Monterey Goes Greek

(Yesterday, when I wrote, I did not realize it was my 300th post.  A milestone of sorts, an amazingly big number to me.)

The Greek Festival is one of the best ethnic festivals held in this area, so we decided to meet some friends there and savor an hour or two there.  It's held every year at the Custom House Plaza and like other festivals highlights food and music from the nominal country.  Others to look for at various times of the summer and spring are:  The Santa Rosalia Festival (Sicilian-American), the Turkish Festival,

We walked over to the Plaza from Pacific Grove, an easy flat walk of perhaps two miles and joined another couple at a blue-checked table to pass the time, think about Greece and eat.  Gyros, spanikopita, dolmas, tomato salad with feta and red onions, and Greek coffee were all delicious, especially the gyros.  Whole lamb turning on a roasting spit, live music, people dancing in traditional costumes and booths filled with ceramics, art and jewelry were lively and interesting.

A large crowd filled the plaza.  Either there were very few authentically Greek people there or Greeks also look like every other nationality in the world, because that's what was evident:  The world in its entirety, give or take an aborigine or Zulu hunter.  It was definitely not a crowd you'd typically see in Colorado or Utah, for instance.  Monterey is multi-ethnic, as are most areas of the entire state now, a beautiful enriching thing for us here.  Something like 65 languages - probably a whole lot more - are spoken as a first language at home here.  Truly, it is a melting pot.  Lucky for us on days like today, the pot produces terrific food that we can munch on for equally terrific prices.

We left the sun-kissed festival behind and strolled down Alvarado Street a block or two to reach The Osio Cinema, our local indie-film theater, to watch a matinee showing of Get Low, Robert Duvall's current film, which we felt was a good film, mostly a character study of one man supported by an ensemble of skilled, empathetic actors.

Monterey is a very pretty city, lined with sycamore trees and Spanish mission style offering pleasing vistas at almost every turn.  The sun splashed down through the leaves and shadows dappled the sidewalks. Strolling throngs passed by in twos and threes as we sat on a bench, savored coffee and relaxed on a sunny bench.

We finally turned ourselves back toward Pacific Grove.  Almost immediately, we were distracted by batucada drumming that was attracting a big crowd at the entrance to the wharf.  Listen to The Obvious Child on the album Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon to get a good dose of it.  Little kids, old ladies, spectators in a crowd four or five deep were held in thrall by the drums.  Rhythmic drumming by six or seven musicians in a beautiful public space was intoxicating to everyone.  To me, only taiko drumming comes close; both are fantastic.  This style, a constantly varying and complex one, pulls you over closer and never lets go.  Smiles abounded and feet could not keep still.

We walked on, rejoining the moving river of humanity flowing along the Rec Trail back to Pacific Grove.  Glory of glories, there was no fog in sight, icing on a cake of a day.

The Cats Console Me

"Body of Christ," said the priest up at the altar and held up the Host.  

"What's that?" my sister asked, now five years old, a year younger than I.   

"A little wafer of special bread.  The priest blessed it.  Shhhh," said my mother.

"I have to go to the bathroom.  Really bad," said my other sister, who was four, barely.  

"Now?" my mom looked at her anxious face and saw real urgency.  They gathered themselves up and shuffled out of the pew and left me and my sister sitting on the hard bench.  


"Behave yourselves while I'm gone," my mom whispered and made the shush sign with her finger over her lips.  


"Peas be with you.  I thought he said peas be with you.  Get it?" I looked at my sister, and I snorted as I tried to keep from laughing out loud.  She made a face back at me and tugged at her dress, scratched her hair under her bobby-pinned circlet of lace.  I looked at the backs of all the adults in front of me, pew after pew, dark suit jackets and the edges of the women's skirts.  I thought about my snort and how funny it sounded.  I felt my laughter building up in my chest, and I snorted again.  My sister caught my giggling mood and we started to laugh inside and mess around with our feet on the padded short bench below us where we had knelt.  We were thrashing our ankles clad in anklet socks and our patent-leather Sunday shoes.  


We sisters in a pew in the back of the small church lost track of the mass being said, forgot about keeping up with the kneeling-standing-kneeling-sitting-standing-kneeling that the adults were doing around us.  We rustled, snorted, giggled, mimicked noises we heard.  Everything became hilarious so that we would not be left in boredom by the incomprehensible sermon, and so we could ignore the bloody Christ hanging from a cross beyond the altar, beyond the wan and smiling Mary who looked like she had never been a girl.  


My mother and my younger sister shuffled sideways down the pew until they reached us, my mom scowling at us.  The look said, "You are going to catch it when you get home," but I was just glad to have her with us again.  It was better that way.  I grinned at her.  


"Hi Mom!" I whispered loudly.  She concentrated on scowling some more, but I saw her suppress a smile.  


