Overnight rain had come down from somewhere up there - where exactly? - and soaked the planks of douglas fir that form the fence, darkening it as the fibers of the wood absorbed moisture. Wood, very heavy and wet, stood in place without sagging, even though it might have wanted to, stolid and determined, static.
When the sun met the fence, it became a dark stage for an ethereal and magical performance, played by the most basic elements we know: Air and water. Up wisped the strands of new clouds, twisting and turning slowly to their own song. They looked young and fresh, breezy in their movements, swirling slowly, prettily. The backlit moving vapor was enchanting; it danced, visible very briefly and then invisible, elusive, almost nothing at all.
They were wisps that embodied the invisible, the unseen world of thought and memory. As lightly and softly as they played above the fence, our imaginations turn and shift, barely noticed sometimes, formless but constantly moving and shifting, ungovernable but desired and prized. We can no more live without our imagination than we can live without water. Lost to water, parched thirst and death overcome us. Absent imagination, we are lost as human beings.
That the fence as stage, and vapor as unbound dancer, were not seen by anyone save one sleepy person peering from a bedroom window did not diminish their place in the whole fabric of the day, nor their right to simply exist and play. An imagination that plays without observation or qualification still influences the rest of the universe, as it has been born of those influences and joins them as the wisps joined the passing clouds above.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Stepping up on the Tomato Box
As mentioned in a past post, more than a week ago, I've been tracking where my food comes from. I thought it would be relatively straightforward, but I've had a hard time with this project. Food labeling is rather vague in most cases and nonexistent in certain others.
As a child of the 60s - at least that's when I can begin to remember what was in the news - I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a landmark book that was actually written back in the 30s, I believe, about the meat-packing industry. I also read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Diet For a New America (I've forgotten the author, regrettably). Those books and a few others at the same time were very impressive to me. I became passionate about recycling, the population explosion, pollution and the Back to the Earth Movement, which was very popular at the time. I became a vegetarian eventually, to the horror of my grandmother who was certain I would become malnourished and fizzle away. I learned about growing things, the ecosystem, biology, ecology, oceanography and any other ologies that I could. It mattered to me very much and made more sense than anything else that I was learning or seeing in the world of adults. I wanted to recycle everything and was very frustrated by the absence of interest in the community around me, save for a few equally concerned individuals.
My thought when I saw An Inconvenient Truth presented by Al Gore was: What has taken so darned long for this idea to be taken seriously? Well, the sad truth is that it has been suppressed and jeered at by people who stood to lose their shirts if their brand of "ethics" were held up for public scrutiny.
The whole subject is enormous and multifaceted. I am sad to say that some of my most beloved family members and friends are those I know to persist stubbornly in denying these problems exist; at best, they ignore the issues.
Well, back to my original thought: The origin of the food in my cupboard and refrigerator. I see that companies are listed as being the producers, but where the actual ingredients come from is often totally obscure. So, this has refocused me on the practice of thinking globally but buying locally, seasonally. That is: If the product is not grown within 100 miles of my home, it is not meant to be eaten at this time of year. I can wait for the season to arrive. I don't really need to eat tomatoes year round. Instead, I can turn my attention to winter squash and other vegetables that do grow normally in winter. The good news is, the vegetables that are truly in season are most beneficial for me to eat now. I am more likely to do well as the flu season invades because the nutrients found in winter vegetables boost my immune system that way. When summer comes, and I am perspiring more (oh wait, it's Pacific Grove), I'll need the vitamin C in summer season fruits like tomatoes and strawberries.
I am doing what I can to reduce my so-called carbon footprint and I love supporting my local farmers, who are hard-working entrepreneurs of the finest stripe. Like one local coffee company's slogan says, "Resist Corporate Coffee!" I'd extend that to: Resist the entire corporate megalithic farming industry; support biodiversity. It's critical.
Note: I suggest you read the above books, although there are zillions of others now to read; they were landmark works of the day. Also - and brace yourself - see Food, Inc. It, combined with my personal lifelong interest in local foods and ethnic cuisines, has reinforced my beliefs and convictions.
As a child of the 60s - at least that's when I can begin to remember what was in the news - I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a landmark book that was actually written back in the 30s, I believe, about the meat-packing industry. I also read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Diet For a New America (I've forgotten the author, regrettably). Those books and a few others at the same time were very impressive to me. I became passionate about recycling, the population explosion, pollution and the Back to the Earth Movement, which was very popular at the time. I became a vegetarian eventually, to the horror of my grandmother who was certain I would become malnourished and fizzle away. I learned about growing things, the ecosystem, biology, ecology, oceanography and any other ologies that I could. It mattered to me very much and made more sense than anything else that I was learning or seeing in the world of adults. I wanted to recycle everything and was very frustrated by the absence of interest in the community around me, save for a few equally concerned individuals.
