Boy as packhorse

We started out our evening knowing we were in for a long walk. The idea was to hit up a second hand and come home with a couple pair of shorts, catch something to eat along the way. Instead we went a bit crazy and bought an awful lot of stuff. Four games, a dozen movies, about ten cookbooks, a ton of Garfield titles, a nice quality knife, miscellaneous kitchen gadgets, a half dozen shirts and finally a couple pairs of shorts.

It must have looked funny seeing us walk home last night, two cats humping home big bags full of loot clearly marked Goodwill. At times I felt a bit guilty, as only a 51 year old man can. For a moment or two I felt that no teenager should be subjected to this, but then I thought about all those walks I took when I was a young man and knew it wasn't going to kill him. Besides, we tucked in at King's Teriyaki and ate well before our long slog home. I distributed the load so that he wouldn't have a hellacious and discouraging walk. We stopped when we needed to and I salted the walk with the promise of a comedy and dessert once we got home.

We came in the door and plopped our bags down in the kitchen and broke out the scale. Since the movies and books were my jones I carried the bulk of weight, but still, he carried almost twenty pounds worth of goods over two and half miles. I was proud of him. That's the kind of thing that builds character and bone mass. All to the good. And man, you should see those shirts he got! Wow!

Salud!

Linen shirt

I got into my car today to go off to shop for books. Always more books, must take advantage of the times and the cash flow, make sure that all the good will I have been building up with my local merchants over the last year isn't lost in the ebb and flow of professional political maneuvering. What I noticed, more than anything else, as I made my way up and down the aisles of all my local bookstores and thrifts, books in  hand,  was a certain scent coming off my shirt, something soft and fragrant and floral, light, promoting almost a sort of dream sequence, a kind of waking memory that went along with one the concert pieces that my Esteemed Companion and I heard last night.

It was accentuated by Lucinda Williams and Car Wheels on a Gravel Road as I made my way back to the branch. It was once again brought to the fore when I worked over all those incoming books, when I broke down boxes in the overcast afternoon sun, while I sat at my desk handling packing slips and information about reference questions and Friends newsletters. That scent, one that continues to conjure up happy smiles, delightful memories, has lingered and for that I am happy as you have been with me all day long, my silent companion, my source of joy, even its only been in the folds of my soft brown shirt.

Something great to be said about how a good linen chemise, heavy threaded, hard to press, a hard to handle piece of fabric that wrinkles easy, makes for a delightful transport system and how that delightful shirt made my heart soar and my day light all day long.

It's all good, Yes, so very good.

Salud!

Evening star!

Sometimes things, good things, just happen. Sometimes things, like a good sunset, a couple well placed seats at an orchestral concert, a couple bowls of soup, a nice bottle of sparkling wine, just come together, make a simple kind of magic, turn a normal sort of work day into a real and fantastic date, something taken to a higher level because it wasn't planned but cobbled together with a simple grace and art that made the whole enterprise just flat out sing.

Yep, it wasn't planned, that's for sure. A stack of comp tickets to the Friends were out there for a performance at the Mendocino Music Festival for a Wednesday night, a normal late night for me at the branch. I wasn't even thinking of going but also saw that no one else was going to attend, either. So mentioned the fact to my Esteemed Companion, let her know that I thought it a pity that she was so far way. Well, what did I find in my email box almost immediately but a sort of gently wrapped in velvet cast iron skillet upside my head! Come on, man, what kind of an invitation was that? A gentleman always asks a lady properly so I did and that was that. Contacted the President, got a couple tickets set aside at will call, arrangements were made on her end and within twenty four hours we had a date planned, a real date, a pressed shirt, curled hair, happy faces, baby-sitter set up kind of date. Our first. How wonderful was that?

It's not every day we get to go to a concert and for a first outing it was especially grand. The setting for the festival in Mendocino is in a magnificent  circus sized tent, set across from the town on the headlands, right on the edge of the sea. We were privy to a fantastic set of contemporary and challenging pieces as well as an exquisite concerto by Rodrigo before intermission, the last of which left me soaring, feeling as if I was Errol Flynn and my darling dear was Olivia De Havilland on the set of some grand Warner Brothers adventure film.