Finally, I saw the priest between some of the adult elbows in front of me, waving his hands in the cupped upright position that priests always held their hands in during Mass.  He was signaling the Sign of the Cross and the adults were moving around and gathering up their sweaters and purses and hats and beginning to genuflect and leave reverently.  We did that too, as we had been taught, but much more quickly, a token bend of the knee and a swatting motion of the hand around the four corners as we crossed ourselves.  I made my way outside with my family where I inhaled fresh air like it was the last chance to inhale deeply ever again, so grateful was I to take it.  The adults were clotting around in the yard with their voices rumbling and murmuring saying words in their tedious adult language.  I moved away from them, looked for other kids, but saw no friendly ones. 


I spotted the car and dashed for it, fiendishly happy to be moving quickly with my muscles bursting with energy.  I tagged the car, using it to slow myself down and then turned and waited for everyone to join me.  I saw my sister tugging on my mother's arm, as if she were a horse hauling a woman out of a tar pit, with all her might.  


"Come on, mom.  Can we go?  Please?"  My sister was desperate to get away from the slow adult movements and tedious conversations they never seemed to end.  "Pleeeeease?" she whined, an unparalleled nuisance and nag hanging onto the arm over her head.  


Finally, we were all in the Chevy station wagon and rolling away from the church, all of us giggling about how awful that had been.  "I thought we were going to die!" we yelled to each other, making puns and laughing hysterically about almost nothing.  


Suddenly, the car stopped.


"Roll down your window.  There's Father Juan.  He wants to say something.  See?"  my mom said, looking excited.  I rolled down the window and looked up into the Latin face of our parish priest, a Spaniard with an accent and charm that captivated my mother's attention every Sunday.  Because she liked him, I liked him, and because I liked him, I assumed he liked me.  I grinned at him winningly.


Father Juan gripped my arm in a fierce vise of strong fingers and smiled at me but said in a low angry voice, "I have no doubt you fully enjoyed the Mass today.  I am looking forward to your full attention next week."  The fingers released, and his voice wished us a happy Sunday.  My mom waved good-bye and said, "What did he say?  I didn't hear him."  


"I don't know," I said and went silent.  I still felt the pain of the grip.  I was pitched into a dark anger and felt intensely betrayed.  I had not understood his sarcasm and only felt the vicious grip, felt the shock of his anger hitting my stomach.  I hated him now, but there wasn't anything I could do.  He was the priest and we went to that church, and that was it.  


I thought about the fake little wafer Father Juan had held up earlier, pretending it was Christ, about the tepid smile on Mary's face, the way adults looked at each other and laughed together and then complained about each other later.  I didn't trust any of it.  


At home, we scattered to our rooms to play before our midday meal.  I went outside and found a sleeping pile of warm cats and buried my face in their musty fur.  I explained to them how much I hated church, hated the stupid priest and his dumb church and congratulated the cats on the wisdom of not going to church.  They purred and I was consoled by their simplicity and acceptance of my wailing sadness.  Then, healed by this, I went inside to change out of my constricting dress and stiff black shoes whose gloss was now gone.  

Journey Begun: Visionary Hero

There is a friend of mine with a wonderful vision that is calling him forward on a journey that he finds irresistible but, at times, intensely difficult:  "It's like pushing a snowball up an active volcano."

He is Mark Temple, a Canadian swim coach of some renown in his country but little known outside of it except to swimming cognoscenti.  Having coached dozens of Canadian Olympians in his career, he has mastered his craft and loves it.  He is dynamic, knowledgable and passionate about all things aquatic.  Now he intends to bring the world of swimming as he knows it (think Michael Phelps) to this beautiful area where he now lives.

I've been writing recently about relating personal transformation and effort to The Hero's Journey, so eloquently delineated by Joseph Campbell.  Mark, energetic visionary that he is, has embarked on a new journey, and his progress is easily paralleled with the classic monomyth.  Dragons, monsters, difficult stony paths await any hero who embarks on a difficult path, no matter how great their vision or sense of purpose.  It's never easy, but then again great effort produces great results for those who undertake the journey wisely.  

There is also a tidy model that describes what Mark has done so far:  V x D x F > R  This model was taught to the attendees of the Chautauqua at Mt. Madonna last July.  V stands for vision.  The individual or entity must have a strong vision of what they would like to accomplish, or a new idea.  D stands for dissatisfaction.  There must be a strong enough dissatisfaction with things as they are to motivate the person to undergo effort to make the change occur.  F stands for first steps, which must be done to initiate change.  All of these must occur before R, resistance, can be overcome.  All of them must be greater than the resistance to the change envisioned for the action to succeed.

Often, impulsively, we take first steps but have no vision; we're just mad about something.  We don't get very far.  Or, we have a vision but falter and no steps are taken.  Resistance to change cannot be overcome and the idea fails.