My thought when I saw An Inconvenient Truth presented by Al Gore was: What has taken so darned long for this idea to be taken seriously? Well, the sad truth is that it has been suppressed and jeered at by people who stood to lose their shirts if their brand of "ethics" were held up for public scrutiny.
The whole subject is enormous and multifaceted. I am sad to say that some of my most beloved family members and friends are those I know to persist stubbornly in denying these problems exist; at best, they ignore the issues.
Well, back to my original thought: The origin of the food in my cupboard and refrigerator. I see that companies are listed as being the producers, but where the actual ingredients come from is often totally obscure. So, this has refocused me on the practice of thinking globally but buying locally, seasonally. That is: If the product is not grown within 100 miles of my home, it is not meant to be eaten at this time of year. I can wait for the season to arrive. I don't really need to eat tomatoes year round. Instead, I can turn my attention to winter squash and other vegetables that do grow normally in winter. The good news is, the vegetables that are truly in season are most beneficial for me to eat now. I am more likely to do well as the flu season invades because the nutrients found in winter vegetables boost my immune system that way. When summer comes, and I am perspiring more (oh wait, it's Pacific Grove), I'll need the vitamin C in summer season fruits like tomatoes and strawberries.
I am doing what I can to reduce my so-called carbon footprint and I love supporting my local farmers, who are hard-working entrepreneurs of the finest stripe. Like one local coffee company's slogan says, "Resist Corporate Coffee!" I'd extend that to: Resist the entire corporate megalithic farming industry; support biodiversity. It's critical.
Note: I suggest you read the above books, although there are zillions of others now to read; they were landmark works of the day. Also - and brace yourself - see Food, Inc. It, combined with my personal lifelong interest in local foods and ethnic cuisines, has reinforced my beliefs and convictions.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Mysterious Blonde
I don't know. Was it just me?
I was out walking down by the waterfront one day, and the waves were rockin' and rollin', kicking and screaming, causing a real mess. PG residents and visiting drivers swerved around, excited that something big was happening. They crowded in on the shore road, causing near misses with other cars, runners, guardrails and dogs. When a big wave - a really giant, sinister, big bruiser of a wave - would begin to rumble in, cars slowed and swerved, the drivers' eyes peering way off to the right, riveted, seeing something exciting for a change. It was like the waves were big magnets and the cars were being pulled to them by their front grills.
I paused to watch the waves smash up against a retaining wall and listen to the foomping thud of impact. Towering geysers of spray shot high in the air, reaching for seagulls and the moon, settling back with a littering splash. It was like an asylum of insane chaotic beasts roaring and snorting. Which is why cars were careening around the street and why the parking area right there was blocked off, like it was a crime scene.
As I stood there with my cheap point-and-shoot camera - glad I'd at least remembered it - I noticed a pretty blonde woman who was getting buffeted by the wind. She was holding a camera on a tripod, a large Nikon digital SLR with a pretty good-sized lens. Expensive setup, in other words. She was carrying it here and there, holding the rig by two of the tripod legs, one in each hand, at shoulder height, the way a person holds a little kid away from them who has just pooped their pants. She looked up at the sky, to the left and back, out across the bay, and down the embankment below her feet. I was curious and watched her. She got nearer, staggering and shuffling, wrestling with the strap, squinting at it. She looked so unfamiliar with the whole idea of photographing anything at all, but here she was near pounding winter surf.
I was too near her not to say anything after I'd been studying her, so I said hello and how was the picture taking going. It clearly was going nowhere.
"Oh, I suck at this!" she said, laughing without smiling.
Yeah, I know, I thought.
In the universe I inhabit, you learn skills on beginner equipment and earn the right to use finer pieces once you've mastered the skills and developed an appreciation for the art form in which you are immersing yourself. It seemed unjust, perverse, just plain wrong, a camera like that going to waste on her. I growled to myself about overprivileged rich people who don't deserve what they have, that they don't appreciate or deserve things they have because they haven't been vetted in some way, haven't clawed their way to a pinnacle of accomplishment, that they bypass GO and collect kudos based solely on the fact that they can afford something and not because they have actual talent or skill. I grumped about not being able to afford a zillion-dollar fancy camera, that if I could, I sure would be taking a hell of a lot better pictures than she was probably getting, aiming at the sun and the dirt and not focusing, and didn't she know how to use the damn thing at all? I went off; yes I did. But, then I calmed down and took another look. Maybe it wasn't her fault.
