess when I reach 1,000 I'll have a party. Thank you for taking time to read my stuff.

A Leaf, A Dawn Swim

Fog dresses the morning, demure behind a soft gray veil. Unusual humidity lingers in the atmosphere. Sounds are amplified and odors linger as if able to become visible.

I am swimming today, as I do nearly every day. My companions and I murmur familiar questions between laps as we rest at the wall, breathing and waiting, eyeing the pace clock at the side of the pool.

"How many more?"

"Three more. We go on the 60."

We gather our strength, coil our legs and push away, moving, stretching, reaching for the far wall. We swim, together and yet alone.

The day is gray on gray, a barely noticed condition of time and space that matters insofar as it is oxygen, the air we take in in a measured rhythm.  Backs, shoulders, hands and arms sense moving water as they flex and turn, grip and pull.

My mind takes in images as my head turns for a breath, my eyes covered with misted goggles. Forms are surreal and distorted, sometimes beautiful in an instant and sometimes a mysteriously confusing blur. My mind plays with all of them as my body goes about its work, its play, my joy. I notice how detached I am sometimes from what I am doing. It's a weird pleasure to be both very tired in this pool and mentally adrift in time and space.

"Go six 200s on a descending interval on the next red top. 3:10, 3:00 and 2:50. Get your legs into it." It's a jot of information that we understand implicitly. We have been programmed and set to work again with these words, know exactly when to begin and how fast to swim, how much to rest. The brevity and simplicity of the instruction is precise, perfectly so. The container of the command allows for release of the mind and spirit, and they fly as if the act of swimming is actually an act of aviation. We are water birds, soaring.

The work intensifies and we are brought to earth. The coach is the designated assassin of our reveries, the remote voice from the dry deck whom we have assigned permission to push us beyond the point we are willing to push ourselves alone. The coach and the clock, with its four colored hands circling silently, demand and expect that we swim, do not paddle and dither about. By complying, we agree. We are keenly involved in effort, movement and flow. The clock is the master, the coach its accomplice. The onset of dawn continues in an almost imperceptible increase of light and visual detail. The clock, lit with a spotlight, is the sun and moon for this hour; we began in darkness and end in light; no one notices the change as it happens.

"Last one. Make it your best."

Why do we obey? Why don't we stop and look at the flock of crows, Escher-esque, above us, silhouetted against the pale sky? We are gradually reduced from autonomous, well-considered mature adults to automatons, slaves of liquid motion, our minds yielding to the simple commands of the coach. It is our desire, each of us, to go beyond what is ordinarily comfortable and gain access to an altered state of being. We are swimmers, horizontal, moving through turbulent water, lost in our experience, enlivened by it.

Then, it all stops. The work has ended. Pounding hearts and heaving breaths gradually calm. Effort has ceased; we are gathered at the wall, blinking at the lightening sky. Now the beauty of the morning is reflected in the stilling waters of the pool. The day has begun. In our minds, the work of swimming has aided the dawn, urged the sun to rise and the stars to recede. But now the coach is simply another person, and we are adults again, minds turning to tasks of the day that lies ahead.

I shower, dress, walk to my car and drive slowly home, noticing how beautiful the drifting mist looks. It's as if a soft hand has blurred white chalk across a painting of Monterey. At home, collected drops of dew bead and shimmer on a variegated leaf, each one like a breath preserved in liquid. Perhaps every breath I took while I swam has been recorded by the formation of dew on this leaf. It is beauty to be savored and understood as fantasy, nourishment for imagination and a salve for my soul.

I swim; I am alive.

Thoughts on History: Columbus Day

It's Columbus Day in the United States. An explorer, Cristoforo Colombo, appropriated land for a Spanish queen, committing foot, flag and European mindset to the shores of Cuba or Florida (depending on who you believe) or some other southeastern land spit, after having bobbed around in a strange ocean for a few months in a tiny boat with a scurvy crew.

I, the much-distant beneficiary of that land claim, drove in my little car on civilized and well-regulated streets this morning. My car was designed in Germany and assembled in Mexico. I had oatmeal from Ireland, almonds from Spain, coffee from Costa Rica, and wore clothes manufactured in China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. What a world this has become. I can barely imagine living the way he had to. No phones, electricity, freedoms for every citizen, health, long life. He was a notable and bold change agent, intent on discovery and enrichment, making a leap of imagination most people of his day found very frightening.

It's funny we celebrate only one explorer when so many others also contributed to the comforts of our modern day. We don't have Alexander Graham Bell Day or Thomas Edison Day even though they were equal in bravery and imagination to Columbus, overturning stodgy and ordinary thinking in order to answer nagging questions they could not ignore.  We also don't have Florence Nightingale Day, although my profession owes almost everything to her.

So I'm going to call this day Explorer and Inventor Day. I invite you to fill in a name for the person whom you believe most deserves recognition for advancing the human species.  Hats off to all those free thinkers in the past, the present and the future. They might have been or will be nuts who made us or will make us uncomfortable and frightened, but they were immune to criticism and hesitancy, plowing forward at all costs.

I sit here at my keyboard and try to imagine times past, when difficulties and problems were so much different, or the future that will be all but unrecognizable to me here and now. As much as I like to think I can think outside the box, I often don't. It takes a special breed to do that.  So, explorers and imaginers out there, celebrate the day; we have set it aside to memorialize you and a little wild-eyed explorer from Italy who changed the world as each of you can if you follow your hearts.

The Cars, The Times

Cruisin' cars with crackling tailpipes, thundering engines and glossy paint jobs have returned to Monterey once more, and their voices are calling up memories.  We happened on them while walking around last night, killing time before dinner.

The cars are are sleek, long rides with heavy chassis, and they rumble along Alvarado Street like big beasts waiting for a hunk of meat. Dozens of coats of paint and chrome shone in the evening light. Glorious makes and models, the pride of  men who used to cruise boulevards in Bakersfield and Fresno, Colton and LA when they were teen punks, tough, excitable, young and full of hell. Pachuco hairstyles, two-tone Bel Airs and Firebirds turned heads, just like they did fifty years ago.

The air was thick with testosterone-driven nostalgia and beehive hairdo memories. The air was heavy with a fuel exhaust you don't usually inhale much of these days. As a kid, I heard teen guys in their cars racing each other on local streets in Carmel Valley, complete with screaming rubber and an occasional bashing crunch when a car spun out of control. It terrified me and seemed to be the very sound of violence and anger. How did I know.  It was always in the dark and I could only hear and imagine; little girls hiding under their covers were a world apart from teen angst. It was all about dare, counter dare and twitching muscles, just looking for a chance to show off, make someone else back down.

