• Category Archives Feelings

  • Donner Party Picnic Area

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. The class of 2024. Denver University. High School. Still high school. Sarah. My son. Seoah in pink. Helping with the Rice planting in Okgwa. Graduation ceremonies. Rites of passage. Alan. His new Beemer. Electric. Venturing into adulthood. Airmen and women. My son as uncle or para-father.  The USAF. Radar. Islands.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing and hearing my son

    One brief shining: Stepped up to the cash register, ordered Bolognese Sour Dough Toast, a Lemonberry tart, a fancy pastry with a melted sugar halo, and a Cuban coffee, gathered in the number, 47, for the order and went back to the table in the Bread Lounge overlooking the Mountains west of Evergreen including the completely Snow covered Continental Divide.

     

    Speaking of the Continental Divide. On my train ride to San Francisco the conductor, who came on speaker from time to time with historic or geographic points of interest, indicated the River flowing beside the train. The Colorado. I’d crossed it before on a long ago trip to Colorado from Phoenix, but never had a chance to really see it. Muddy with Spring runoff it flowed fast and full, a River of so many dreams. Las Vegas. Tucson. Phoenix. Even far away Los Angeles. Then. Wait it a minute. It’s going the wrong way. Jumped to the first time I crossed the Red River near Fargo. Same sensation.

    What? Oh. The Continental Divide. This mud roiled river flowed west and south, toward the Baja, toward the great Pacific Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Even though I got this intellectually my brain kept feeling tricked each time I looked at the Colorado. My limbic system was not sure what to do with this fundamental change. One it did not understand.

    Another odd point of interest. The Donner Party Picnic Area in the Tahoe National Forest. I mean, they had to know what they were doing when they named that, right?

    At midnight on the 28th of April I woke up and wandered down stairs. The train, the California Zephyr, had stopped, and I wondered where we were. There in the distance was Salt Lake City. The Mormon Tabernacle. The angel Moroni. Twinkling in the intermontane night. A cool breeze came in from the open door of my sleeper car.

     

    Just a moment: Alan, yesterday, said rather than being in a long Pause that I had moved into the inner Charlie. A student. A scholar. A friend. Living alone and loving it. Hmm. I think both are true. I have privileged my introverted, scholarly side, no doubt. And, as he pointed out, he and I have taken many acting classes together. So I was engaged. True. However, it’s also true that my life has had mostly external guide rails in spite of that. In the last year especially Jewish immersion, mikveh, sure, but Jewish home life, too, for example. Shabbat. The Shema. The mezzuzahs. And the classes with Jamie.

    The Pause is a time of collecting experience, integrating it, letting it change me. Then, living the change. I feel like I’m moving toward that moment. Perhaps this year.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Travel

  • Cookin’

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. The Ancient Brothers. Rabbi Jamie. The hidden me. Great Sol ablaze in morning glory. Kate, always Kate. Her Creek and her Valley. Kep, my sweet boy. The Redwoods. Bechira points. A long Pause. This Jewish life. Tara. Luke. Rebecca. Ginny and Janice. Back among my peeps. Alan and Joan this morning. Friendships. Music.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: a Pause

    One brief shining: Driving down the hill toward Evergreen, Black Mountain Drive becomes Brook Forest Drive, a couple of miles after what used to be the Brook Forest Inn a shallow cutout, good for maybe two or three vehicles, provides parking for a short Valley with a small Mountain Stream carving its way through, White Pines and Ponderosas, Wild Rose and Wild Strawberry and Wild Raspberry grown along its banks and up the steep Valley sides, this is Kate’s Creek running through Kate’s Valley, where her last physical remains began their journey to the World Ocean.

     

    Yesterday was session ten of ten conversion sessions with Rabbi Jamie. I will miss these. My Rabbi. There’s a phrase I would not have expected to come out of my mouth. Ever. Yet now I can’t imagine life without Rabbi Jamie in it. He’s a backstop. A validator. A friend. A guide.

    He opened me up again yesterday. I shared my guilt. Jewish guilt? About being a hermit by preference these days. Not wanting to engage politically. Or in any way really that’s not personal. As he often does, he went to what appeared to be tangent.

    “I researched creativity a couple of years ago. Prepping for a Kabbalah Experience class. I learned then that a creative block, or Pause, can be long. And you never know how long.”

    I had used a string of phrases: Not over, Not finished, Not complete, Not done to describe how I felt about my life. While affirming my joy at being alone within a crowd of friends.

    Slowly. Oh. I see. Kate’s illness intensifying in mid-2019. Her long, slow decline. Covid. Her death. Grief. Going this way into redecorating the house, that way into moving to Hawai’i, over there to empty the house of stuff, adjusting to my son and Seoah living so far away, taking the plunge into the mikveh and my year of living Jewishly. The trip to Korea and my back’s emergence as a limit. Feeling overtaken, if not overwhelmed, by all the learning, the focus required for conversion and my bar mitzvah. The trip to San Francisco.

    Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, an imaginal self reorganizes for renewal, reemergence. Its container the years of a   whole life-lived experience, vital nutrient for a transformed nefesh. This paused version of me lives day to day. Happy. Joyful. Yet unfocused. Unlike the Great Southern Brood I have no 13 year clock ticking; the timing is uncertain. This Pause. A moment. Now five years or so in length.

    So freeing. So liberating. As Rabbi Shapiro said (I think.), “It’s all about freedom.”

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism Memories Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • From the Veldt

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Irv. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Tom. Ancient Brothers. PSA. Cancer. Black Mountain. My Lodgepole companion. That Mule Deer Doe who comes into my back yard. Rain. Low Fire risk. Home insurance. Shadow Mountain home. Bonobos. New clothes for Spring. Alan and Joan. Rabbi Jamie. Tara. Mussar. Yetzer hara. Yetzer hatov.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol

    One brief shining: Dusk fell, a magenta Sky filled the Lodgepoles in the back yard, wait, what’s that, a man walking across my fenced and gated yard, no, oh, I see, the white rump of that Mule Deer Doe who’s taken refuge here the last couple of days, what a relief and a joy.

     

    Got a lesson in the inner emergency alert system. When I first saw that Doe, the light of a quickly falling dusk made her front blend into the background. Her white rump looked like a man’s shirt. My brain: this is not a test. Alert. Alert. Not a test. My body went into heightened awareness. Defcon 2. Then. Stand down. Stand down. Not a man. Repeat, not a man. A Mule Deer Doe.

    How different the presence of this sweet Animal from the apparent threat of a stranger. Made me aware of how important context is. How much information my brain processes in the background all the time. My backyard empty. Doesn’t register except as a familiar tableaux. Movement. Wait.

    Time of day: dusk. Season: late Spring. All gates closed. Fence intact. What is it? A white object moving across from right to left heading toward the far back. A man? A potential danger. Look just a bit longer. Make sure. Ah. There’s her head now. The two different conclusions. Both based on a filter taking into account the truths of that moment. What a man would mean at dusk, having opened a gate or jumped the fence. What a gentle Animal who had been there earlier in the day and yesterday, too, meant.

    I was not only pressed into the moment, but certain sensory data lit up my defensive self. This was instinct, yes, but instinct informed by long experience of this particular environment, this particular time of day, this season. All screened, weighed, and taken into account in a flash. My limbic system. Our limbic system. A heritage of our days on the veldt. When the ability to take quick, decisive action meant life or death.

    Always interesting to directly experience a function of the brain usually operating in the deep background. Makes me aware of how complex we are, how amazing the human brain is, how we skim the surface in daily life.

    Also makes me reflect on the past couple of months when a dark scrim added itself to my emotional regulation. Made things difficult, made me feel vaguely threatened. By my upcoming bar mitzvah. By cancer. By aches and pains. By existential angst. What was my limbic system up to? Did I need to reassess things? Pay attention in ways I had ignored? Or did I just need a refresh, a reboot?


    Feelings Fourth Phase

  • Back

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. San Francisco. Waymo. Ruby. Kate, her Creek and Valley. Ruth, the graduate. Gabe. Jen. Sarah. Mia. Mia’s mother. Kep. His yahrzeit last month. A foggy cap on Black Mountain. Blue Sky above. Must be cloudy to the east. Great Sol. Muted. See’s chocolate. Michael Strassfield. His 3rd Jewish catalog. Mary in Melbourne. Guru.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

    One brief shining: This morning Fog creeps down Black Mountain obscuring its view from my window, the Lodgepoles have a mysterious, shrouded, yet also illuminated look, the interplay of Great Sol and the dewpoint, which my in-home scientist, Kate, explained to me so I understood.

     

    Kate was so quick with math, with scientific knowledge, and medical knowledge of course. She could explain difficult ideas so I could understand them. I miss that part of our relationship. Along with many others. She was also my cooking consultant. My cribbage partner. Traveling companion. Garden planning and maintaining co-worker. Dog lover. Bee work assistant. Grandparent and parent. Most of all, a soulmate whose life meant as much to me as my own.

    In this photograph, taken in Songtan, Kate’s continuing her three years of work on a counted cross-stitch I bought for her in Washington, D.C. It says Love is Enough. Hangs in my lower level now. Also had t-shirts made with a print of it for her birthday celebration the year she died. An amazing woman on so many levels.