We strolled out of the tent at half time while the orchestra tuned up, walked straight into the last vestiges of a glorious sunset, caught the evening star on the rise, noshed on two take-out bowls of a most wonderful kind of soup and then, to her hearts delight, popped a nice bottle of bubbly, too. "Now, where did that come from?" she must have wondered. Well out my grocery sack, this man's version of a Mary Poppins bag! We never caught up with the chocolate that lurked at the bottom of that bag but I am sure that it will be there for another adventure somewhere else down the line, that much I am sure.

As for the Debussy and La Mer and the rest of the evening? Well, let's just say that it was sublime. Small problems come and go yet we made our way through life and over hurdles and in and around all sorts of things which says to me that if we can pull off an orchestral kind of evening at 70 miles apart with all it's requisite twists and turns, well, then, we just might be able to pull off anything we put our minds to.

Yeah, last night we shared evening full of heavenly music and a sweet slice of time side by side in a most wonderful setting. And more to the good were all the secret sweet wishes we were throwing at that evening star last night that says to me even more good things are coming, that a sort of grand happiness, one never expected nor looked for, is afoot. Happy days, indeed!

Salud!


 Here's something on the show we saw and on Shin-Ichi Fukuda, guitar player to the stars!
http://www.mendocinomusic.org/portfolio/shin-ichi-fukuda-guitar/

Ephiphany

Came off a long road trip up north to Washington a week and a half ago and I am still sorting through and storing away the things I brought back with me. I thought, as I made my way up to the land of ghost filled houses, that I would go, see what there was to see in two storage units I have been paying on for almost three years, knock out a good amount of work in a short amount of time, come away with some things and call it a day.

That was not meant to be.

What I found instead was a sort of stored compressed madness, a packing crate jam packed with old dreams, of spirits dwelling inside a 10 by 15 space that were not too happy to cramped and squeezed in among so much junk. At the time, when I shoving things in, I was doing my best to unload the basement of the family house alone. I worked mostly uphill, in tired tennis shoes, in endless rain, in a slog, all fast loads, no boxes, all quickness and sadness and compartmentalization, no thought of what the value was of anything I was touching. I made loads disappear to Goodwill, sure, I  made sure that many things went the way of the dump, but all too much made it's way into that storage space, the second of two, the one that had, not the cool upstairs things, not the first pick of the litter, but everything else that I felt was "keepable" at the time.

Came to that space, one I hadn't seen in almost two years, in a sort of a panic. I knew that I had family scheduled to arrive back in town, knew I was going to need to work fast, ruthlessly. But the loot of ghosts has the half life of kryptonite, has all the ancient curses placed on it that would rival anything that might have been found in King Tut's tomb. The only problem was that that ancient Egyptian stuff might held a bit of fascination. Mine, by the time I got going on it, felt like a lot of junk.

I have to admit that I called on my Esteemed Companion more that once for moral support. I have to admit, too, that beers with my old friend the Shin Kicker at end of day was critical, too. But in the end I knew what I had to do could only be done alone and as emotionlessly as possible. I unloaded films and books in such numbers that Goodwill couldn't take anymore after the first day. I dropped off things that belonged to my mom, things that came away from her house packed in bright, cheery holiday Target plastic tubs, things that were never looked at, collectibles that some lucky and  happy person is now happily saddled with.

I found myself unloading things from childhood, from my Navy days, from old marriages, from the long defunct house of spirits. I found that nothing was sacred, that, by the end of the third day, everything had reverted back to being mere things. I pared down everything, from furniture to kitchen goods to electronics, from music and toy soldier stock to antiques and meaningless gee gaws, countless thousands of dollars worth of goods. I found out, afterwards, that I  might have moved a bit too fast on somethings, but also noticed, too, in my dumping, that that is exactly what would have happened had I passed on before I got a chance to handle these things. Those things would have been completely and totally meaningless to anyone else. That was very eye opening, very clearing, very steadying.

So now I have, instead of two storage lockers filled with mystery, one filled with what I now call a "household in a box". I could move the belongings stored away there and set up a home. I touched everything and feel that what I have, at half the storage cost, is worth keeping for the time being. I could move to Washington if I wanted to and set up a place to live. I could kick it, move onto the next world and not feel embarrassed about having what I now have. I could go somewhere, find that fabled place in the sun, fetch those things with a truck and know that I what I am sharing with someone from that space worth of things has lost it's old power over me. I took on the task, got through the chore and now have things that I feel are important to me, not stuff fulfilling some old obligations I might have had to the ghosts that once lived on Kitsap Street.