The idling beasts parked along Alvarado last night were glossy, big, heroic and some even beautiful. Back seats boasting square footage equivalent to a double bed left no doubt about teen sexual behavior; it was easy to imagine. When men hung their left arm out of their open windows, with the right slung on top of the steering wheel, their women riding casually in the seat beside them, both looking around to catch someone's eye as they passed, time melted away to the days when they were all young and full of themselves, ready to race and prove something.

The thing they're proving now is that it was an exciting, confusing, but exhilarating time in their lives, when boredom and long stretches of adulthood yawned before them. They survived their own teen years and these chariots were their proving grounds in many ways.  Now they're really only proving how much they love the cars and the lifestyle they found themselves in the middle of back then. The proof is impressive; unequivocally, the popping, roaring exhaust tones of a tricked-out street-ready ride quickens the pulse. Green vehicles be damned, just this one night. Johnny's gonna go cruisin' and get him a girl.

Rockin' In Big Sur's Arms

The gray, somber, ever-present fog clung to the coast north and south as far as our eyes could see. As we looked down the last stretch of Highway 1 and saw wispy shreds of the fog yielding to blue sky and warm sun, our spirits lifted. Ah, there's Big Sur, I thought, a cup of loveliness sheltered behind a coastal ridge and tucked up next to the shins of very steep mountainsides, all covered in dry chaparral and regal redwoods.

Big Sur looks like Shangri La, the fabled land of perfection in the high mountains, and in a way it is just that. But the perfection lies in its enigmatic ruggedness and inaccessibility that seduces you nevertheless. Warm yet forbidding, it has an allure that bewitches the heart. Even on the worst weather days when the wind is howling cold, the vistas are grand and inspire poetry, art and soul searching.

We four friends locked up the car at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, slung on our daypacks and strode forth, ready for a bit of bugs-in-our-teeth adventure, gnarly personal challenge, ready for transformational experience.  Heck, just a nice walk would do. If we were 30 years younger, we'd have headed up into the Ventana Wilderness whose tawny flanks guard the valley's winding road and river. But, we are not 30 and we really only wanted a good look around, so we chose the Buzzard's Roost Loop that starts by crossing a low-slung footbridge across the Big Sur River, skirts it heading northwest for a short way and then begins zig-zagging upward to the ridge top.

Coastal ridges that face north are furred in redwood trees, whose tall regal bulk in turn hide the ridge tops rather neatly. We had no accurate idea of the climb we were undertaking, could not see the top nor the trail, but it was shady, fragrant and very accessible, so we took it. When you have fond memories of being 30 and have worked out a little bit now and again during the preceding weeks, you find that you are a little overconfident and plow ahead.

I remembered our hike on the Kalalau Trail on Kauai last November.  I measured this trail to that with a yardstick of muddiness and steepness well in mind. This is not so bad, I thought. The surface is well trod and very easy to see. The shade of the redwoods and bay trees kept us cool as we strode up and up, encountering a few other hikers who looked very comfortable as they came down the trail.

I have to say right here that no matter where I hike, virtually all other hikers look better than I do when it comes to breathing rate and volumes of sweat. I win when it comes to sweat. I often appear to have emerged from an epic battle with a fire hose and a dragon somehow. As a point of reference, I sweat just standing watering my garden at home on a warm-ish day. It is rather impressive, I have to say.

There is a branch in the trail that says Buzzard's Roost with arrows pointing left and right.  You get to choose! We had no information about which direction was considered better, so we chose the left-hand direction and continued on. Two of us were in better hiking condition than the remaining two, and one of us was hiking in heeled sandals. It was not me. You can bet that if I were the one hiking in heeled sandals, I would have turned an ankle right off the bat and ended up cartwheeling down the near-vertical steep slope and landed like a javelin in the river. Guaranteed. Loose ankle joints help me swim well, not hike fast.  I am not a billy goat with little tiny firm feet. I have flippers.

I began to sweat. I felt pretty capable of doing the hike, but I don't think I looked very capable with sweat streaming down my face. No one else I saw was sweating. No one was even damp.  This has been a characteristic of mine since I was born. I remember doing trampoline in gym class in middle school and having the other girls look at me with wide eyes and furrowed brows, surely alarmed at my appearance. You cannot look cool as a 12 year old with a tomato-red face and streams of sweat coursing down your face, soaking your gym clothes. After four bounces on the tramp, I was a mess.  My friends would look away, probably praying for me. I tried to ignore it, like my mom taught me.  "Just ignore them, Christine. It doesn't matter what they think."

So I climbed up and up, wiping away streams of sweat, striking nonchalant poses when hikers wanted to pass us.  I could still not see the ridge where the buzzards roost, but I was enjoying the beautiful splendor of Big Sur's nearby mountains, across the valley. A huge fire torched the area in 2008; I saw stands of skeletal tree trunks in the distance, testimony to the intense heat of the fire back then.

My friend in heeled sandals called back, "Hey, it's the top!" (She is undeniably the sunniest person I know.) I called back to my dear husband, "The top!" and rounded yet another hairpin curve in the trail. False alarm.  More trail, but it now included sets of steps set into the trail where erosion had worn it down. On we went, and I a fountain still, drops trickling down my glasses, my nose, my ears, and my eyes. I could be installed as public art somewhere. I felt good though, to be out in nature with friends, looking for adventure, pioneer-ish or something.

Swimming doesn't prepare you for hiking except for the mental perseverance part of it. Only flip turns remotely compare to hiking, and even that's a stretch. My legs were holding up okay, but only just. I'd have to get out and hike more often, I was thinking, willing the end of the uphill to come soon. More sweat splatted onto my shoulders, clung to my eyelashes.

The top!  The view! We had emerged from the blanket of redwoods to the manzanita-covered ridgetop where the temperature was drier, much warmer and very pleasant. The work of hiking uphill was worth it as soon as we saw the distant hills, a diorama of steep mountains plunging to a cool pale ocean in the distance and ridge after ridge of redwood-crested land wrapped gently in drifting fog.  In the sun, I could begin to dry off again.  We milled about looking for a place to settle down for a rest.  There is a radio relay shack at the top and very little space to spread out and enjoy a picnic, so we stood and ate, looking at the views. The food was arrayed by the trail on top of my overshirt. A young boy, gaining the flat ridgetop after emerging from the brush at the side of the trail, eyed our food.  We were just getting to the end of our lunch.  He avoided eye contact with us but said to his older sister, "Did we bring food, too?"  He looked so desperate, being ten years old, skinny and tired, that we handed over some cookies for him. He accepted them like a prize.

Rather than taking a nice warm siesta in the sun or sitting on a rock and basking in the glow after the uphill push, everyone gathered up the remnants of lunch, shouldered the daypacks and began the descent down to the river again.  Oh lordy, my thighs began to feel the extra work immediately.  They held up, bless 'em, but they complained about the abuse and mistreatment.

