It's Sunday evening and a crescent moon hangs above the mountains that are darkening but have not yet gone black. The mockingbirds are still agitated and have not yet gone silent.
Everything west of the mountains is covered by a marine layer, but my sky is a pure silver blue. As always, the low clouds try to get over Santa Rosa, but dissipate -- leaving the sky open for me to contemplate the moon.
As the sky and mountains darken the moon brightens and the breeze freshens. Suddenly, all of the birds go silent as if by some signal beyond the range of human perception. At the same moment, the landscape lights go on. Interesting, isn't it? The photosensor on the lighting system is set at the same sensitivity as the birds'.
I can just make out the dark side of the moon, a grayer ellipse against the blue-gray sky. One lone bat flits about high and higher, momentarily coming between me and the moon. It's the time of the bat, and the coyote, and the owl hunting on blunted silent wings. It's the time for poets and dreamers and layabout semi-retired school principals to rest their tired bones, drink a glass of wine, and wonder...
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Although it's Sunday, and I've no earthly reason for it, I awoke early, filled with what I can only call existential dread. M starts a new job tomorrow, going door to door for the U.S. Census, and I'm worried about her safety in nutty California. I don't want to hold her back from making a contribution, from doing what she's decided to do. But, I'm worried. And it strikes me that it has been a while since I even allowed serious worry to intrude upon my consciousness.
For so many years worry was so central to my life -- worry about my children, their health and safety, worry about the 180 children at school for whom I felt responsible. My kids are long since grown and on their own. I consciously left the school worries behind when I moved here, and rightly so. But, in so doing it seems I've deliberately avoided serious worry of any kind. Oh, I've had the occasional concern about earthquakes or traffic safety. Like everyone else I've worried about the economy. But it's as if I believe I've been handed an exemption where life's immediate hazards to myself and my family are concerned.
My attention is diverted by a ruckus among the neighborhood birds (and I'm not making up either the occurrence or the timing). The mockingbird is once again dive-bombing a crow who has wandered too close to the mocker's territory. As the crow alights like a woodpecker on the side of a palm, grasping on to the broken remnant of a frond, the activity reaches a more fevered pitch and even the tiny hummingbird joins in. The crow maintains a studious unconcern as he plunges his beak into a crevice, then tips back his head to swallow, again and again. I realize he must have found a nest and is breaking each egg and eating the embryo. He's just makin' a livin', right? So, why do I feel such horror and revulsion? Why do I relate so intensely with a suddenly forlorn-looking hummingbird, now sitting idly and hopelessly watching?
For so many years worry was so central to my life -- worry about my children, their health and safety, worry about the 180 children at school for whom I felt responsible. My kids are long since grown and on their own. I consciously left the school worries behind when I moved here, and rightly so. But, in so doing it seems I've deliberately avoided serious worry of any kind. Oh, I've had the occasional concern about earthquakes or traffic safety. Like everyone else I've worried about the economy. But it's as if I believe I've been handed an exemption where life's immediate hazards to myself and my family are concerned.
My attention is diverted by a ruckus among the neighborhood birds (and I'm not making up either the occurrence or the timing). The mockingbird is once again dive-bombing a crow who has wandered too close to the mocker's territory. As the crow alights like a woodpecker on the side of a palm, grasping on to the broken remnant of a frond, the activity reaches a more fevered pitch and even the tiny hummingbird joins in. The crow maintains a studious unconcern as he plunges his beak into a crevice, then tips back his head to swallow, again and again. I realize he must have found a nest and is breaking each egg and eating the embryo. He's just makin' a livin', right? So, why do I feel such horror and revulsion? Why do I relate so intensely with a suddenly forlorn-looking hummingbird, now sitting idly and hopelessly watching?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
rocket boy
I don't know if I'm unusually connected to music, or what. But, each day I awaken with a different song in my head. So, one of my first tasks of the day is to try to sort out the significance, if any, of my brain's daily song selection.
Sometimes I think it's a message from my subconscious. You know, a lingering dream reference or an insight into my deepest mental state on this day on my path to self-realization. Sometimes I take it as a portent to the particular way my day will unfold.
I'm partial to singer/songwriters, or to indie bands with soft voices and jangly guitars. So, It's not unusual for me to wake up to an echo of Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Dan Bern, Jackson Browne, Iron and Wine, Wilco, the Shins, or Death Cab.
So, today when I woke up with Liz Phair's Rocket Boy in my head, it was like, "What the hell?" Rocket boy. Grinding, fuzzy lead guitar, rocking riffs, wailing, silly chorus: "Rocket boy, rocket boy! When are you gonna land?"