Epiphanies don't come cheap. I'm glad and happy to have paid the price. Now,  to find room in my humble abode for those handful of things that came home with me!

Salud!

Supermoon!

Tonight tonight I will be out studying the effects of this year's Supermoon, an effect that happens when the moon is in perigee, closest to,  planet Earth as it makes it's way around and through the celestial year. My Esteemed Companion has a women's group that meets once a month, in time for and in celebration of the full moon cycle. She called me late last night, filled with a sort of  wild, joyous lunar energy, telling me her tale of how grand it was to be out and about with her friends, deep in a country night, howling along with the local coyotes up in the hills. I couldn't talk much about the moon here on the coast as we had a heavy, misty cloud cover kind of night. But I was able to live vicariously through her observations, through her activities and for that I was glad.

In so many ways we are disconnected from the bigger things of life when we step back or ignore the cycles of this wonderful planet of ours. Moving away from a large city existence to a that of a smaller, rural town has helped reshape my world view, has helped to promote a belated but always welcome paradigm shift. When your world is always co-opted and directed by rampant consumerism you find that your "seasonal" calendar is shaped by commercial and political holidays and their respective sales, not by pagan rituals, holy days and the seasons that helped spawn them. Being here on the Mendo coast I am always in awe of what raw nature brings into my life. It may be subtle, in the way that the sun sets way to the north this time of year or overt as when the temps rise over the mountains in the east and it makes for soft, foggy days here on the coast. I now have experienced a full calendar year here, have learned to see and appreciate what seasons are like here on the coast. Our lives on the Mendocino coast can be damp or breezy, exquisitely sunny or morosely overcast, but always temperate thanks to that incredible heat sink we have in the form of the Pacific ocean right outside our door.

I think of my good friend there in the Round Valley and know that her take on the coming and going of the seasons is different but still remarkably the same. We are blessed to be living in worlds that are surrounded by nature, in places where crops and cycles are king and hold trump over cyclical sales and promotional events. I love how, when I visit her at her barn pole house, that her abode, high and above the surrounding hay fields, feels a lot like my place here near the ocean. Standing there on her porch, looking out over the fields in the late afternoon sun, reminds me oh so much of the sea, the gentle hands of wind blowing through the grasses, setting them in motion in a delightful kind of soft wave effect. The bird song may be different but the birds there, like their brethren here on the coast, are active, alive and forever busy. The hills and mountains that I see off to the West are not unlike what I see off in my eastern horizon. In fact, we share those coastal ranges , a sort of common boundary, a kind of high pass that keeps our seasons, our passions, forever stirred up, and, in the end, in check.

The Supermoon is arriving this evening. Maybe I can drive a bit, find a place in the mountains that will allow me to witness this phenomena, without the protective cloud cover the keeps this place in the general range of 60 degrees. Maybe I can find a place this evening that will let me witness this event, and, if I'm lucky, have a few coyotes around to howl with, too.

We all can use a good bit of howling now and again!

Salud!

And here's a bit of info about the Supermoon!

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/06/22/supermoon-rises-in-weekend-night-sky-sunday/

Messing about

Every time I get to that point where I am asking myself "what cool new thing could possibly happen next?" then something nifty and wonderful comes up and takes me down an unexpected path of delight. This time it was the gift of the moment, a wonderment in the form of a couple of bikes, a sunny late afternoon, a bit of time to burn and a boy to wear down a bit before stories and bed time.

I'm always amazed how the small gods interact with us mere mortals, take our expectations and turn them on their ear. It had already been a good day, a busman's holiday kind of day filled with book buying, library visits and comrade support. It was made better by a light and savory meal thrown together on the fly, a warm day in the Valley and an evening's agenda that pretty much was wide open. But a bike ride was something that neither my Esteemed Companion nor I saw coming. A walk, definitely. A trip down the drive to check on a neighbor's garden for marauding pigs, certainly. But a bike ride? It was the peeking into the shed, seeing the tandem bike just sitting there, that set that little man's imagination ablaze.

