field notes:

9.28.2004

Sunday we spread our blankets on top of Mount Vision, each pulled foods of the season from our packs, and as the evening went on more layers of clothing, gloves, hats and woolen sweaters, the first of the season. Wine in plastic cups, toasts made to friends, to savoring the time we’re in, and to beauty. The bagpiper played. Two boys ran through the brown grasses, between blanketed groups of townspeople, the laughter and greetings of adults floated on fall’s first air. The moon rose without much fanfare, white and forthright she floated over the hills on Tomales bay’s eastern shore. Sky stretching down to the hilltops a gradient of pink and blue with that winsome white moon floating higher as some ground fog lay down softly on the bay. To the west the sun let go the sky and dropped golden and lovely and we cheered as she passed, cheered and lamented. The shared happiness of coming together on the mountain blended with the loss of the sun into an ecstatic joy with undertones of sweet longing. And the bagpiper played. Pie and ice cream we ate in the darkening night, only had 8 slices but needed 10, and after we shared we somehow had twelve. On the way down the mountain we wished for more summer, for time to swim in that pond yonder, the one we forgot to swim in all year. We laughed and loaded up the car. We wondered about the weight of the tongue of one blue whale, and about the water displaced by an elephant seal, if you were a surfer, and it swam under you.

posted by Lisa on 7:33 AM link |

9.19.2004

I awoke to several rain drops falling hard on my skylight. I wondered what might need to be brought indoors--only my wetsuits hanging over the back fence. Warm and half-awake I listened to the rain, imagining a few drops falling in a passing summer shower and not caring that my suits might get a little wet. Only then did the rain pound down. I flew into the closet for a jacket, and wearing it, hood up, and naught else I ran down the stairs, flung open the back door to a sheet of rain where there is no overhang, quickly closed it tight again consigning the wetsuits to the wet, and happily climbed back into my soft, warm bedding.

Later in the morning I went out for firewood. I ranged around in closets for a pair of boots. Boots change your stride, make it purposeful--I'm out in the rain getting wood!--they don't allow for shuffling, like sandals do.

The boots sit by the front door next to a pair of flip flops, ready for any eventuality of weather.

posted by Lisa on 8:34 AM link |

9.17.2004

September in west Marin. This year it includes gray whales in Tomales Bay, which I missed attending a 1st birthday party in southern California. (Would I trade the party for the whales? Yes, but would I trade one of Isabel's smiles for them, no, never--just the memory of her smile is enough to get me through the hardest day.) Just now, the bay is teeming with bioluminescent beings. For the last two nights I've been at Shell Beach with friends making light angels swimming around the platform as we watch each other, then dive. The best show for me is simply doing the breaststroke in the glassy water, off by myself. As I push my hands out from my face, each finger trails tiny stars, and then an arc forms around me, single-star width, shines for the briefest moment, then disappears into darkness. Turn over onto your back now and float, dream of every star you can see, the full milky way spread above you.

This is my escape. Each night I slip out of the dark house while my dog sleeps. I'm grateful that she does, because it is her only relief from the misery of wearing the cone. She had surgery and the cone has been on for four days now, hopefully only a few more to go. A friend told me that she and her husband call the cone the "funnel of knowledge" because it makes the dogs look dumb. I have adapted the name but for different reasons. I've realized how alike my dog and I are. It isn't just wearing the cone that bothers her the most, it's the idea of the cone. It creates an existential angst that we are both feeling at varying degrees throughout the day. It collects saliva and food and sweat and dirt and heat, traps them in with her, funneling her bad dog breath along with her panic and her frustration , all directed at me. I am at turns pitying, empathetic and repulsed. Does she think she's been punished, or does she just accept this as the new way the world is? I knew that she would feel trapped by this device, I am only surprised by how it has also trapped me.

And so I lie under the stars while she sleeps, floating in the dreamy world of light, above me stars ancient and distant, below me the brief, the new. In the film 'Waking Life' a character that is the director Richard Linklater posits that the universe is simply God constantly asking, Do you want connection with eternity, with ecstacy? And 'time' is us saying, No, not yet, No, not yet, No, not yet. Until the end of our lives when we say Yes.

posted by Lisa on 8:23 AM link |

9.10.2004

I’m enjoying the nights. Swimming and sleeping under the stars this warm indian summer. The water and the night air seventy and still. The crows come every morning, singing news of the day—by the sound of them it will be another hard one. But there’s comfort in being woken and warned awake by the same voices.

Last week in Laguna, the clear green water, I swam with a seal. Later as the swells kicked up from the tropical storm in Baja hundreds of people needed rescuing. A woman went under, gave up, but the young lifeguard went down after her, brought her back to the light.

I’m told of a gray whale at Marshall Beach. What surprises come into a bay and out of the fathoms! Like snatches of a dream remembered—a mouse disembarking from a train every morning at the same time—offering a short glimpse into a deep unfathomable world.

posted by Lisa on 6:54 AM link |

9.01.2004

A friend sent me these wonderful aphorisms, written by the great poet William Stafford:

Off a high place, it is courtesy to let others go first.
It is legitimate to crawl, after the wings are broken.
I follow a trail so old the hounds lost it years ago.
Actors, their relief. I have to be myself with no vacation.
Once you decide to do right, life is easy -- no distractions.
The grace we need to find will not be found by the graceful only.
Prisoners in the barracks camp, we learned why Indians carry blankets -- a home.
It still takes all kinds to make a world, but there's an oversupply of some.
Successful people are in a rut.
Every mink has a mink coat.
Aggressive people do not appeal to me; I yield them scorched earth.
I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.
When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand.

posted by Lisa on 9:33 AM link |