field notes:

9.30.2003

I think I might take up sailing. I miss the sensation of speed and the thrill of competition, and I live in a place where wind is almost as constant as the sunrise. Last evening I was standing on the beach before my swim, and a sailboat tacked fast toward me. My body felt the excitement. I crave that feeling. There are a few sailing sports I could take up: windsurfing, para-surfing, and sailing. The most social of them is sailing, depending on the size of the boat, I guess. And with sailing, there's always the possibility of slowing down, but with the other two--without a brisk wind there's nothing--they only offer the dimension of speed, and ultimately, I'll want more than that. A sailboat can hold a dog, or a child, or friends, and definitely a picnic.

While I swam blissfully back and forth in my cove, the sailboat had made a couple more tacks and was all the way to Marshall. You could really see some things from a sailboat. You could go to Hog Island, or to the mouth of the bay, if you have the skills and the time.

I feel the water while I'm swimming, but I'm limited both to a certain distance, and to a field of vision. If I were sailing, the speed would limit how much of what I'm passing I could see well, but I'd have a chance to see more sea life. I'd love to see more than the ocassional harbor seal: sharks and sea lions and otters, even whales.

My dog may not be able to swim much longer, I know that her arthiritis could get the best of her anytime. It would be fun to put her in a boat and take her with me. I think she'd appreciate the convention of speed without the need to pump her old legs, and would enjoy the smells of the sea.

Even more than me, her life has been companioned by the waters of the Pacific Ocean and Tomales Bay. I'd like her to have them to the last.

posted by Lisa on 7:04 AM link |

9.29.2003

The Art of Poetry
--Pablo Neruda
translated by Robert Bly

Between shadows and clearing, between defenses and young girls,
having inherited an original heart, and funereal imagination,
suddenly pale, something withered in my face,
in mourning like a desperate widower every day of my life,
for every drop of invisible water I drink
in my sleepy way, and for every sound I take in shivering,
I have the same chilly fever, and the same absent thirst,
an ear coming into the world, an oblique anxiety,
as though robbers were about to arrive, or ghosts,
inside a seashell with great and unchangeable depths,
like a humiliated waiter, or a bell slightly hoarse,
like an aged mirror or the smell of an empty house
where the guests come in hopelessly drunk at night,
having an odor of clothes thrown on the floor, and no flowers,
--in another sense, possibly not as sad--
still, the truth is, the wind suddenly hitting my chest,
the nights with infinite substance fallen into my bedroom,
the crackling of a day hardly able to burn,
ask from me sadly whatever I have that is prophetic,
and there are objects that knock, and are never answered,
and something always moving, and a name that does not come clear.

from Neruda and Vallejo Selected Poems Edited by Robert Bly

posted by Lisa on 6:45 AM link |

9.27.2003

The weather has turned.

This unusual summer lulled me into submission. I think I've gotten soft. Yesterday's half-hour breeching sun was the first I'd seen of sunlight in days. The sky's cool grey has changed Indian summer into an idea, a hopeful memory. Summer always ends, but in a kinder fashion, by fading gradually from hot to warm to cool. This week she rather abruptly turned her back.

The truth is, it's a normal weather pattern for Inverness. Heat followed by fog. I'd just forgotten how abrupt the change can be, forgotten not to count on any particular weather, only to know what it is by looking out the window, always to dress for anything. This summer has been an incredible treat, but will prove to be a test as well.

Like a certain kind of love affair, this perfect summer has been bittersweet. We always knew it would end soon, that afterwards, it would become the standard by which we'd measure other loves, and that the comparison would always be unfair. In the middle of such a perfect summer, you may know these things, yet you still can't stop your heart from its embrace.