I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She looked distracted, unhappy and awkward. I glanced around, thinking, and that little voice inside spoke up.
Maybe there was a car idling nearby, some gangster with shifty eyes, up to no good, who had shoved her out into the bluster to get rid of her while he arranged a murder on his cell phone. "Here, take this, baby, and look busy. Don't come back unless I give you the signal."
I don't know. She was pretty, she was blonde and she didn't know diddly about that nice camera. It didn't add up.
Or maybe she was a decoy, diverting attention from a break-in or a drug deal going down. Yeah, that was it. Maybe I'd need to duck flying bullets, report a crime scene, run for my life. Jeez, maybe the camera was really a gun. She might be a spy. Or a double agent. The surfers were probably smuggling dope on their surfboards, and she was trying to catch them, but the equipment was more than she'd bargained for. She was in over her head. Shots would ring out, the body would fall over the embankment, tumbling like a ragdoll to the rocks below, and she'd lie there in the cold surf, arms akimbo.
The cops would have to be summoned, witnesses interviewed, the crime scene dusted for, well, something, anything. Just dust the whole place, men, don't miss anything. Be sure to photograph the body. Then, meet me at the bakery. No, that part doesn't seem likely. Nah, not in the Groove. The PG police never get to sit and write crime reports and munch on doughnuts. They're banished from the world of doughnuts entirely. Hell, none of the bakeries in the whole city even make doughnuts, for God's sake. That's how quiet it is here.
So, Mrs. Nikon Super Camera just staggered back and forth on the rock-strewn parking lot, scaring the gulls, pushing buttons randomly, hoping Johnny would give her the signal to get back in the car and stop wrecking her expensive hairdo. I walked on my way, whistling tunelessly, hand twitching on my little camera, ready to whirl back around and snap photos if and when the gig or job or something went down.
Oh, yeah, we are all ready for mayhem. Yessir, we are. Unfortunately, the nearest we seem to get to it is the ocean tearing it up out there. But, there's something fishy about that, you know?
I was out walking down by the waterfront one day, and the waves were rockin' and rollin', kicking and screaming, causing a real mess. PG residents and visiting drivers swerved around, excited that something big was happening. They crowded in on the shore road, causing near misses with other cars, runners, guardrails and dogs. When a big wave - a really giant, sinister, big bruiser of a wave - would begin to rumble in, cars slowed and swerved, the drivers' eyes peering way off to the right, riveted, seeing something exciting for a change. It was like the waves were big magnets and the cars were being pulled to them by their front grills.
I paused to watch the waves smash up against a retaining wall and listen to the foomping thud of impact. Towering geysers of spray shot high in the air, reaching for seagulls and the moon, settling back with a littering splash. It was like an asylum of insane chaotic beasts roaring and snorting. Which is why cars were careening around the street and why the parking area right there was blocked off, like it was a crime scene.
As I stood there with my cheap point-and-shoot camera - glad I'd at least remembered it - I noticed a pretty blonde woman who was getting buffeted by the wind. She was holding a camera on a tripod, a large Nikon digital SLR with a pretty good-sized lens. Expensive setup, in other words. She was carrying it here and there, holding the rig by two of the tripod legs, one in each hand, at shoulder height, the way a person holds a little kid away from them who has just pooped their pants. She looked up at the sky, to the left and back, out across the bay, and down the embankment below her feet. I was curious and watched her. She got nearer, staggering and shuffling, wrestling with the strap, squinting at it. She looked so unfamiliar with the whole idea of photographing anything at all, but here she was near pounding winter surf.
I was too near her not to say anything after I'd been studying her, so I said hello and how was the picture taking going. It clearly was going nowhere.
"Oh, I suck at this!" she said, laughing without smiling.
Yeah, I know, I thought.
In the universe I inhabit, you learn skills on beginner equipment and earn the right to use finer pieces once you've mastered the skills and developed an appreciation for the art form in which you are immersing yourself. It seemed unjust, perverse, just plain wrong, a camera like that going to waste on her. I growled to myself about overprivileged rich people who don't deserve what they have, that they don't appreciate or deserve things they have because they haven't been vetted in some way, haven't clawed their way to a pinnacle of accomplishment, that they bypass GO and collect kudos based solely on the fact that they can afford something and not because they have actual talent or skill. I grumped about not being able to afford a zillion-dollar fancy camera, that if I could, I sure would be taking a hell of a lot better pictures than she was probably getting, aiming at the sun and the dirt and not focusing, and didn't she know how to use the damn thing at all? I went off; yes I did. But, then I calmed down and took another look. Maybe it wasn't her fault.