So, bike riding it was, the three of us meandering down a country lane to a tired, algae packed creek in the crisp late part of a day. We had plenty of light, practically no traffic and a lane that rivaled anything a big city bike path could have ever thought to throw our way. And while the sun went down a bit earlier behind the mountain than was expected the twilight still got us home well before the mosquitos ever thought to look for us.

It was all good. Somehow a bike ride, with all it's requisite bumps and races and different muscles to explore, is a grand alternative to the walks I take almost every day. Seeing the land from two wheels, or rather, three counting the tandem, was a delight. We covered far more ground than we would have otherwise, we got in something new that now can be seem as a regular kind of joint venture and exercise for us all but more it let us see that our days, sometimes in line to be one way, can be pulled in another and be a really cool thing., indeed.

Here's to serendipity, to boyish joy and to play that comes oh so naturally to this little group of ours!

Salud!

A tent-ish kind of extravaganza!

Ah, tent camping! And while it wasn’t the kind of tent that a traveling circus or a film festival might find a home in it was still a home for all three of us that evening. And such a grand evening it was!

My Esteemed Companion, her boy and I took up residence for a night at Russian Gulch State Park. We were wondering, when we rolled up, if were even going to be able to get a space at all but the small gods of camping and children were about and passed along an offering of last minute cancellations. We found a space that suited us…clean, wide, with a rain canopy of short and inviting trees…all that we could have asked for and more for a first time out experience.

I always thrill to the setting up of camp, as it's always a challenge, always a wonderment to behold once it's up and operational. To go from an rustic empty space with a cold fire ring and a picnic bench to a full out inviting, warm and cozy outdoor abode is an amazing process. Coming into the campground that evening I was amazed to see so many new and interesting kinds of equipment about. I haven’t been on a camp out in quite a while so I haven’t been keeping up on the latest in outdoor technology. I suppose that it didn’t matter much, being old school, for we had all that we needed. Besides dry fire wood, a stove, a source of light after hours, a cooler of full of food, a water tight tent and a bevy of sleeping bags, what more can a person ask for?

Years ago I used to go desert camping with my father. He would bring me along to hang out with his motorcycle buddies who always came along well tricked out with RVs and trailers in tow. He, instead, would load up a cooler full of beer, a package of racetrack steaks, throw his motorcycle on top of the truck bed, then, almost as afterthought, swing by and pick me up, too. Now that was rustic! There is nothing quite like sleeping on a hard plywood bed under the stars next to a noisy encampment full of wild motorheads, soaking in a high desert night time cold that seemed to always find its way through my US government surplus bag.

Still, of all my camping memories it had to be one of the best for it was without expectation, only discovery and joy. This past weekend was an awful lot like that, too. It came packed to the brim with wild boyish wonder, with a bag of full of corn that turned magically into tent stakes and then back into corn again, with a trek to the sea shore that found us wading through a creek bed back to camp only to find out afterwards, wet shoes and all, that there was a trail with a bridge down to the water after all. We ate well, slept well, coped with the chill and the rain like true champions, took advantage of the after hours quiet time to revel before the fire without all the extraneous noise and found out that a good solid flashlight is really the best tool around to navigate to the restrooms after dark.

It was good fun, plain old fashioned sweet and wonderful fun. We didn’t need the latest in outdoor gear, we didn’t need to have gourmet food in the cooler, we certainly didn’t need a gas generator, an RV full of goodies, a boom box or a GPS device to find our way to happiness. We took ourselves down the shore, found our tentish selves full of hope and promise and lived up to that promise by sharing with each other a lot of mirth, merriment and glee. Now, what more do you need on a camp out than that?

Salud!

Out to sea

Tonight after closing I am going beach camping with my Esteemed Companion and her boy. The weather, which is always iffy here on the coast, changed over from sunny, bright and warm to a funky grey haze, complete with mist and an unknown kind of outlook. But as my coworker said, if you have a tent, what's the problem? Everyone should have a go at camping in the rain. And go we will.