Oh, I get it. There IS a PRETTY OBVIOUS metaphor. Oops. I'll sign off now.
Sometimes I think it's a message from my subconscious. You know, a lingering dream reference or an insight into my deepest mental state on this day on my path to self-realization. Sometimes I take it as a portent to the particular way my day will unfold.
I'm partial to singer/songwriters, or to indie bands with soft voices and jangly guitars. So, It's not unusual for me to wake up to an echo of Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Dan Bern, Jackson Browne, Iron and Wine, Wilco, the Shins, or Death Cab.
So, today when I woke up with Liz Phair's Rocket Boy in my head, it was like, "What the hell?" Rocket boy. Grinding, fuzzy lead guitar, rocking riffs, wailing, silly chorus: "Rocket boy, rocket boy! When are you gonna land?"
Oh, I get it. There IS a PRETTY OBVIOUS metaphor. Oops. I'll sign off now.
Friday, March 27, 2009
It's a small honky tonk world after all
Sitting in Starbucks (I know, I feel like a traitor to all my favorite coffee shops visiting the "evil empire," but it's the only place within walking distance) with a grande soy latte sprinkled with cinnamon and chocolate, waiting for my car to be repaired at Pep Boys. I didn't want anyone to think my life is all lounging on my patio watching the play of light on the San Jacintos. I have a day off and how do I spend it? Waiting for my brakes to get fixed.
Starbucks does do some things very right, though. Take the music, for instance. At this moment it's Iron and Wine with Calexico. "There's a prison, on Route 41...." Outside sits a man in his 60's, beard fringing his chin like an Amish, set up to spend the entire day at his table. You buy a coffee at Starbucks and the table belongs to you for as long as you wish. He reads, he naps, he glares at the customers going in and out. People avoid sitting in that part of the patio though it's easily the shadiest, breeziest, most desirable part. He looks challenging, possibly unpleasant, non-pastel.
The closest customer is a young father, sitting on a bench with his coffee and his baby daughter. His soul patch, flat-brimmed backwards Raiders hat and sagging jeans look out of place with the delicate, button-eared baby in his lap. As Chuck Berry would say, "It goes to show you never can tell."
The latte is starting to revive me from the hangover haze of a very fun yesterday. I drove the hour to Redlands to work in the morning, knocked off early and continued west another hour to Oceanside for some afternoon boogie boarding, drove back to Palm Springs through rush hour traffic, and still had the energy to drive Mary up to Pioneertown in the high desert for blues at the famous honky-tonk, Pappy and Harriett's. What a day!
I-215 from Redlands to Oceanside was lined with colorful wildflowers: orange and yellow poppies, purple lupine, pink verbena. I tried to imagine what California must have looked like in the spring before it was covered by farms, houses, malls and parking lots. My best wave was five feet of creamy jade, precisely the color of a monarch butterfly chrysalis. The drive to Pioneertown was memorable too -- up into the joshua trees, a sky the color of mangoes behind jagged ridges of haphazardly-piled boulders.
But the surprise of the day was being greeted at this funky out-of-the-way honky tonk by a friend from Oregon. What are the odds that Stephanie, a Montessori teacher from Corvallis, would choose this place to celebrate her anniversary by dancing to acoustic blues?
The Starbucks house music has gone on to Neko Case, and now Sam Cooke croons "Darlin' you-oo-oo-oo send me..." The young father plays with his daughters toes. The old guy has claimed an additional table. I can see the mall behind him and above that the sun glinting off snow on San Gorgonio. I sip my latte and think about the unexpected connectedness of things -- of this temporary community of Starbucks customers, and of my permanent community of life friends, sneaking up on me at honky tonks at the edge of the Mojave Desert.
Starbucks does do some things very right, though. Take the music, for instance. At this moment it's Iron and Wine with Calexico. "There's a prison, on Route 41...." Outside sits a man in his 60's, beard fringing his chin like an Amish, set up to spend the entire day at his table. You buy a coffee at Starbucks and the table belongs to you for as long as you wish. He reads, he naps, he glares at the customers going in and out. People avoid sitting in that part of the patio though it's easily the shadiest, breeziest, most desirable part. He looks challenging, possibly unpleasant, non-pastel.
The closest customer is a young father, sitting on a bench with his coffee and his baby daughter. His soul patch, flat-brimmed backwards Raiders hat and sagging jeans look out of place with the delicate, button-eared baby in his lap. As Chuck Berry would say, "It goes to show you never can tell."