I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She looked distracted, unhappy and awkward. I glanced around, thinking, and that little voice inside spoke up.
Maybe there was a car idling nearby, some gangster with shifty eyes, up to no good, who had shoved her out into the bluster to get rid of her while he arranged a murder on his cell phone. "Here, take this, baby, and look busy. Don't come back unless I give you the signal."
I don't know. She was pretty, she was blonde and she didn't know diddly about that nice camera. It didn't add up.
Or maybe she was a decoy, diverting attention from a break-in or a drug deal going down. Yeah, that was it. Maybe I'd need to duck flying bullets, report a crime scene, run for my life. Jeez, maybe the camera was really a gun. She might be a spy. Or a double agent. The surfers were probably smuggling dope on their surfboards, and she was trying to catch them, but the equipment was more than she'd bargained for. She was in over her head. Shots would ring out, the body would fall over the embankment, tumbling like a ragdoll to the rocks below, and she'd lie there in the cold surf, arms akimbo.
The cops would have to be summoned, witnesses interviewed, the crime scene dusted for, well, something, anything. Just dust the whole place, men, don't miss anything. Be sure to photograph the body. Then, meet me at the bakery. No, that part doesn't seem likely. Nah, not in the Groove. The PG police never get to sit and write crime reports and munch on doughnuts. They're banished from the world of doughnuts entirely. Hell, none of the bakeries in the whole city even make doughnuts, for God's sake. That's how quiet it is here.
So, Mrs. Nikon Super Camera just staggered back and forth on the rock-strewn parking lot, scaring the gulls, pushing buttons randomly, hoping Johnny would give her the signal to get back in the car and stop wrecking her expensive hairdo. I walked on my way, whistling tunelessly, hand twitching on my little camera, ready to whirl back around and snap photos if and when the gig or job or something went down.
Oh, yeah, we are all ready for mayhem. Yessir, we are. Unfortunately, the nearest we seem to get to it is the ocean tearing it up out there. But, there's something fishy about that, you know?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Evening Image
The interloper comes:
Dusk stands brooding
at the doorway.
Twilight, wrapped in blue vapors,
envelops the shivering sun,
a smudge, a faltering step,
bidden to the darkening gyre
of night.
Pale tarnished stars tumble across
the sheets of obsidion sky,
ghostly flecks of amber in
eternal glissade.
Dusk stands brooding
at the doorway.
Twilight, wrapped in blue vapors,
envelops the shivering sun,
a smudge, a faltering step,
bidden to the darkening gyre
of night.
Pale tarnished stars tumble across
the sheets of obsidion sky,
ghostly flecks of amber in
eternal glissade.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Magic Garden Nursery
I leaped into the chill pool water today and felt like a carrot stick. Crisped and curled at the ends.
After my near-carrot experience, I thought to myself: "I need fertilizer!"
In the general vicinity of El Estero Lake, across busy Fremont Street and behind El Estero Car Wash, lies a serene urban oasis called Cypress Garden Nursery. It's an island of sorts, a small parallel universe, existing - thriving actually - amidst the din and clatter of street noise and industry all around. Situating the nursery gardens in a busy commercial district gives them an immense appeal: They feel much like a protected sanctuary where elfin magic has a much greater probability of existing. The nursery has been there since 1952 or so and is run by a Japanese family whose charming and delightful aesthetic extends throughout the grounds.
The appeal of gardening is that it lends itself to the creation of sanctuaries, nooks, walkways and organic beauty. Almost all nurseries have some appeal, but this particular one really is something special. So, take a walk with me and I'll show you around.
The Gardens lie in a microclimate "banana belt" formed by sheltering low hills and a bluff that shields cold winds from the bay. (At the top of the bluff just to the east of the gardens are two of Monterey's oldest historic adobes, worth a walk up into the neighborhood on a sunny day.) The even-tempered and mild climate is very easy on the plants, so everything looks vigorous and good.
The grounds feel intimate yet occupy at least two acres, but all areas are easy to access, with outdoor areas arranged to the left of the parking area. The shed, seedling beds and water fountains are to the right. Flowering plants are everywhere and are grouped according to drought tolerance and predominant colors.
To the right of the parking area, you approach what looks like a low ranch-style wooden building that houses supplies of organic and ordinary chemical fertilizers, weed control products, tools, potting benches, seed packet displays and serendipitous odds and ends. You can enter the main building or continue through a breezeway to wander throughout the greenhouse area, explore the furthest reaches of the potting sheds, or take a look at gurgling water features and wind chimes.