Have you ever had a wild stroke of luck happen to you? Something that came about out of thin air, something completely unexpected, something filled with sweet grace notes, somehow topping the "oh my god" meter? Somehow, something I did along the way handed me a mighty fine and lucky ticket to this grand show I am working with here. But more somehow I have been gifted with people who care, who let me know, almost on a daily basis, that my being here is one to the best things that ever happened.

Somehow I think that I am beginning to believe it. At first I thought it was just hard work leading the way, but then I stepped back and realized it was more than hard work, going out and making connections, seeking out the mysteries of the community and making those mysteries mine as well. It seems to be that in the giving you get back, not just what you put into it but much, much  more. Somehow in all my wanderings, in all my years of dealing with folk, in all my years in the industry, I haven't caught on to the message, or it was missed somehow, or somehow it was tucked away, like a small gift under the tree, waiting for me to find it amongst the litter of wrap and bows. I found it here, after years of travel, after a lot of thought, angst and indecision. I think in the settling, in the giving over, in the surrender, the decision to be here that gift popped up out of the blue and said to me "here it is, the answer to all the questions you've been waiting for".

Simple answer, truly.

Live a simple life. Be genuine. Love without strings. Give and know that your heart, hard work and efforts will be rewarded.

It's all good.

Let it rain for I am happy! Let's go play in the surf for I am already swept away!

Salud!

Midway 55

It doesn't seem quite right to drop a set of resolutions right into the middle of the year. Well, technically it isn't quite at the half way point but you get my drift: I should have posted this ages ago. So much has changed since the end of December, so much life has been lived, so many lines in the sand drawn, washed out by the tide, immortalized or blown away by the winds that frequently buffet these Northern Californian shores.

I guess I should be happy that I didn't scribble anything down back there at the end of the previous year. I still was getting my bearings, finding my way, looking for answers, turning over rocks. Somehow, in the intervening months I have found a sort of clarity that only comes from making hard decisions, from making really tough choices, from tears and sweat and laughter in abundance. I think that many signals have been made clear, that the skies, once clouded, have opened up, let the star shine through. I have sat in the rain, the cold, watched the fog roll in, walked cliffs towering up to the sky, looked out over ocean and looked for the swells that started somewhere off the shores of Japan. I have been looking hard here since I've arrived, looking hard for answers, trying my best to unload old habits, look for good ones that would somehow revitalize this old soul and I think, after almost twelve months of hard searching, of a goodly amount of wine, of establishing a great work place, of making community, that I am ready to say, here I am, this is where I want to be, this is where, for now,  until my heart and soul tell me otherwise, I'll stay..

55. That is a lot of resolutions. Maybe we can look at that word a bit. Maybe I shouldn't say "these are the things I want to do, fix, change". I've been doing plenty of that. Maybe when you come into something like this midway into the year you can look at dreams, wishes, want lists instead. Maybe, just maybe, I can chalk this up to what I want to be, where I want to go, what I wish to see in myself, in others. Instead of selfishly making up a list that will fall apart by the time the aspirins wear off on New Years Day, maybe I should make a list that will inspire not only me but my kids, my work mates, my esteemed one. Lead us towards something grand, light, beautiful. Maybe it's all to Zen but I think more anything that right now anything is possible.

Things to do!