The best I can offer back is gratitude for the long, hot days; the ripe tomatoes, fresh salmon, berries, and pesto; the long swims in warm tidal water; for Mars and its benevolent light; for good friends, long talks, and year-round birds; and for the unbroken quiet of the season.

posted by Lisa on 7:20 AM link |

9.25.2003

Last night as I read on the couch, the house got quiet enough that a mouse thought it was time to venture out of daytime hiding. When I went to the kitchen to make a bowl of ice cream and strawberries, I saw a strawberry top that was out of place. There was a little pile I'd accumulated throughout the day sitting by the sink, but here was one clear over on the other side of the kitchen. I picked it up and discarded the entire troop of tops. Apparently the mouse had been caught unawares when I came into the kitchen, no doubt struggling with the giant strawberry top migration. He'd just had time to drop the top and run for the nearest hiding place--behind the cookie jar, when I came in and turned on the light. As I stood slowly slicing strawberries, I guess he just couldn't take the suspense any longer. He made a daring leap across the stove, up onto the espresso grinder, and then a mad leap that took him right in front of my face, behind the espresso machine and finally, safely behind the refrigerator.

I set the live trap, but didn't catch him during the night. No doubt he had a nice little stash of strawberry tops and toaster crumbs set aside and never ventured onto the countertop again.

It reminded me of another mouse story. Not a gentle, mouse-goes-into-the-sweet-night story, but a mouse-goes-violently-and-suddenly to its death story. A story from another time in my life, another place. Our kitchen in Nayarit, Mexico, had a palapa roof and stick walls. We were used to mice, cotimundi, skunks, snakes, rats, scorpions, and some really scary spiders in our kitchen. We hung our fruit from suspended beams at night, kept food stores in ice chests inside the cupboards, took out the trash each night, but even all our tricks were sometimes not enough. Ocassionally, an extremely efficient crew of mice would vex us. They'd penetrate all of our defenses. We'd be stunned by their daring, their cunning. We didn't use live traps then, we just killed them. But some of these mice, you'd think they invented the traps--they were so good at getting the food and escaping just the same.

About the time of this story, we had a really daring mouse around. I'd be preparing a meal, breakfast or lunch even, and this mouse would peek its head out at me from between the spices. I'd scold it away. A real evolutionary wonder, this mouse. Not a trait we'd like to see encouraged: the audacious mouse.

One day, the man of the house and I were in the kitchen. We'd finished lunch and were talking. He was cleaning one of the household guns. It was a .22 caliber pistol that we used for target practice. The story of why we had guns, and the story of so many whys, is a long one. Briefly, the guns were for protection. Living at the edge of the jungle, in an "undeveloped" region of Mexico can be dangerous. There are bad men who could hurt or rob you, and you don't even know whether or not they'll be wearing a uniform. It's an ambivalent place. It's a bit like the Wild West, when the sherriff could easily be the scariest man in town. So, many expatriates have guns. It's illegal to have them, but they proliferate. It's the Wild West, after all.

There we stood, under the skylight we'd recently added to the palapa rooftop, enjoying a beautiful midday break, the one kitchen window framing the wild blue ocean, when the mouse, bold as you like, walked right out onto the edge of the sink, and stood there twitching his little nose, not at all intimidated. In one swift, natural movement, C. swung his hand around and shot the mouse. He fell instantly. Our mouse problem was over, for the moment. When you live with a man who's part McGyver, part Buckaroo Bonzai, you get used to moments like these. Still, it stood out. The Wild West wasn't "out there", it was right there in my kitchen, it was in my bed.

posted by Lisa on 8:32 AM link |

9.24.2003

Overheard by a friend at a funeral last week: The priest proclaimed that Catholicism is for people who like happy endings.

Heidegger's favorite preposition: between.

from 'Walking Backward'

In our messy world, we all walk backward,
Each holding a potato that points to the grave,
The night of infidelity and longing goes on forever.

--Robert Bly
from The Night Abraham Called To The Stars

"computus philosphical and computus vulgar"

Time as measured by science and as to divisions of the church.
--Alexander of Villedieu around 1200

"I've been on a calendar, but never on time."