Mark Temple has a very strong vision, based on experience in several very successful coaching experiences, of building an international aquatics center at Cal State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB).  He sees the potential and relates it to teaching children water safety, hosting international training sessions for swimming, water polo, synchronized swimming, diving, masters swimming, and providing a beautiful aquatics facility to serve our community.  It fills a void and creates a wonderful potential in many ways.

Mark has worked in effective aquatics programs before, has seen incredible centers used by people of all ages, and has enjoyed what the Monterey Peninsula already offers to golfers and dazzled admirers of nature.

First steps have been taken.  Monterey Peninsula Swim Association Foundation has been formed.  People are becoming curious, interested, involved.  They are being asked to take the journey with him; he is putting out the call.

The journey for Mark Temple has begun.  He has to get the snowball up the volcano, but his vision will hold him in good stead.  Vision and energy are things he has in abundance, but he will still encounter obstacles, frustration and pitfalls.  It's the nature of taking a journey.  He believes in the worth of the effort.  He intends to bring home a treasure, and when he does he return, he will be changed, for the journey always changes the hero.

Labor Day: Working Folk Working Well

Over Labor Day Weekend, visitors to the Monterey Peninsula will be arriving from inland areas to relax at the beach, see the sights and luxuriate for a time.  They will be fed by line cooks, whisked to hotels by taxi drivers, awakened with coffee brewed by baristas, attended to by valets and tucked into beds made clean by launderers and housekeepers.  They will fill their gas tanks at stations manned by low-wage-earning attendants, drive on roads smoothed by city workers, and visit galleries and stores attended by clerks.  

On walks around Monterey, Pacific Grove and Carmel, tourists, themselves on holiday from their own nine-to-fives, will admire old stately homes and public buildings whose bricks and boards were mortared and hammered into place a hundred or more years ago by laborers now long gone.  They will eat fish hauled in from the sea on local boats or dine on meat raised by ranch hands and farmers near and far.  

There is a jackhammer pounding away about 20 yards from my ear, outside, but I am grateful.  His back and shoulders, every joint in his body has been vibrated violently by the work he is doing, a job I am glad not to have but glad he is doing well.  

Time to celebrate the blue collar workers who keep the country moving every day, the usually invisible and nameless.  Time to let them know their work does matter and does not go unappreciated.    

I salute the men and women with dirty jobs who are unknown to me.  The sewer cleaners, garbage collectors, street sweepers, sewage facility operators, cable maintenance people, plumbers, roofers, clothing assemblers, textile workers, and on.  I am glad that they have done their jobs and not let us down by doing poor work.  Today, I can sit in ease and comfort because my town has been kept safe, and my food transported safely.  

Thank you, laborers and working folk.  You are good for us all; you are our backbone as a nation, and when you shine, we all look pretty darned good.  I am grateful to drive on well-built streets in a sturdy car to places in town you have maintained and cared for.  

This is the weekend we are meant to appreciate our own two hands as well as those around us that we depend on for nearly everything we have and need.   Happy Labor Day, every worker everywhere.

End of Summer?

Summer strolled up and laid itself in a hammock today, smiling. If a day can be an icon for a while season, today was that day.  It was sun filled, with an aching pure loveliness at every turn.

Thinking back, I was filled with equanimity and didn't even notice if things were going wrong.  Wrong became right and then it all stopped being much of anything at all.  Maybe it was so pretty that I stopped paying attention to anything and fell asleep.  I could be sleep-writing right now.  I think it's likely, judging by the inert feeling of my mind, the lack of any inclination to bustle or be productive.  I am sloth itself, and summer is cradling me in its warm soft arms.

Summer's pleasantness is so blissful that I am made stupid by it.  It feels like love.  I have no worries, no aches or needs.  I am like a cloud or a sailboat on a calm quiet sea.  I drift.  My eyes lose focus and I am emptied of longing or hope.  Surely not a lack of hope?  Yes, even hope is lulled and lolls in the warmth of this summer, so late in coming 'round.

I stop caring when I am contented and relaxed.  It will take getting cold again or too hot before I am nudged to take up my chores and errands.

There was not a cloud in the sky today, not a wisp of fog anywhere.  The blue heaven overhead was all-encompassing and perfectly perfect.  Cars hummed along the streets without a horn and without being shouldered to the side to let screaming sirens by.  No, all was calm and peace.

This is a fine thing, this irresolute happiness, this relaxed and slumbering passage through a day.  What does it mean?  I think it means nothing except the world around me is reaching the nadir of the season and now will gradually descend into Fall, where we will see brilliant colors in the sycamores and cottonwoods backlit against brilliant blue autumn skies, when a trembling chill rises up from the ground and twists itself around our ankles in the early morning.  When it's ready, it will come.