There is a tradition started by a younger sister:  Be sure to savor a root beer float after a good sweaty hike, so I kept that in the front of my mind as I descended.  We felt good and happy, satisfied and tired at the end of our adventure, and all of us indulged in a huge overestimation of the distance of the hike. 1.8 miles had become 4 and then 15 and finally 24 miles. With tigers.  As in, "Man, that had to be at least 4 miles!"

"I think it was 10 for sure."

"Did you see that snake?"

"Yeah, it was this long (hands indicating a 12-inch span)."

"Nah, it was this long (hands held much wider)."

"I heard a tiger roaring."

"Me too."

Once we reached the level again, we took the trail to the Big Sur Lodge and bought some cool treats. There are big rustic sofas in the lounge area, which is where I sucked down my RBF, truly a hiker's ultimate gourmet food.

Still feeling held in the mellow arms of Big Sur, we drove south to Nepenthe to show our friends the view as well as the gift shop and gardens. The decks were crammed with visitors, probably the most crowded day of the year to be there. Finally, we drove back north to The River Inn and brought out blankets from the car to the back lawn to enjoy the remainder of our food and listen to live Brazilian jazz. The Inn has great music every Sunday afternoon, and the food served in the restaurant is very tasty. If you're really lucky, you can sit in Adirondack chairs in the river as it flows gently by down behind the Inn.  Once the blankets were spread out, we all fell asleep, surrounded by music, dancing babies and all kinds of happy humanity.  While lying on my back with the blue sky arching overhead, I took pictures of tree tops and the band while my companions snored on softly. It seemed the images were more of sound than subjects, now that I look at them.

My sweat and effort were already remembered proudly, even fondly, as I recalled the hike and listened to the samba rhythm.  Isn't that the way it always is? In Big Sur, no matter what happens, how hard the hike or crowded the road, once you're there it rocks you peacefully in its big natural embrace.

Greek Food and Irish Movie in Monterey

Flocks of tourists have landed on the Monterey Peninsula for the Labor Day holiday, two of the flock our special friends.  When anticipating visitors for the weekend we scouted around for things to do ahead of their arrival. This weekend, it's the Greek Festival and the Monterey County Fair.  Those will be drawing the highest density crowds. The Monterey Aquarium is a steady draw, especially now that a young Great White shark has just been added to the big Deep Sea tank, which holds a million gallons. In truth, the entire region is of interest to visitors. The Aquarium's steady efforts to educate the public about the Marine Sanctuary have resulted in many improvements in educational plaques and signs along the shoreline and coast. With the curving roads and trails so easy to access on foot and by bike, most tourists are out in the fresh air from the time they get out in the morning until well past dark, even though it is quite a bit cooler here than most of the country. Almost everyone sees harbor seals, otters, birdlife and even whales pretty easily on any given day.

This afternoon, we and our friends walked down to the Recreation Trail, a converted railroad track that's absolutely flat and scenic along every inch of its length, and walked the mile and change to the Custom House Plaza where the Greek Festival was in full swing. Slowly circling dancers with arms on each other's shoulders sidestepped and cross-stepped to the live music playing. We ate lamb kabobs and gyros and watched everyone become Greek, one tune and one bite at a time.  One man said, "You look good sitting next to me!" to his neighbor. The crowd was friendly and relaxed, easy to feel comfortable in. The lamb was tender, the music lively and the breeze adrift with aromas and sounds. It was like being in a big Greek travel brochure, with booths of art and jewelry lining the plaza, photographs of Santorini and the azure Adriatic sea beautiful and exotic.  

We walked over to the Osio Cinema to watch a movie. It's Monterey's independent theater on Alvarado Street that competes head to head with a multiplex at the shopping center two miles away. We saw The Guard, a darkly humorous movie set in Western Ireland. I'd recommend it with a caution that you 1, pay attention to the dialogue because the Irish accents are thick and 2, realize there is intensity and violence in it as well as a heavy dose of profanity. So what else is new, though, with most movies just as peppered with vulgarity. Yet, it was good and the hero unusual. Definitely memorable.

After the movie, we were on foot again and this time ramblin' over to Henry's Barbecue on Lighthouse Avenue in New Monterey. Henry serves up a nice blend of Hawaiian-style BBQ and traditional dishes. "The tri-tip is the bomb," said the waitress after she took our order. Clam chowder hit the spot for two of us and the tri-tip really was tasty, as were the barbecued beans. I had to take half my dinner home, the portions were so big.

It was another mile or so home again, so off we went, peeking into restaurant windows along Lighthouse Avenue. Crystal Fish (sushi) and Hula's ("Island-style grill") were rockin', as usual. As soon as we hit the border and began our walk along streets in Pacific Grove, though, it became much quieter.  This has been the traditional cultural contrast in the two cities' atmosphere since the early days. Pacific Grove was a dry town (no liquor sold within its boundaries) up until the mid 60s, I believe, and it is still a much grayer and more sedate place than Monterey has ever been.

Tomorrow:  Big Sur.

Sketch: Two men after breakfast

The tall man sits in his chair, his legs folded up like a grasshopper.  He laces his fingers together and sighs.  He is less than half his standing height as he sits in the chair.  His shirt hangs on his coathanger shoulders. The bones of his face stretch his dark skin taught over his cheekbones.

His eyes glisten with emotion as he talks about his son, long gone now.  He buried him 17 years ago where the mulberry trees edge the cemetery, and birds scream in the morning when the feral cats pick their way through the weeds.  The old clock on the wall is ticking slowly, as if counting every third second.  The refrigerator hums and clicks.

The tall man sits with his old friend. They have long silences between them that are comfortable. Their thoughts continue together when the words end.  They breathe in and make small sounds that neither one notices, digesting their breakfasts and clearing their throats or just punctuating the other's last sentence with a grunt quietly.

The phone rings and the tall man reaches his long arm over to it. His fingers lift it slowly and steadily off its cradle and he waits for the receiver to get to his ear, patiently.

"Yessir," he starts, his gaze drifting to the yard outside the screen door that's open to let in the warming summer air.  He holds the receiver with his long fingers pressing their tips against the plastic of the phone, lightly.  "Yessir," he says again and the hand retraces its path to set the receiver back down with a quiet click.

The other man has begun a habitual rubbing of his left hand on his knee.  The tall man looks at him.

"Knee again?"

"Huh?"

"Knee's giving you trouble, old man?"

"Who's on the phone just now?"