1. Never forget to smile!
2. Wake early and put the gift of the day to good  use.
3. Write one good letter a day.
4. Set an example and get to work early.
5. Be present.
6. Breathe.
7. Learn a new skill that adds meaning and interest to your life.
8. Swim lessons so I can swim with the kids, with the Esteemed Companion but more so I can learn to sail.
9. Work on one good new recipe a week.
10. Learn what there is to know about a gluten free cooking, not only for my own knowledge but so I can take care of my Esteemed Companion as well as she takes care of me..
11.Drink a cup or two of green tea every day.
12. Road trips to Idaho to see the kids at least twice a year, more if possible.
13. Read all those books that come to me via book groups and be ready to talk about them meaningfully.
14. Put on a good face in the face of all those things that are unpleasant and not so much fun to deal with.
15. Walk, no matter what, no matter how far, each and every day.
16. Get a complete physical.
17. Ditto on a new set of glasses.
18 Find a new dentist.
19. Take trips to San Francisco for things other than business.
20. The passport: get it done now that the name is changed.
21. Plan a good long road trip with my Esteemed Companion to someplace neither of us has ever been.
22. Toys for the boys and sweet things for the girl.
23. Camp at least twice a month this summer.
24. Make volunteering in the community a regular way of life.
25. Dia de los Muertos in Fort Bragg: the committee, the altars, the community.
26. First Friday art walk every month, maybe even Second Saturday in Mendo, too.
27. The radio show: finish training, get on the air.
28. Film programming: expand, explore new film ideas, new genres.
29. Read new fiction, old classics and share, share, share.
30. Buy more vinyl.
31. Empty out at least one of two storage areas.
32.Finish out the Sacramento workshop expectations with a bang. Get to know John and Becky.
33. Stargaze with my Esteemed Companion and her boy.
34. Go to an opera.
35. Eat a little bit of chocolate, good chocolate, every day.
36. Try out a few new wineries in the Anderson Valley.
37. Make good on those promises with the Mendocino Film Festival.
38. Go beyond the coastal map and walk new beaches, more headlands. Point Reyes, anyone?
39. Find one really good Vietnamese restaurant on the other side of the hill and frequent it as often as possible.
40. Give business to the locals.
41. Find my way into the Valley at least twice a month in order to share the time the gas and the distance.
42. Get my bike out of storage and ride!
43. Bake weekly: bread, dulces, whatever and share.
44.Provide a real face to my staff and to the community no matter what.
45. Let integrity be the guiding light in my life.
46. LIVE as if there is no tomorrow.
47. Bridge old relationships.
48. Take a drive down to LA and leave flowers on the graves of my ancestors.
49. Offer up a mass to my people who have passed.
50. Tour Nevada so I can better understand what my Esteemed Companion is all about.
51. Be as transparent as possible.
52. Give myself over to love.
53. Learn to drop the defense mechanisms.
54. Be the best possible man I can be within the limitations of my being.
55. Love with all my heart.

Salud!
Accumulate Man

Small new world

I have arrived. Not just a destination but a place where I have been able to grow. Not so much reinventing myself but finding new ways to learn about life, about my possibilities, about all those things that somehow eluded me the last seven or eight years.

Going through old posts made me realize how far I have come. I am now working as the Branch Librarian in a small coastal town. I made my way from Idaho to the edges of the continent last year around this time. It was touch and go for a couple months but once I understood not only my limitations and the boundaries of the region I got to be mighty comfortable with my surroundings and myself.

I have found that as much as I love a big city, and with San Francisco close by I have as much Big City as I can handle, I can do well here in the small pond. I have found, too, that the penchant I have for volunteering is a good thing here. I have given my time and my heart to a number of agencies and non-profits that needed a strong back, a welcoming smile, a bit of intellect. In return I have found that the community that I shared my time with has given back ten fold.

My library is a welcoming, wonderful place to be. The crowd is mostly younger families, older retirees, wild cats from the Beat and Hippie days, old radicals, intelligensia, writers, photographers and artists of all stripes. I love how on some days it feels as if a concert just got out across the street, but on others how the potential for renewing the hopes and dreams of a once vital and industrious community is right around the corner. We are if anything hopeful here. Helpful, too. I have never seen a place go out of it's way the way it happens here to make sure that things get done. Done well, thoroughly and with a lot of passion, thought and care.

We are a place of light and magic. We are a place that is caught between the savage beauty of the sea and the unforgiving ruggedness of the mountains. We are one with savage beauty but because of our isolation and increased sense of independence, do not suffer fools gladly. This a place that, once you pitch your flag in the sand and make your strand, is determined to draw you in, make you whole, make you the best possible person you can be. Otherwise, if you don't wish to go that route, you can choose to be forgotten, a reminder of a life well lived or a wrecked shell pressed hard against the rocks. This place really does require that  you pay attention, that you maintain a high sense of decorum and that be as real as you can possibly be.

Yes, being real here on the coast has been nothing but good for me. I have found life blossoming all around me here and I look forward to further discoveries.

And, ah, then there's my new and most delightful friend on the other side of the mountain...how happy I am!  How lucky I am to have found her, for her to have found me! A mutual Like society of two, spreading the word of happiness and joy. Life is blossoming and I am filled with a sort of mirth, sunshine and glee that hasn't been seen in these parts a long, long time.

Salud!