--Marilyn Monroe

posted by Lisa on 8:07 AM link |

9.22.2003

As I woke this morning in bed, just as Prime's first diffuse light opened the world, I came aware to the smell of salt on my skin. Remembrance of last evening's immersion in the emerald green waters of the great bay. Her silky invitation. I swam without effort, without thought. Impulse guided my direction, my speed and my rest. I couldn't have named my stroke, nor told my thoughts. I lay on my back, body open to the sky, and felt the ocean's life swim beneath me. In the same waters, throughout the world, I listened for them. I heard only the hissing of shellfish within a vast unstill quiet in the waters stretching out from my floating body, and then the sound of my heart beating, articulating my flesh, insisting on my presence. Eventually, I always return to shore. Sad, on a day like that, to leave the water, but refreshed and renewed by baptism, annointed by the salt, the primordial wash; by the life-giving bouyancy, the sun-warmed, moon-fed waters.

posted by Lisa on 7:28 AM link |

9.19.2003

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

--Stanley Horowitz

Yesterday, my friend and I agreed that we're looking forward to the change of season. The last few days there's a nip in the early morning air that's enticing. As much as I love the hot summer, I know that love depends on summer's passing and the promise of its return. My friend said that the year seems just the right length now--when we were younger it seemed too long, and when we're older they say it will seem too short.

I don't know if this really has to do with being just the right age, or if it comes from a relaxed mind. We'll see.

posted by Lisa on 6:51 AM link |

9.18.2003

Impressions and images from my dreams resist being made into words, as if they're not meant for that end. So much is left behind from a remembered dream after the words have been put down. And the words never quite get at that something--that longing, that ache. There's an untapped well of meaning between dream and remembrance, and a frustration in the disconnection that occurs when I struggle to apply what's awake to what lives on in the still-sleeping chambers of my soul.

The final impressions from last night's dream: Broken glass, words lying amongst them, blood too, brother and I singing the songs we'd each written about leaving home, climbing down the ladder that dropped down from the house and it's french windows, going despite the fear of leaving our parents unprotected. As these images play in my mind there are strong desires and impulses at play as well. They are too deep for words, they require symphonies, dance companies, and the ocean to express.

I'm worried that all I can do is distill them into mere words, that their essence will dissolve, that they will be distilled from a potent, raging river into a benign glass of water, a tonic for wetting the throat.

posted by Lisa on 7:25 AM link |

9.17.2003

Multi-tasking last night, as I watched the Giants game, ate dinner, and caught up on a few days' newspapers, I came across a Dear Abby exchange:
A 13-year-old girl writes that her Dad is deployed in the Middle East, and that her Mom sits in the window all day watching cars go by. She asks what she can do for her Mom, to cheer her up.

"Abby" responds in the most clinical, legalistic way possible that it's not her responsibility to cheer up her mother. She should confide in an adult; her mother needs help--a support group, a doctor, other adults.

I'm sorry, maybe Abby knows what she's doing. But when did we become people like this? So disconnected, so correct and quick with the "appropriate" answer. Throughout time, children have worried about their parents, and wives have worried themselves sick about their husbands off at war. Why shouldn't the daughter do something wonderful to cheer up her mother? Families love each other, support each other. At their best, that's what they do. Why should Mom's best hope lie with other adults, or some doctor?

Even now, I feel a need to disclaim my rant. In small print, I want to say: "If you should be feeling depressed, I recommend that you see a doctor, or find a web-based support group. I am only using this story as an example, an entryway into a topic that concerns me. If you are sitting in a window staring at cars, you should seeek help immediately. This website is not a substitute for professional help. Whatever you do, don't blame me."

It's ingrained in us, this disavowal of our human interconnectedness, of our intuition to reach out and help each other. We're no longer sure we have anything to give. And what of Mom, sitting in the window. Just what is the appropriate response to one's lover being in a war zone? Mom might be doing the one thing that it's most vital that she do right now. Sitting in the window, she might rise to activism against war, rethink her ideas about mortality, realize how much she loves her husband. Sitting in the window might be the best response possible.

Desmond Tutu said, "In Africa we have something called ubuntu, the essence of being human, when we recognize that our humanity is bound up in that of others. We say a person is a person through other persons. We are created for dependence, togetherness, and complementarity."