"Lawyer Maginnis, he says his name is.  Know him?  Says something has come across his desk and wonders if I'm able to come on down to his office and see about it."  The tall man frowns and his eyebrows bunch up, knitted like old wool.  Three of his fingers resting on the easy chair tap and then stop. He takes a deep breath, inhaling slowly and steadily so that his throat looks strained. He closes his eyes briefly as the deep breath overtakes him and then he lets it go and settles down.  The call has cleared his mind of his son and the memories that return every morning. It's a relief. His friend is watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"No idea," says the other.  "You have to go now?  What about Millie?  She's sleeping still?"

"Yessir.  You stay here till I get back?"

"I can."

"All right then."  The tall man gathers his feet under his legs and pushes up out of the chair.  He is well over six feet tall, and his face looks regal when he's standing. "All right then," he repeats, gathers his keys off the side table, shrugs into his windbreaker and walks out the door.  The screen bangs softly after him and then the house is quiet except for the ticking clock.

Pique Your Imagination

The world between what is seen and known and the unseen and barely known, explored by the imagination and prompted by a curious spirit, pricks the conscious mind and tugs at the heart. There it is, and is not, a timeless space of dimensionless being. It exists, more than anywhere else in song, story, poem and prayer.

Throngs stream into stadiums and arenas to see contests between teams or solo competitors, or into theaters to listen to singers, hoping that there may be a glimpse  into the mystery of life and beyond, giving voice literally to that which might elevate the mind and transform ordinariness, spark  something with possibility.  We listen for the lilt in the voice or the moistness of the eyes that tells us that emotion is rising, that the heart of the singer is affected, that something is afoot.  We hope to become different, to have our senses expanded, the impossible reeled in and made near.  We have words for the experience of accessing the unknown:  Transcendent, uplifting, divine, and surreal.

We may view a piece of art, a painting, a photograph, or we may sense in some way that something special, unusual or undefinable is upon us. It may be fleeting and transient, but we know those moments as breathtaking and memorable.

On the other hand, when life is only drudgery and slop, hope and possibility drift away to the cold reaches of the night.  We sag, we worry, we cannot sing.  We cannot even breathe very well.

It is certain that living things, humans certainly, need those transitory moments when the dimensions of ordinary life change, when time stands still and when creativity and imagination are in full bloom.  We need to have time to let our minds wander, to drift undisciplined and unruly into the state of dimensionless being.

Ask any artist what I mean, and they will tell you:  Time stands still or means nothing, and it is as if they become a tool for the creative force of life itself.

Sometimes, I imagine I can step into pictures and exist in them.  I exchange my mundane existence for a walk in new worlds known to no one else.  I let my mind wander far into the realm of imagination.  It is as if I can push the edges of the painting's frame or photograph's edges aside and climb into a different state of mind.

Nothing is possible.  That is, nothingness is possible, even probable, when we do not live in between worlds at least part of the day.  The cues that beckon us to the dance of creativity are for our eyes and ears to catch and relay to our hearts, which beat more strongly when we do.  A backlit field of wheat at dawn, a fleeting smile, the ringing note of a trumpet in the woods are talismans for the torch of imagination that must be sparked if we are to be alive fully.

What piques your interest, stirs your heart, speaks to your eternal spirit?  Are you dancing lively, you tender creator of your own possibility?

Swimming Long Course This Summer

So, as my luck would have it, Coach Mark got up his dander and arranged for a "swim clinic" four days a week, held at the Hartnell College's 50 meter pool. The clinic runs for six weeks. At 6 AM, I gather up my swim stuff, then out to the car for the half-hour drive to the pool. It's summer in Monterey, and on the coast that means the day's temperatures vary between 52 and 70 degrees, more often on the lower end of that range.  It's cold out and fog has settled in like a mean old aunt on a big ugly sofa.  

This is the first opportunity I've had to work out in a long-course pool. It takes a little getting used to.  Like most sports, if you are familiar with a tennis court or a running course, you have mentally set up measuring points to gauge your speed or strength or accuracy.  In swimming, the pool is gauged by numbers of strokes per lap.  A freestyle 25-yard lap for a practiced swimmer is about 8 or 9 strokes; it depends on how much you use your kick and how long your stroke is. If you swim 25-yard pools, you subconsciously time your effort to last for 25, or 50 or 100 yards.  Not 50 or 100 or 200 meters.  

Now I'm adapting to a much longer course.  The coach is talking about the "speed trap" in the pool and I am thinking in American 25 yards when he's thinking in Continental 50 meters.  The first lap on the first day, I am automatically thinking I am nearing the other end of the pool and look ahead through the water and see nothing but blue and the stripe on the bottom. I'm not even halfway yet.  I wonder where halfway actually is.  How do I tell?  No idea.  So, I just swim. Much later, I reach the other end.  It feels like I've swum the length of a small lake.  I'm hearing the coach yell out helpful hints like, "Engage your legs! Forget about breathing! Rhythm! It's all rhythm!"  I try not to breathe and instantly hate life.  I like breathing pretty much; it helps me feel good about myself, and I maintain consciousness better that way, but I also try to embrace the concept of a long streamlined body position and fluidity of motion as I move.  I'm immensely glad I am not being filmed and forced to watch embarrassing videos of myself thrashing and sputtering, out of control.  I try to channel the ease and grace of wonderful Olympians like Amanda Beard or Liesel Jones.  If nothing else, the mental distraction of trying gets me to the other end of the pool.

A 50 meter pool holds a little under a million gallons, depending on the average depth of the pool its full length. I am three weeks into this "clinic" now and still trying to gauge my effort the length of the pool, remember how many strokes per lap I am trying for and goal times for distances and strokes. Swimmers have a lot to think about.  It'd be a big mistake to believe a swimmer just swims.  To keep all the various moving parts of one's body synchronized and coordinated while breathing air, not water, and to recall the shouted instructions of the coach as you are doing so feels like herding cats.  Some cats get away from me, nearly every lap.

I have an ever-increasing respect - awe really - for elite swimmers who quite literally swim twice as fast as I do. Every lap I complete, plowing and struggling along, impresses this upon me.  The youngsters who swim at the same time in distant lanes from mine zoom back and forth, back and forth for two hours, so I just think to myself, "Ignore them, they're 40 years younger than you are." I realized after talking to a couple of other masters swimmers in the pool with me that I am the grande dame of the group.  I hope to kick their booties once or twice before the clinic ends in three weeks' time.  It's not a plan; it's a hope, and hope is good.  I perversely enjoy the fact that they are suffering as much as I am, even though they are going a bit faster.

After my swim is over and I've showered, I drive back through the wide reaches of the Salinas Valley with its rich agricultural fields, farm machinery, farm workers bent to their tasks in long lines, doing hard labor in the long rows of lettuce. I go back to the coast and my rocky shore-bound town. I'm enjoying my own hard work in the pool.  I do wonder why I am not content to just sit poolside and sip a cool drink.  Well, one answer is that there are just very few hot days when a cool drink would be needed.  Coffee is what's needed with so much fog now.  No, moving fast in a big pool just feels good when I can get everything coordinated and going in the same direction at the same time.

