power and grace

As I did my morning stretches, Mary tapped urgently on the sliding glass, sending me to peer out into the predawn grey. She was calling my attention to a bobcat, sauntering by our patio and headed toward the mountains through our green belt. I crept carefully out the door to see him better. I had always pictured bobcats as small and stocky, and was surprised by his muscular gait as seen from behind. He was exactly the miniaturized frame of a lion -- shoulder and hip bones pushed up against his spotted fur, the overlarge paws padding across the grass, a picture of nonchalance and stored energy. This was no oversized housecat but an undersized puma. Wow.

St. Augustine Beach

February 8, St. Augustine Beach, happy hour at the Reef restaurant, looking over a berm of sand and sea grass at a gray/green and frothy Atlantic. Surf is 7' today.
The beaches all along the coast have changed dramatically, thanks to the hurricanes of recent years, from the wide and sandy beaches of my childhood. The ocean has taken half at least of every beach, creating offshore sand bars where the shoreline used to be. Great for surfers, not for homeowners.
I'm having a glass of Moet, watching trains of bubbles rising from the bottom of the flute. I look from it, out to the ocean, then back again, and the biggest set I've yet seen rises up and closes out in one decisive smack.
At home in the desert and ringed by mountains, I don't see this limitless horizon. I know intellectually that there is land out there, first the Bahamas and eventually the Iberian peninsula, but from here it looks like a world of water.
I'm tired in that lovely way that comes from hours of paddling in sun and wind and sparkling, wind-ruffled water. The rental kayak was slow, broad and stubby, and subject to wind resistance, but, as I paddle for the exercise as much as the experience, what does it matter? A mere 50 yards from the boat ramp a brown pelican had dropped like a missile so close I felt the spray. It scared the complacency out of me, startling me awake and aware, the first of dozens of pelicans, plus osprey, kingfisher, egrets, ibis, tri-colored herons and even some hooded mergansers. I got in some good work against the wind and surging tide, then explored some little bays and channels on the lee side of a barrier island. And now, showered and warmly dressed, my arms and shoulders aching, I'm enjoying some shrimp and an ocean view.
There are 3 surfers in full wetsuits working the shore break. From this elevation I can see better than they what is coming. Inside my head I chant, "This one! Take it! Paddle harder! Drop in; now cut left. No, left!" and it looks so easy from up here, warm, safe, with a glass of wine in my hand.
Clouds have moved in, a thin, mid-level blanket, a precursor to the wet weather coming tomorrow, the remnants of a pulse of energy that started on the west coast, the same one that grounded me at Palm Springs airport two days ago.
The waves are coming in at an angle to the beach, driving the surfers farther and farther south, and eventually, out of sight. A pelican cruises by from my right to my left, so close to the rising wave that it looks as if his wing must surely touch; so close that a perfect reflection of him glides by on the rising wall underneath.
The sun must have set somewhere behind me because the sky in the distant east, untouched as yet by the advancing front, has turned a pale rose atop a serene aqua. Rapidly, all color fades from sky and from sea, and the only relief from slatey blue is the white froth of the shoreline.

Not to take it for granted

In Portland, I would have this experience on one morning each year.

I would get up early and go for my walk, bundled up against the cold and protected from the rain, and after perhaps four months of being greeted daily by stinging rain and bone-chilling wind, I would feel instead a balmy southern breeze, tumescent with the promise of warmth and growth and comfort and spring.