The latte is starting to revive me from the hangover haze of a very fun yesterday. I drove the hour to Redlands to work in the morning, knocked off early and continued west another hour to Oceanside for some afternoon boogie boarding, drove back to Palm Springs through rush hour traffic, and still had the energy to drive Mary up to Pioneertown in the high desert for blues at the famous honky-tonk, Pappy and Harriett's. What a day!
I-215 from Redlands to Oceanside was lined with colorful wildflowers: orange and yellow poppies, purple lupine, pink verbena. I tried to imagine what California must have looked like in the spring before it was covered by farms, houses, malls and parking lots. My best wave was five feet of creamy jade, precisely the color of a monarch butterfly chrysalis. The drive to Pioneertown was memorable too -- up into the joshua trees, a sky the color of mangoes behind jagged ridges of haphazardly-piled boulders.
But the surprise of the day was being greeted at this funky out-of-the-way honky tonk by a friend from Oregon. What are the odds that Stephanie, a Montessori teacher from Corvallis, would choose this place to celebrate her anniversary by dancing to acoustic blues?
The Starbucks house music has gone on to Neko Case, and now Sam Cooke croons "Darlin' you-oo-oo-oo send me..." The young father plays with his daughters toes. The old guy has claimed an additional table. I can see the mall behind him and above that the sun glinting off snow on San Gorgonio. I sip my latte and think about the unexpected connectedness of things -- of this temporary community of Starbucks customers, and of my permanent community of life friends, sneaking up on me at honky tonks at the edge of the Mojave Desert.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
morning becomes jacinta
I was up before dawn, on my patio chair, a hot water bottle nestled behind my back, a serape across my lap, hot coffee in hand, facing west toward the San Jacintos. As the sun rises, it strikes the highest ridges first bathing them in pearly pink, dropping down the flanks in stages, each lower ridge back-lit by the one behind it. I'm not in my usual seat and it hasn't gone unnoticed. The tiny Beewick's Wren keeps one eye on me as he searches the adjacent shrub for his breakfast. He drops his shoulder and slides between leaves entering the bush's dark interior, keeping a running commentary going in my direction.
I've alrady scanned the front page of the paper, reporting a 4.8 quake centered under Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea. I heard it yesterday morning gently shaking the sliding door by my bed. Apparently there has been a recent swarm of small quakes on the San Andreas as it slides beneath the Salton Sea. The last really big quake in the Coachella Valley, estimated as 7.5-8.0 occurred in 1700, so we are long overdue. One more reminder -- savor the coffee, listen to the birdsong, enjoy the morning...
I write every day, usually in the morning, in black gel ink in a black journal, writing letters to friends. It has occurred to me that in my letters, recording as I do my daily thoughts and observations, that I have been a blogger for years, but on paper. So, I'll try a new medium. I wonder if the letters will continue or if this will suffice. Surely my friends will miss my little drawings, the weight of the paper, the ritual of opening an envelope, the evidence of rain or coffee or wine dried upon it. I wonder if I will be able to sense an audience as I do when I write to certain friend. I wonder if anyone will ever read this.
The sublime rosy light has transformed to yellowish-white and a fine blue sky, "bluer than robin's eggs" in the words of Joan Baez, stretches over all. Perhaps I'll find myself humming "Diamonds and Rust" as I go about my day.
I've alrady scanned the front page of the paper, reporting a 4.8 quake centered under Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea. I heard it yesterday morning gently shaking the sliding door by my bed. Apparently there has been a recent swarm of small quakes on the San Andreas as it slides beneath the Salton Sea. The last really big quake in the Coachella Valley, estimated as 7.5-8.0 occurred in 1700, so we are long overdue. One more reminder -- savor the coffee, listen to the birdsong, enjoy the morning...
I write every day, usually in the morning, in black gel ink in a black journal, writing letters to friends. It has occurred to me that in my letters, recording as I do my daily thoughts and observations, that I have been a blogger for years, but on paper. So, I'll try a new medium. I wonder if the letters will continue or if this will suffice. Surely my friends will miss my little drawings, the weight of the paper, the ritual of opening an envelope, the evidence of rain or coffee or wine dried upon it. I wonder if I will be able to sense an audience as I do when I write to certain friend. I wonder if anyone will ever read this.
The sublime rosy light has transformed to yellowish-white and a fine blue sky, "bluer than robin's eggs" in the words of Joan Baez, stretches over all. Perhaps I'll find myself humming "Diamonds and Rust" as I go about my day.
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