Long Cool Bug

Two feet below my nose is a long black bug - like a stretch-limo fly - strolling around on a plant. The bug - iridescent blue and pinched at the waist - can walk around upside down as well as it can right side up. It is possibly the first time in my life I have ever seen such a bug, but I don't think I can remember every bug I've ever seen. It's a cool bug, not the kind that suddenly leaps into my face or chews up my plants. A Johnny Depp bug. A bug, pure and simple.

What strikes me about the bug is that it is going along living its bug life whether I have ever seen it before or not, whether I know what it's called or not.  That I don't understand its life or what it is called doesn't affect the bug.  I watch it, don't feel a need to kill, swat, whack or torment it. I realize that it's teaching me something.

Sometimes I wonder what other people think of me, how they see me, how I affect them.  I even get a little anxious about it now and again.  If they tell me how they feel, I usually believe them, but sometimes I even wonder about that, too.  I actually do things at times so that the person I'm with will approve of me, like me better or think I'm cool. I've probably never been cool, especially since I loved to go to the library and read magazines and books during my spare time at school, and I never jumped off of high places with bungee cords tied to my ankles.  So, being an uncool and quiet person, I wonder what people think of me at times. It has never done me any good to care.

It seems not to matter to the bug. The bug is living a casual bug's routine life regardless of what I think of it or not. I think it's pretty freeing not to care, to be bug-like. I know this begs the question: What if I kill the bug?  Shouldn't it be more concerned?  Maybe.  It doesn't seem to notice me, up in the air above it, 3,000 times bigger than it is, capable of annihilating it.

I have been known to fret a lot about these kinds of things. Does he love me?  Did they like me?  Was I nice enough, smart enough? Did I impress them?  I think that when I just stop caring and become oblivious to judgements by others, I get to the point of being able to walk on a leaf up side down.  Or the human equivalent of that.  I am more likely to reach my potential if I pay attention to what my heart and mind are telling me, pay attention to the truth of the matter, when I walk my walk unconcerned, right side up or up side down.

Just Sayin'

Some people begin life on a dazzling trajectory that never sags into swamps of disappointment or dejection, but most of us swerve and falter a few times once we are shot out of life's cannon.  Things go haywire, we get hurt or sick, we lose loved ones or bad guys really seem to be winning.  Life hurts sometimes.

I've heard that you attract to you that which you believe most sincerely.  I don't know if I'm so convinced this is true.  What I believe is that stuff happens and you had better figure out what to do about it so that you can live on.  And you have to help other people out.  You just do.

I used to be naive and then I became a nurse.  Lots of bad things happen to really good people and lots of good things happen to criminals.  That's the weird thing about life.  Kids get hurt. Old ladies who have done nothing but good all their lives get whacked and then what? Crooks rip people off and nothing seems to happen to them.  Can we really attribute mayhem and chaos to anything but fate?  I don't believe we can.  But I do believe in the goodness of people, or at least the potential for good in people.

The odd thing is I don't not believe in God.  I just don't believe God (or the creative force of the universe) is vengeful or plans things in terms of reward or punishment.  Fate is fate and if you are in line to slip on a banana peel, you have to figure out how to get up.  And I believe that life is better if we lend a hand to others instead of walking past.

It's pretty obvious we're all in this together, and that brings up such mixed images in my mind that I could just scream sometimes.  Then, I think of everything that dazzles and inspires me that people have done and dreamed of, and I want to cheer.
I am not yet a cynical, disappointed, formerly hopeful person.  Too much about life is mysterious and stunning to be cynical. Just sayin', I'm looking ahead, avoiding banana peels to the extent that I can and relieved there are good people in this world.  That's all.  Just sayin'.

Adjusting to Summer Cold

It's really summer now.  Wherever you are, the weather is wrapping itself around you in its own special way. Here, where the  western edge of the Northern Hemisphere is also called California, nothing unusual is going on. No tornadoes, no blazing fires borne on high-speed winds, and no humidity. The nothingness of our summer has settled in.  Come here. Take a break from all that extreme stuff and cool off for a while. We love visitors, especially ones with red sweaty faces and puffy ankles who live in inland areas where it's so darned hot.  I think I remember heat.  And sunshine.  Round bright thing in the sky, right?

I try to explain why we get this gray fog all summer on the coast. Sometimes I make some sense as I try to explain low pressure and high pressure, cold ocean and inland heat. There's no denying that we wear sweaters in the summer and that only ten miles away (6 k for my readers outside the US), the heat is much more noticeable and the summer much more, um, summery.  I have to go there for a summer-weather fix because it sure doesn't come here.

When I was a small child growing up in Carmel Valley - 12 miles inland from Carmel - I was content to remain right where I was. When I looked west in the afternoons, I could see a hideous gray wall of engulfing fog, a misery that made no sense to go near. I spent my summers shoeless and in the pool, chlorinated and tan. The fog bank caused, and of course still causes, an afternoon wind to pick up in inland valleys, but we were protected from it by a weather ceiling that lifted about 6 miles from Carmel in the area called Farm Center (a local's name for a small shopping center).

"Do you kids want to go with me to Carmel today?" my mother would ask entreatingly.

"NO!!!!" would come the instant yell from five throats.  No way, too awful, cold and gray.  I'd always end up shivering and having to wear two layers of clothes at the beach.  Beaches were for idiots as far as I knew, idiots who liked sand fleas, kelp and 50 degree water. I did not buy into the idea that girls wore bikinis to beaches anywhere. It was a lie.

So, here I am living in a place like Carmel, but not as precious as it is or self-indulgent, and I am wrapped in a cold gray expanse of featureless weather all summer long.  Sometimes I can't wait for the summer to pass; it's never short enough now.

So the real question is:  Why do I live here if the summers are so miserable?  I'm making a list of pros and cons, and the cons are starting to make more sense - at least in the summer.  The rest of the year?  That's a different story.

Getting Going

Get out of bed, walk to the kitchen, reach for a coffee mug and fill it with hot coffee. Sit down. Get up again and use bathroom, blow nose, inspect sleep-worn face. Nothing new. Walk back to the kitchen, retrieve coffee mug. Still hot, dear liquid.

Read thin morning paper, growl at sports editor, never prints relevant information about local swimmers, certainly none about the best coaches or team in the area. Whose fault is that? Stare out of window and give the stink eye to the frisky and well-fed crow lining up his rear end over cute little car parked down below on the street. The crow flies away, does not splatter the car this time.