This morning here in Palm Springs I set out for my walk and was greeted by that very same comfortable caress. I sighed, and flashed back to those rare Portland mornings, made all the more piquant by their rarity. And it occurred to me that my duty, privilege and challenge, here in this land of perfect mornings, is to notice it with gratitude and awareness and appreciation, not to let the experience become commonplace, not to take it for granted.

sounds

Sounds of the neighborhood on a Saturday morning: as always, a mockingbird repeating prhrases and grabbing all of the attention; the peculiar whir-r-r-r of the house sparrows' wings as they return from the patio to their lofty nest in the fan palm with strands of dried Bermuda grass; the futility of our neighbor calling his dog, "Kismet! Come!"; the rising and falling background "shoosh" of breeze through the trailing edges of the of the palm fronds; the barely audible background hum of the moths and bees and flies; the startling sharp buzz of a hummingbird chasing away a territorial intruder; a fan rotating and gathering speed as a nearby a.c. condenser kicks on. So much to notice when I stop for a moment, am patient with myself and life, and simply listen.

impressions of the Holy Land

Rocky hills of craggy limestone and sandstone, with churches, walls, houses uniformly built of the same stone, and uniformly creamy off-white; terraces thousands of years old; hilltop villages and cities; an intense concentration of churches and holy sites: Jewish, Moslem, Christian, with every sect and sub-sect represented; dust -- remember, Oh Man, that dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. For thousands of years people have been building, leveling, building, destroying, building again. Everything here is in layers, the deeper you dig the farther back in time you go, way back, back to the beginning...

the scar

I have a tiny crescent scar just touching my upper lip. These days it's almost lost in the growing wrinkles and puckers of age but this morning while shaving I noticed it. And I think I know why. The mind is always at work, making connections between random events seemingly unrelated in content, and even in time.

Last night my youngest son called me. Out of the blue, and late for me as I'm traveling and on east coast time. I don't like to talk on the phone. I've had to do so much of it in my professional life. So, a phone ringing to me is an intrusion, and I usually end calls as quickly as possible. He knows this, but wanted to touch base with me anyway. Of course, for my children I'll always make that exception.

I tell people I have four children, when a more strictly accurate accounting would be that I have one child and three step-children. Perhaps because he's the youngest, perhaps because he is my only biological child, I have always felt a passionate attachment to Niles. For this reason, I have struggled with maintaining the proper amount of distance with him, trying to give full expression to this intense love I feel without smothering or overwhelming, disrespecting his space and differentiation. I am a teacher, after all. I have not always succeeded in finding that balance, and at times have felt him pull away to reestablish a comfortable equilibrium in which he could thrive.

So, it's a thrill when he calls and has no question or request but just wants to talk to the old man.

I have a scar on my lip. I earned it as a child when I lay down next to my dog. Bagel the beagle summed up all things admirable to me. He was fearless and adventurous, the terror of the neighborhood, and I loved him passionately. I especially loved the way he smelled, right around his ears, the utter doggyness of him. So, as I lay down next to him and put my arm over him, I pressed my face into his neck, my nose under his ear. And he, startled awake and smothered, reacted with a harsh growl and a snap, nipping my lip with his teeth.

My mind is always at work, making connections between random events seemingly unrelated in content, and even in time, sharing wisdom with me that I otherwise might have forgot, wisdom contained in a little crescent scar by my lip.

my moment of fame

As I posted on Facebook, I won a writing contest in my new home town. The Desert Sun Newspaper asked local resident and best-selling author, Joseph Wambaugh, to write the first three quarters of a murder mystery short story, then invited readers to finish it in 500 words or less. It turned out to be quite a challenge, especially the "500 words or less" part. As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm a decent writer and public speaker, but concise is not the first description of my prose that comes to mind. In fact, I have a friend with a personalized license plate "WORDY ONE" which I have often thought would have fit me even better.

But I accepted the challenge, pecking away at it in the morning on my patio, when not writing letters to old friends or musings for this blog. It was not an easy set-up to conclude -- too many characters and potential story lines to draw together in such a short amount of space. I decided to follow the great tradition of mystery writing. I chose the least likely character as my perpetrator. Since hard-working, reliable Pepe was in my opinion the most admirable of many characters with which Mr. Wambaugh had salted the field, I chose him. Then I needed to imagine a motive, and set up the conclusion by subtle suggestion. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not I succeeded by visiting www.mydesert.com. My apologies, as it's not an easy site to navigate!