Returning to the main building, you get to the heart of the place. Chewey, the resident dog, pads around nudging wandering shoppers, hope filling her eyes, keen for morsels of food, quietly licking extended hands.
The room is meant to display gardening implements. I like to say it stocks imagination and play. On table tops and benches are the oddest things, ranging from tiny, plump, winged Japanese angels; mechanical, wind-up toy shrimp; beeswax candles; earrings and jewelry with tiny organza bags; hats, hat racks and scarves; books; seeds; uniquely varied gift cards; sea glass, marbles and parlor games. The emphasis is on light-hearted, hands-on living. Here's what they say on their website:
"...we are a place where you can buy a really good sack of dirt, a pruning shear or just ask what could have possibly made that many holes in your coreopsis."
After a good, long, lazy doodling walk around, I assembled a pile of treasures near the checkout register: Fertilizer (of course), crocs (had to join the nationwide craze sometime, right?), cards, a gardening book, and shears. Also, a collection of interviews of great writers on CD (Terri Gross from Fresh Air, NPR). Chewey gazed at my fingers with the look only dogs give, intensely wishing a treat might materialize out of thin air. I'll try to remember to bring her a little something next time - my excuse to go back again.
I've been to Cypress Garden many times. I've never felt sour, disappointed or out of sorts once I've crossed the portal there. Not even close. Matter of fact, I always feel uplifted, soothed and content after having gone. Definitely, my garden does better after each trip. It's magic, true and certain.
After my near-carrot experience, I thought to myself: "I need fertilizer!"
In the general vicinity of El Estero Lake, across busy Fremont Street and behind El Estero Car Wash, lies a serene urban oasis called Cypress Garden Nursery. It's an island of sorts, a small parallel universe, existing - thriving actually - amidst the din and clatter of street noise and industry all around. Situating the nursery gardens in a busy commercial district gives them an immense appeal: They feel much like a protected sanctuary where elfin magic has a much greater probability of existing. The nursery has been there since 1952 or so and is run by a Japanese family whose charming and delightful aesthetic extends throughout the grounds.
The appeal of gardening is that it lends itself to the creation of sanctuaries, nooks, walkways and organic beauty. Almost all nurseries have some appeal, but this particular one really is something special. So, take a walk with me and I'll show you around.
The Gardens lie in a microclimate "banana belt" formed by sheltering low hills and a bluff that shields cold winds from the bay. (At the top of the bluff just to the east of the gardens are two of Monterey's oldest historic adobes, worth a walk up into the neighborhood on a sunny day.) The even-tempered and mild climate is very easy on the plants, so everything looks vigorous and good.
The grounds feel intimate yet occupy at least two acres, but all areas are easy to access, with outdoor areas arranged to the left of the parking area. The shed, seedling beds and water fountains are to the right. Flowering plants are everywhere and are grouped according to drought tolerance and predominant colors.
To the right of the parking area, you approach what looks like a low ranch-style wooden building that houses supplies of organic and ordinary chemical fertilizers, weed control products, tools, potting benches, seed packet displays and serendipitous odds and ends. You can enter the main building or continue through a breezeway to wander throughout the greenhouse area, explore the furthest reaches of the potting sheds, or take a look at gurgling water features and wind chimes.
Returning to the main building, you get to the heart of the place. Chewey, the resident dog, pads around nudging wandering shoppers, hope filling her eyes, keen for morsels of food, quietly licking extended hands.
The room is meant to display gardening implements. I like to say it stocks imagination and play. On table tops and benches are the oddest things, ranging from tiny, plump, winged Japanese angels; mechanical, wind-up toy shrimp; beeswax candles; earrings and jewelry with tiny organza bags; hats, hat racks and scarves; books; seeds; uniquely varied gift cards; sea glass, marbles and parlor games. The emphasis is on light-hearted, hands-on living. Here's what they say on their website:
"...we are a place where you can buy a really good sack of dirt, a pruning shear or just ask what could have possibly made that many holes in your coreopsis."
After a good, long, lazy doodling walk around, I assembled a pile of treasures near the checkout register: Fertilizer (of course), crocs (had to join the nationwide craze sometime, right?), cards, a gardening book, and shears. Also, a collection of interviews of great writers on CD (Terri Gross from Fresh Air, NPR). Chewey gazed at my fingers with the look only dogs give, intensely wishing a treat might materialize out of thin air. I'll try to remember to bring her a little something next time - my excuse to go back again.
I've been to Cypress Garden many times. I've never felt sour, disappointed or out of sorts once I've crossed the portal there. Not even close. Matter of fact, I always feel uplifted, soothed and content after having gone. Definitely, my garden does better after each trip. It's magic, true and certain.
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