Back to the sports page. Young Irish kid kills the US Open more dead than when Tiger killed it years ago. Phenomenal. Phelps loses 200 Fly by a hundredth. He's tired, not tapered. He'll be a different swimmer in Shanghai. Lots of foreign swimmers at the meet. Aussies, Canadians, Koreans, Mexicans. How many train in the US? Young Canadian team trained here a few weeks ago and then elite group prepping for the meet swam here for three days, long course. Seem to have done well. I want to swim. Can't. Have a cold. Have to get well. Sigh.

Read the weather report.  Sun today, patchy sun tomorrow, decreasing temperatures over the course of the week. Gotta get out into the sun and daylight today. Sun does not make itself known often enough during the summertime on California's central coast.  Read the horoscope:  "Pisces, you may or may not have someone important to deal with today. Best let events unfold before you make any judgements about them. Tonight: Be yourself."  Be myself. Get up and refill coffee mug, get out two pieces of sourdough whole wheat bread. Chew on them, bit by bit. Toast would hurt throat too much. Plain is better. Look for potato chips. Damn, no potato chips. Need salt, need a healthy throat and no more cold. Being sick is the pits.

Make oatmeal. Irish oatmeal, coarse and real. Add honey and a dab of butter. Good with coffee. Nice coffee. Check emails on iPhone. Must answer some soon. Note to self: Remember things.

Clear table, fill sink, squirt dish soap, wash dishes. Grandma did this. Remember the little dish set, a gift as a child, pretending to wash dishes and arranging them this way and that. Bubbles in iridescent mounds that pop softly and reflect the ceiling light, swirling pink and blue glazing them before they explode into exclamation points of wet surprise.

Go out to garden wearing gloves and crocs, carry small trimming clippers. The roses need dead-heading, the alyssum look stressed, and the bougainvillea just will not come into color. Bracts are not forming, looks diseased once again. Time to kill it? Try to revive it again? Stand and water, wipe sweat off face. A horse does not sweat this much; it is not human to resemble a faucet when standing still on a tepid morning.

Pull weeds, haul hose around yard, water all the pots. Riots of color, lots of pruning coming due soon. Plan it, get it done. Sun's overhead, nearly summer solstice. Fine day so far. Sepia memory, dainty curtains over French windows. Willow tree over lawn and sleepy cats stretching, rearranging paws and dusty fur, claws extended and then retracted languidly, sleep overcoming them again. That summer. A brother and three sisters, banging doors, wind chimes tinkling like today. The beginning of something unforeseen and dark.

Kick off crocs, put away gardening tools, squint at sun on flowers, hose snarled in the yard. Fix it later. Fix it later.

Back to the bathroom, use more Kleenex, drink more liquid, time to rest. Small sounds barely heard. Sound is more noticed when it is absent than when it is present, when it is so familiar and so gentle. Open laptop, hear Mac opening chord, read more emails, think about writing. No good. Nothing. Think of exercises learned at writers' retreat. Interrupt own thinking with impulse to get a snack. So that's it. That's the pattern. Fall into the lull, the mental switch from deliberate thinking to free flow.  Or not.  If there's room for writing, writing can happen.

Notice crows cawing outside, glance out window and see crow above cute little car again, aiming. Don't look. Just clean up the mess later, park somewhere else. Devil bird.

Picasso at the DeYoung Museum

I went to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco on Sunday.  That's not really my point, but that's where I'll start.

I went to see the Picasso exhibit.  It's a timid approach to a very forceful subject:  A man who was a force of nature by the look of it.  

Picasso lived for a long time, 94 years I believe, a life span that started when cars were barely known to the world and ended after there were rockets transporting human beings into outer space.  He was artistically productive, kind of an understatement when you learn of his tremendous output and fascination with the purpose and meaning of art throughout his life.  What usually distinguishes Picasso in the minds of semi-art-literate people like me is his frequent depictions of subjects whose features look unintelligible and challenging, not beautiful.

I got to the museum with my companions, gained entry to the first gallery and put on my Audio Tour headphones and began to learn about the man and his art.  I exited the museum with new appreciation for his artistic viewpoint and his drive to change the way we see things. I felt like I'd entered a vortex, a black hole of artistic energy wherein Picasso had existed and stood his ground in the face of all the powers of god and nature and sucked them dry, painting the encounters or sculpting them. The body of work he left is powerful, moody, intense and thought provoking. Don't tell me it isn't.  He provokes your mind no matter who you are.  You may not like it, but he pricks you and you remember the wound.

What struck me about the things I learned about Picasso was his persistent ability and drive to depict his subjects as many things at once, to use them as prompts for our - the observer's - ability to perceive and connect ideas. African masks especially were huge sparks of his creative imagination, connecting him to the spirit world, changing dimensions of time and space and movement. His wife and lovers who were his muses at various times in his life took on various forms and colors depending on the political, social or emotional state of his life.

Underlying all the layers of meaning, metaphor and symbolism was one man's intellect attempting to understand the visible and invisible worlds we live in. He was driven to reach the most essential, most distilled concepts of death, love, war, time and immortality and express those ideas visually.

Many people have one good idea in their lives or none at all.  They just exist.  Most of us have a few quick thoughts that come and go. We have mild friendships, stay mostly out of trouble and try pretty hard not to rock the boat.  Picasso was a man possessed with the idea of not only rocking the boat but showing us all sides of the boat at once, its nuances, its meaning in spiritual terms, how it had once been a tree and had been shaped by hands and tools, how it feels, how the water splashes against its sides, how it sounds when the oars creak as we row.  All that in one complicated, deconstructed and reconstructed image.  Over and over a few thousand times.  When you get that Picasso was trying to do all that in his best works, you get Picasso.

But, as he said, and as is true for all creative effort, what we see as we stand in front of a painting or a photograph or hear in a concert hall is what the artist was wrestling with at that moment.  Now he or she has moved on.  We trail behind in the wake of their efforts, way behind. In the case of Pablo Picasso, he has moved on, but the enormous number of prints, images, canvases and forms that remained behind at his death provide an overwhelmingly complicated trail that shows where his mind went throughout his life and the huge scope of his creative energy.  It's a wonder any of his peers remained standing once he left the room.  I think we'll be reeling in his wake for a long time to come.

Return From France: It's All A Blur

I arrive home and can't tell what day it is anymore. Could be Saturday, but most likely it's Sunday. Local time is 2 a.m., says the clock, but that hardly means a thing.  I am tired, feeling like I have half my body in today and the other in both yesterday and tomorrow. It's a weird feeling of mistaken identity, only it's the identification of time, not myself.

I sleep like a rock, have complicated dreams about a lumpy, convoluted city with steep streets and tunneled roadways that are cave-like at their entry points but that end up going up the sides of buildings. A small girl in a dress keeps running away from me, but there is no fear and no sadness. I feel curious and bewildered. It's all a blur.