We are lacking ubuntu. The lack of it exists between the daughter in the doorway and the mother at the window, and it exists in the policies that place a father in a soldier's uniform on the streets of an Iraqi town staring across the great divide that a gun places between people who carry them and people who don't. It's not too late for us to learn ubuntu--we might just need more time sitting at the window.

posted by Lisa on 8:21 AM link |

9.14.2003

Slept with all of the windows open last night, all that have screens, which is only three. And awoke this morning to a single gunshot, and to an avian cacophony: osprey's mournful cry, scrub jay's shrill note, and a chorus of old crows. On a walk soon afterwards, we heard more gunshots, and my poor dog fell apart. Her cool, happy dog demeanor crumbled; she became a fearful, drooling, heart-pounding mess who can't get home fast enough. She's sweet and loyal enough that I could make her stop, but I tried to just let her go. I felt so bad for deterring her at all, but worried about letting her get too far away from me. I didn't have to worry, she didn't want to be that far away from me either. I encouraged her to go through a barbed wire fence towards our house, one I don't try to get under too often. When she saw that I was going beyond that opening to the stairs, she not only waited for me, she came running back to meet me.

Poor thing. Ducks must be scared too. Those that are still alive. Duck hunters have done amazing work protecting migrating birds, giving ducks habitat, and all they ask in return are a few short months a year, a few ducks on the table. I can't complain about them. What was it Oscar Wilde said? "Nature is a damp place over which large numbers of ducks fly, all of them uncooked." How tempting that must be for a hungry gormand with a gun and a permit.

I slept on a new mattress last night. A McRoskey. They are hand-sewn mattresses made at a small San Francisco factory. Each comes with a twenty year warranty. I bought one yesterday from a woman moving to a firmer night's hold. I was looking for a more gentle perch for my dreams, so we struck up a deal. It seemed a most intimate transaction. I wanted to hug her after she handed me the deed, and I handed her the money. But I didn't. A shame, really. I slept beautifully and well until the birds and the hunters awoke me. I have a sore back this morning, but it will take some time before I know how the bed works for my particular physiological neuroses. I already know that it nurtures my dreams.

posted by Lisa on 8:52 AM link |

9.12.2003

Last night I watched my windows fill with marauding, light-hungry termites. They flung themselves at the window, then stayed, nowhere better to go. But soon, they were coming in through the window. One by one, smacking into the overhead light. Horrified, I searched for the opening that they had found, but gave up, because as I looked for that crack, I could hear them smacking into the lightshade, and I had an idea of hundreds of termites flying in, dropping their dark wings, and scuttling about inside, looking for the weaknesses in my house. I turned out the lights, lit some candles, and read by flashlight. Let the termites have another house, another light-filled night, not mine.

posted by Lisa on 7:48 AM link |

9.11.2003

It's great to be home. Oh! You say I've been here since Sunday? But today is the first day that I've woken up feeling viable and truly awake. Articulated and semi-articulate. I may have to give up driving through the night without sleep. I think it's just too hard on this post-forty body. I'll still drive at night, when I drive to LA, but I'll do it with some sleep behind me. I can't give up my night drives, not yet, anyway.

I love watching the sun come up on the road, and driving those almost-empty highways, knowing which parking lots are best for quick naps, or for dog walks. Mostly I like the emptiness, that uninhabited space all around me. I like speeding through it, passing semis on the left, giving ground to faster cars.

But for my next trip, the one I'll have to take within a few weeks so that I can hold that new life (whispering: Isabelle Bianca, Isabelle Bianca) in my arms once again, I'll take an airplane, and I'll do it on the weekend ...like a grownup.

I won't give up as much of my health, or my time, or money for that matter. I've been making this road trip since the late 70's, first as a southern Californian visiting here, and then visiting there from here, and the price of gasoline has gone from around sixty dollars to one hundred and fifty. Of course, I've gone from car to pickup truck, so my mileage isn't quite what it could be. Flying will be cheaper, really, and not having my dog with me will get me home faster.

