12-12-2010 0745 Muir Beach.
Just back from a non leashed walk with Fuji down Sunset Way…she seems to like being back, had a longish run on the beach yesterday. She definitely likes playing with the light surf waves coming ashore, intentionally galloping through them with the ball in her mouth. Her appearance is still appealingly puppy like, perhaps the slightly bowlegged sitting posture is part of it, and also her relatively large head. And her personality is certainly outgoing and engaged.
I took the Stumpjumper mountain bike out for a test ride, just along Sunset way. On the way back, going through a rough spot, I started hearing a strange intermittent noise..a kind of hissing, that I thought was perhaps a leaf brushing against the frame…but also a little reminiscent of the time when I had a weakness in the tire sidewall,a nd a large bleb was forming just before it blew out.
So I stopped. But no bleb. I rocked the bike back and forth, and the syllibant hissing went on and off…but no leaf…it sounded like an air leak, that ony happened when the tire was in a certain position….and as I turned the tire further, I could see why. A medium sized very sharp rock had poked right through, and as soon as I pulled it out, as though pulling a knife out of a major blood vessel, the tire expired with a tired little hiss…
So another thing to fix.
My computer wont see the network, but I think its something that was changed in Ethiopia,..the ISP perhaps, and needs to be cleared or changed back. Will ask Leighton if he knows how to do this.
And I can always
Well, we arrived at SFO via Jet Blue and Logan Airport Friday mid-day, and were at Muir Beach by 3 PM. The next morning, Yeshi needed transport to SFO for an 8:55 AM departure, and graciously agreed to let us use the car if we could drive her to the airport. So we set off into what is generally called ‘coastal fog night and morning clearing by mid-day’ on the radio. Unlike the London fogs that lasted up till the 60’s and mostly coal dust, our SF ‘green’ fogs are pure and gentle, cool as last nights lover, moist as tomorrows aspirations. Well, that’s what we say in the advertisements. The reality is that the whole coast is pretty much fogged in for most of the summer…a closely kept secret among those who want to rent their properties to summer tourists. It’s true, you can be out of the fog and tippling in the sun baked heat of Sonoma’s wine country after just a few minutes of car travel. But for the Seasonally Affective Disorderly among us, the continuous grey on grey against grey can become a cause of depression and even, dare I say, ennui ( Def: feelings of utter weakness and discontent brought on by boredom.)
Catching up on news and views, Yeshi and I turned off 1 onto 101 and headed South towards the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving the white people on the right in Sausalito and the black people to the left in Marin City behind. The GGB was doing its romantic thing where the top part is shrouded in fog while the bottom part is still visible. We stayed cautiously on the far right, ever reminded of Grace’s ordeal since being ambushed on the bridge. We took a wrong turn getting to Harriet’s house to drop off some supplies for the next trip. I stopped to consult Yeshi’s GPS..which was set for Zone 8 (MA, CN, etc), so kept insisting that our nearest airport was Dulles. But it all worked out, Yeshi made her plane, and afterwards I found Harriet and we talked and about writing.
Aside from those things most writing teachers seem to agree on, such as showing rather than telling, and murdering your darlings, what are the most important parts of writing? How do you write about the hard stuff, about the pain and suffering that all humans feel? Well, Joyce Carol Oates seems to know. And write it a way that shows how the experience really is, not just telling about what it was? Definitely something to work on. Harriet also distinguished between story telling and writing. The job of a writer is to help the reader experience the emotion..that’s the showing rather than the telling part. Perhaps the storyteller is more intent on getting you on the path, and leaves the emotion entirely to you? Or what do you think?
Back at Muir, yesterday being day 2 of Blitzenfarungenbewichtenluftzeugentravelzeit (loosely translated something like getting there with your time zones all messed up) we are still on East Coast time. So Sala was wanting to turn the light on and read at 5:30 yesterday morning. We are sleeping in the 10 x12 shack which is about 30 feet above the Pacific, and thus has a wonderful sound track, and the most comfortable bed in the place. (Come visit!) So I got up, and tried to get my computer on line for the next several hours; somehow the poor little thing has lost its identity and isn’t recognized by our local network. Gave up and went kayaking about 8.
There was a foot high swell running, and the tide was going out. Sun coming and going in globs and sheets of light on the basalt of Spindrift Ridge (that’s the ‘Lion Hill’ in Feng Shui terms). At least 3 red tail hawks and a couple of California vultures soaring on the early thermals, the red tail shrieks coming from everywhere as always. I paddled out along the black rock, letting the mild wave surge sweep me up against the rock and then suck back out. Starfish in blues, browns orange and red. Probably as a result not as many mussels as last year. Lots more gooseneck barnacles; I guess the starfish don’t eat them. A few gulls and a single cormorant out on bird rock, with the tide ebbing at about 2 knots. Hmm, these mussels seem to be mostly replaced by the barnacles as well. Under the high cliffs of the Muir Beach Overlook, there is a good sized sea cave..and with minimal surf I lingered inside the mouth, surging gently in and out as the seas came and went. The rock itself is nearly black, the cave soars up to architecturally impossible crannies and spires. Birds make white sconces on the walls. The gooseneck barnacles are spattered in nobbly clumps of white right up to the high tide mark. Lower down are the muscle clumps,and a purple colored soft growth that is probably a soft coral of sorts. Below that the big sea anemones and more weeds, mostly brown, but also some green and purple, yellow even. The water rushes in and disappears back into the dark with lots of gurgles and glunks. The branches of the cave are too narrow for my boat at this tide, and I know from experience I will probably get stuck if I try to go further in. So instead I just sit there for several waves, paddling to stay in place, and then let the surge take me back out into the sun lit ocean.
Yes, and on the way back in, I paddle close up to a patterned fissure in the rock that I think of as ‘Maya’s Mouth’. You may be familiar with the Maori Maui stories (Maui was towed away from his native atoll by a large fish, which when he finally landed it from South Island became North Island). Maya’s mouth would do well as a memorial to Judy Chicago..it acts as a blowhole, and yesterday the tide was just right to watch the wave surge in, experience a delicious lingering split section pause, and then have a huge misty blast come whoomping back out to cover me with spray. The relevance to Maui? Well, it seems that Maui finally learned that his father, the creator, had made him mortal. To regain immortality he would have to retrace his birth. Maya, his mom, was asleep in the woods, and Maui decided to attempt the journey. He asked the birds to keep quiet, but they found his wiggling and squirming trying to go back inside to be so comical that they started giggling loudly. Maya woke up. Whoommmmp!!!
Tirien and Ernesto came out yesterday with ALL THREE GRANDCHILDREN!! It was great watching Severin investigating horse droppings with Amalia (she wondered where the grass went) and demonstrating to Joaquin how to use the ‘Beach Blaster’, a driftwood answer to not wanting to buy gun like manufactured objects that I had made for Sev himself, at the age Joaquin is now. And they are, after all is said and done, why we are here.
So..thats the NOT of traveling for this trip. Most dispatches as the journey continues.
Alan
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