I wake up at 7 a.m. and know for certain I am in Provence, but I am also in Paris. I don't smell the croissants baking yet, so I go back to sleep. It's a cycle that repeats itself three more times, a constant yo-yo-ing back and forth between France and California. I am nowhere and I am here, all at once.

Finally I awaken and remain awake. I try a cup of coffee and it doesn't help. I feel exactly as if I've had a glass of wine and I should sit down to a good dinner. The house is fine, I unpack things and move from room to room, sometimes with intention and other times in a state of suspended animation.

This is the oddest part about travel, the loss of a sense of place and urgency. I enjoy the latter, but I wonder what I would do if an emergency arose. I might just smile and toast it with my glass of wine.  Only, it's a cup of coffee and I have to go to work in a few hours.  Bad planning!

I removed myself from my own culture and time frame, left for two weeks, changed all points of reference, and then wedged myself back into my own life again. I hear about a friend who has suffered a serious illness, another friend who has gone on sick leave and natural disasters potentially affecting friends in other parts of the country, but I feel detached and as if I am floating like a helium balloon.  I wonder how military soldiers can possibly assimilate after being at war for several seasons in a land where no one speaks their language and they are faced with guns, fear and intense stress.  I have no comprehension.  I have simply been on vacation to a first-world country for two weeks and I am this disoriented? What happened?

France crooked her finger to me and whispered in my ear.  I am not the same anymore.  As usual, travel has changed me, exactly the reason I travel. Gradually, all my molecules will reassemble and coalesce again, and I will feel more grounded and competent to face the ups and downs of ordinary life, but the memories of this two-week exit into a parallel universe called France will now be part of me, too. I can already tell they are influencing my habits and patterns around the house and my town. I am returning gradually and steadily, but will I still fit into the slot I fit into before?

Au Revoir Paris and France

Out the door, into the little Peugeot, down the lane after a wave au revoir to Canto Cigalo. This is a travel day. The rain is back and the day is dark, the sun on its own vacation somewhere. We have given ourselves some time to get to destinations without having to rush. This is a good thing because when we arrive at le gare TGV (TGV train station) we cannot figure out where to return our rental car. We don't know what the phrase is or the international symbol associated with it.

Up one dead end, around a roundabout out of the station grounds, back again, reverse, pause, crane necks, search info on rental car packet. No luck. Then, one sign with 10 different signs and symbols on it has a tiny one in English. Delight! We zoom over and then have to figure out where to put the car. "Park it here? in the Hertz area? Don't they need to clean it?"

The rental car office, the one we used seven days ago, is a dream to use. Up the stairs to the long futuristic station to find our train departure time. These buggers are on time, so we have to be in place and ready. A delicatessan has prepared sandwiches and snacks; we purchase water and two baguette sandwiches. Then we join the clump of waiting passengers who need info from the departure schedule. The train number and time is known; we don't know which gate.

Once we know what platform to use, we ascend the escalator and wait in what we believe is the right area. We watch the French travelers give each other bises on the cheeks when they greet. Left, right left, with little kiss sounds. A customary ritual that ensures you are definitely fond of this person.

The time arrives for the train to come. There it is! We go the car that the train diagram tells us is ours. Wrong. The conductor is blowing her whistle and rain is falling. How do you say shit in French? merde. One way or another we trot like mad to get to the right car and make it just in time. They don't wait for you if you're late. The train is on time, the sleek, smooth bastard. It's admirable but intimidating.

I crash into my seat and heave a sigh. Then, the train is moving like I'm only imagining it - hardly any change in my sensation of it - and we are bound for Paris. While munching our baguettes and water, Provence is out there beyond the windows. As we travel due north, we see the rolling terrain, distant mountains and old medieval villages on cliff tops and promontories. Most if not all villages are not sprawling urban areas. Instead they are clumps of stone buildings gathered together, surrounded by agriculture. Only Avignon and Paris have looked familiarly sprawling compared to American towns and habitations.

We are in Paris again at the Gare du Lyon. The train does not rush us this time and we trundle out to the taxi stand where a hustler directs people to this waiting taxi or that, loudly demanding, "Coins, give me coins! Obama! Hollywood, America! Give me coins! Come here, I put your bag inside and you give me coins."

We hand the tall young black taxi driver our address and he has to look it up. We have to cross town and find the Montmartre area. He is silent but calm and a good driver. That is, he makes his own lanes and turns when he wants to, nosing his little car in front of other vehicles to create space for us. I watch the city's thousands of varied people out on their Saturday business. The part of Paris we traverse including the Bastille is more homogenized, more like New York, less elegant and used hard. I wish I could record the city sounds including the music from other cars when we are stopped next to them. The ride is a series of vignettes of city life, and I am as anonymous as they are, those people I will never see again that I know of.

We ascend into the Montmartre area, the hill of martyrs so named because during the French Revolution a few people died for the cause, leaders with great spirit and a cause they had decided to fight for. This is where the moulins are, the picturesque windmills as you might have seen in Moulin Rouge, because this used to be the hilly countryside outside the city.

After we check in, rest and relax for a little while - it's about 5 PM - we walk up to Sacre Coeur cathedral and encounter masses of tourists, a county fair atmosphere and join it. This is the place we became engaged four years ago, so we are returning for old time's sake, sort of.

Inside the cathedral, Mass is in progress even as throngs of tourists are pouring in and skirting the central area so they can see the interior. We sit and listen to the priest and a nun who sings part of the Mass. Then, back out to the moving, shifting crowd, which we watch for a little while. We shop for gifts at a few of the junk shops that line the main cobbled street in the village area. Probably all from China by the looks of it. Then, we decide to eat at the same cafe where we were engaged. The food is mediocre just like it was four years ago, but we watch the crowd and talk. I hear lots of Italian and American English, some other languages. This is not an elegant crowd at all but more of what you'd see at any large event, kind of disheveled, uncertain, strolling in zig-zag directions.

We walk after dinner down to the north side of the hill into the cool, jazzy Montmartre neighborhood where no tourists think to go unless they've read their guide books and want a less touristed experience. It's hilly but shaded with large chestnut trees and the evening sun is getting exciting for photography.

We go back up the hill and over to the steps of Sacre Coeur and see Paris in a broad panorama, an encrustation of stone buildings with clay chimney tubes sticking up like spines all across the city. The setting sun has brought the buildings into sharp relief and it is immense. There is Notre Dame and over there the Pantheon. The Eiffel Tower is hidden behind a group of trees to the right.