For the second year in a row I missed an event I've really wanted to participate in. Folks around here do a cross-bay swim, and it happened last weekend. A whole flock of people take to the water at Shell Beach, accompanied by a small flotilla of kayaks and rowboats, and swim to Tomasini Point. I'm in shape for it, I'm ready for it in every way, but I missed it--again.

So, I'm going to have my own cross-bay swim. Maybe this weekend. I'll be looking for a one-person flotilla to cross with me, or a companion or two to swim with me. If you missed the big swim, or if you're ready to go again, give me a call!

posted by Lisa on 7:47 AM link |

9.10.2003

There are Great White sharks hanging out at San Onofre State Beach. That confirms it--shark-free waters are an illusion. Those babies are always around, which makes the rare attacks on humans even more unusual for their infrequency. Myths abound about whites, and I admit to a fascination with both myth and beast. The thrill and deadly fear of them is the flip side of my love for the ocean and of swimming and playing in salty waters.

Great Whites are known to be at every shoreline in both oceans, but I could never really imagine them liking southern California waters--there isn't much food down there--only ocassional harbor seals. And the water is pretty warm, especially near the San Onofre Nuclear Reactor, which is, by the way, one of the great surf spots on the planet for longboarding. Yet, a local surfer has the sharks on video, filmed from a cliff above the beach, and the sharks have been positively ID'd by a shark expert via helicopter. According to the reports I've read they're 15-17 feet long. Watched from above they cruise right next to surfers all the time, ignoring them.

Avila Beach on the Central Coast had a fatal attack a couple of weeks ago. A woman was swimming with sea lions. People watching first saw a fin, then watched as all of the sea lions disappeared, and then saw the attack on the woman. She was struck once and then left alone, but bled to death because of the location of her wound. The beach has been closed ever since because juvenile whites, a mere 5-7 feet long, have been spotted in the waves.

Experts are saying what they've been saying all along. Great White sharks don't feed on humans. They mistake them for other food, like sea lions, and mistakenly strike. Once they have the limb or the torso in their mouths, they realize their mistake and let the human go. The feed rarely, nobody knows their schedule very well, and need extremely high fat content to survive. So it would be detrimental to them to actually eat something with such low fat content as a human bite would contain. For most people who are attacked by whites, this fact saves their lives. Mostly, these attacks are not fatal. That's a really good reason to stay on that Atkins diet.

When I swim, the idea of sharks swims at my feet. Mostly, the fear is well submerged, and I can chase it away from consciousness by turning away from the thought. Other times, I reason it away with facts--millions of us in the shoreline waters of the planet each day, only a few attacks each year, few fatal. Rarely, I swim like a demon for shallow water or for the shore.

Manifest destiny and "Go West, Young Man" brought us here. It's sharks keeping us confined to this sea edge. Fear of Islam, crime, and the dark are nothing next to the fear of sharks and other creatures that go bump in the murky, unknown waters that surround us.

posted by Lisa on 8:45 AM link |

9.08.2003

It was hard to tear myself away from the newest member of my family, but it is good to be home. There's a certain beauty in Laguna and Newport Beach, but they don't hold me the way Inverness does. I drove through the night Saturday, and after a few hours of sleep here I walked down to the beach. The openness of the scene in front of my eyes was instantly restorative. Since both my drive south and the return drive north occurred at night, I hadn't even had a road scene of open space in the entire last week, except for the view west when I swam in the ocean one day in Newport.

Looking across the bay, the streaked blue sky mirrored in the blue water, the horizontal slash of hills on the opposite shore, the familiar slip of sand at my feet and the calming delivery of water as a gentle breeze moved the surface, I sank to the beach grateful for the feel of home and the place on earth that knows me. I'm pulled south by new life, but anchored here. It's a familiar dilemna, a tension that's occupied me for the last five years.

I don't have any answers, but for now I swim and find relief.

posted by Lisa on 8:03 AM link |

9.05.2003

I'll be back next week. For now, I'm holding this 5 pound human beauty named Isabelle Bianca Thompson. I can't take my eyes off her.
See you soon.

posted by Lisa on 11:58 AM link |