It's a long wait before the lights begin to glow in the city, well after 10 PM, but it is a transition unique in the world. To see the City of Lights like this is fun. The crowd continues to shift and move, party and enjoy the balmy evening. This is the world as Europe knows it now, multicultural and changing fast with the influx of African nations' emigres. Languages of all types and people who are obviously tourists like us gazing at the scene, all mixing in a peaceful mob.

That's enough. We are tired. It's nearly 11 PM. Paris is not going to quiet down for several hours, but we must. Good-bye old city. Tomorrow we travel home to California and begin to dream of new travels in the year to come.  It has been a rich experience and valuable to us both in quiet, inner ways. This will take time to process and return from, like all journeys. We have been fortunate, truly so. In truth, the journey is continuous and has certain demarcation points, one day after another. What will today bring?

The Heart of Provence

This is the last day we have in Provence, so we set out to lose ourselves in the heart of it. We map a route that will take us to three little villages, three of 150 designated most beautiful villages in France, according to our little map. (We are using a map supplied by the Tourist Information Office, a Michelin map of France, the Michelin Guide for Provence and sometimes the Lonely Planet Provence guide book.)

We are pretty fond of roundabouts as we drive here and there. They are very forgiving of mistakes; you can zoom around and around until you figure out which exit to take. I wish life were like that. Make a bad job choice? Just go in a big circle until you find a good exit. No dead ends. Just flow without stopping.

The day is soggy. Provence is not as cold as yesterday, but it is draped in mist. There is not much traffic.  We are looking for Menerbes, and the roads gradually become narrower and prettier until we are essentially in another world of leafy aromatic forests that shade the road and reveal pretty scenes at every turn. I have a feeling of being enveloped by time itself as if drawn to the center of it, unable to resist.  

Menerbes is the area in the Petite Luberon area east of Cavaillon and St. Remy where Peter Mayle, the author of “A Year In Provence” lived. It has been home to significant artists and writers  and seems blessed with every aspect of attractive life that human beings are capable of imagining. 

As is true with nearly every old village dating back to medieval times and beyond, there is a vertical cliff topped by a church with a bell tower and steeple. The streets curve up and down, around corners and divide into narrow cobbled alleys. Stores are fitted into the old buildings. We find a nearly hidden stone stairway that winds up and around to the top of the hill where a 15th century church stands ready to take in all sinners and heal them.

We can see the Luberon valleys on both sides of the hill, spread like a quilt  made of vineyards, olive groves and  windbreaks made up of tall closely planted chestnut trees and mulberries. Mist hangs like soft veils at the flanks of the hills in the distance. The air is still. I can smell rosemary, roses, jasmine and other herbs on the cool morning air. I am smitten with this place. It is perfect.  

We keep heaving sighs and our pace is slow; photography and a deep need to absorb the essence of where we are require that we not rush. Eventually, we do leave, but it is with a lot of reluctance. 

The next village is Lourmarin, a distance from Menerbes of about 15 k. The drive is winding, crazy and beautiful. The side of the road has a low stone wall to guard it, and it’s broken in some spots. Evidence of someone flying off the curves in speeding cars? 

There are a few indecipherable signs we've seen. For instance, one sign is simply an exclamation point with no words on it.  When you arrive in a village or town, you see the town name, as you would expect. When you leave, you see the town name again, but it has a red hash mark through it, as if it has been deleted. Speed bumps meant to slow traffic are sometimes nothing but a six-inch-high pad of hard rubber stretched across our lane.  Mysteries abound.  We must be detectives as we drive in this French-speaking country, relating our past experience to what is likely to be expected here. 

In Lourmarin, we notice an extensive repaving project is underway that uses attractive modern bricks of different colors being laid as street surface. A workman in a tall building right at the entrance area is blaring loud Euro pop, incongruous with the 800 year-old village structures and setting. 

It’s past midday, and our bellies are talking to us, so we look around in the main village streets for a place to eat. The restaurant we choose is trendy, busy and costs 14 euro for a delicious and unusually tender steak, warm potatoes creamed with cheese, butter and herbs and an arugula salad lightly dressed. Again, I nearly lick my plate. The ever-present baguette slices are given on the side. No butter. Who needs it after all that? 

The place is packed and abuzz with conversation, but, as usual, it is impossible to hear anyone’s words. We are flanked, bistro style, on both sides by tables of French people and cannot hear what they are saying. This is something I have noticed among the French in restaurants. They contain themselves and their words. They really have mastered the art of having “quiet indoor voices.” Of course, I am not able to understand fluent French very well, but still...

Lourmarin is a sterling little village in which streets are lined with artistic and creative boutiques of all sorts. There are three bell towers, and there is a 15th century chateau we tour. It has four floors with a winding stone staircase between each floor. It was found in ruins in 1920 by a wealthy businessman who restored it and then died five years later. His will stipulated that young people be educated in music and art there. We hear musicians practicing for a performance coming up in a week, a pleasing backdrop of sound as we look at furniture and fixtures in the building that date back about 200 years. 

More sighing, gazing at leafy loveliness, picturesque windows and doors, tall crooked walls, laughing that even waste containers seem charming. We are dazzled and silly with the charm of these places.

And yet, we must move on. More driving in leafy green countryside and then we arrive at Ansouis where we pass up another tour of the chateau there and simply walk around the town. “Around” means up and down, mostly up, until we find the church topping the village, built 800 years ago. Its stone paving inside is curving and worn, the interior silent but still echoing with the songs and prayers of humanity. I feel as though I am one little being in a long chain through time out of mind. It is a place thick with old spirits and unknown events and tragedies as well as joys.  

After a winding drive home along the Durance River through the Petite Luberon area, we return to our little hotel, Canto Cigalo. The rain abated a few hours ago. The world seems refreshed and lush. After 7 pm, we make the quick drive into town and find two seats at La Cantina, an Italian pizza bistro on the main street. It is jumping with business already. I have a very delectable and satisfying gnocchi dressed in a cream sauce with herbs. Panna cotta is light as air with its raspberry sauce drizzled on top. 

We walk into the old heart of San Remy after dinner and I find my favorite scene: A plaza that fronts the Musee des Alpilles. It is a marble-paved square with trees  planted to shade it, and there are lights from a cafe shining on its surface.  It is quiet and beautiful. I am standing on a street that is a mosaic of broken pieces of white stone and there is a narrow gutter that flows with water down its center, curving away around two or three corners until it disappears from view under archways and beyond doors leading to places I will never see.  It is mysterious, familiar and foreign and brings up an ache in my heart; I am in love with it.  It is so simple a place and yet says everything about Provence and France to me. I hate to leave it and look at it hard so I will never forget it. This is what I will bring home, what I will know about this little square:  It is simply itself, unpretentious but still touched with whimsy. It looks timeless, as if it will become sepia toned as I look at it. It only needs music to be perfect, but that is what I can add; music will play when I recall it years from now.