     

    Weird, looking back over the last two or three months. It’s like there was a shroud over my sense of self. I felt overwhelmed by the work for my conversion and bar mitzvah. Enough that I had real anxiety about it. Something I’m free of most of the time these days. I also reached into my bag of oh what a bad boy am I memories and ongoing concerns. Especially health and aging wise. Nope. You’re no longer able to take care of the house. Of feeding yourself. Too lazy. Too weak. Too inattentive. The back. Ouch. I’ll never travel again. That food poisoning. Showed how weak I am. Cancer. PSA blood draw yesterday. Probably mets everywhere. I’m in my tenth year after all.

    Gosh. Gee whiz. How am I able to get up in the morning?

    Then, much like the Fog slowly burning off Black Mountain as I write, the shroud faded away and I found myself back. Exercising. Confident about my daily life. My Torah portion down. Learning parts of the Morning Service that I can offer as my contribution on June 12th. Reaching back out from myself toward others.

    Another thing. My trip now has a golden memory. Gone are the stretches where my back taught me its lessons. Gone is the lingering emotional and physical residue of the food poisoning. Left in their place are time at the Asian Museum. The Redwoods. Japantown. Buying chocolate at See’s. Laughing and eating with Diane. Meals at Sears Fine Food and nights at the Chancellor Hotel.

    Why did this change occur? I think it was the trip. I needed a break from the seriousness that had become life. I needed some fun. A lesson in there. I’m pretty sure.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Memories Travel

  • This time for Ruth

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Sky. Earth. Mountain. Stream. Deer. Dog. Elk. Moose. Bear. Mountain Lion. Fire. River. Lake. North. South. East. West. Life. Rock. Rain. Snow. The elementals. Joy. Sadness. Grief. Mourning. Feelin’ Good. Contemplative. Peaceful. Calm. Anxious. One. Echad. Bees. Honey. Kate. The Journey. Ancientrails. Writing. Living.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Awakening

    One brief shining: Each morning I wake up under the Sky, my home resting on Shadow Mountain not far from the headwaters of Maxwell Creek which flows full and strong right now, joining in this new life all those who will pray at least once during the day to whatever Gods may be that Fire will once again withhold itself from the Forest, leaving us to cook breakfast and wash our floors.

     

    Age 9

    Let me tell you. It was 1965, another century, another millennia. May. The end of high school. For me. 59 years later it’s May. The end of high school. This time for Ruth. Who I held as a baby. Who declared to me at age 3, on a shuttle bus to the Stock Show, that, “I want my mommy!” One whose entire life, like her Uncle’s, my son, I have seen reach this point. This time for Ruth.

    This Saturday. At Denver University stadium. The Northfield High School class of 2024. She will be there engowned and under a mortar board as so many of us have done so many times. Taking what may be in some ways the biggest step away of her young life, from public education, from childhood, from home.

    Do you remember? The eagerness. The fear. The ancientrail of adult life stretching out before you, unknown for the most part. So wanted. Yet so uncertain. Would I be good enough? Strong enough? Enough? Yearning to break free from the known constraints of childhood. To live into the arms of your Self and its future.

    Sure, there’s a path ahead for some of us. College. That factory job. Apprenticeship. But it is a path so far untrodden, so far innocent of our effort, our strength, our resolve.

    Ruth’s feet. Her art. Her hopes. Her memories of her dad. Of her struggles. That backpack filled with the detritus of divorce, death, anguish. Heavy on her back. Her path. She goes off to college carrying that backpack, perhaps at times slumped over because of its weight, at other points, hopefully more and more often as time goes on, buoyed up by her ability to have weathered its burden and chosen life.

    Her grandma. Her dad. Her dead. Will walk with her. Will receive her diploma, too. Will smile and their hearts will swell with pride. As will her mom’s. Mine. Most important of all, her own.

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    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Memories

  • Oh, the Times We Had

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Monday gratefuls: Great Sol now lighting us up earlier and earlier. My Lodgepole Companion happy, Needles up, swaying a bit in Mountain Breezes. Inner weather. Internet returns. Learning about halakah, how to live a Jewish life. Learning my Torah portion. Learning how to pronounce parts of the morning service. Ancora imparo. Ichigo-iche.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Exercise

    One brief shining: Years ago in the casino on the Amsterdamm, somewhere between New York City and Ft. Lauderdale, I got on a winning streak, blackjack, a game which I played every afternoon five days a week as long as I carried newspapers in Alexandria, thousands of hands, this time in honor of Merton’s brother, Kate’s uncle who had died just before we left on this post-retirement cruise around Latin America, dedicating any winnings to a charity he would have approved, not much, maybe $150, still, and the folks crowded around me, brushed my back, wanted my luck which was more leavened by skill than in most gambling.

     

    Oh the times we had. Seeing Europe by Eurail. The Sistine Chapel. Red checkered tablecloths in Vienna. The Botticelli’s in the Uffizi. The Grand Canal from the rail terminal. That first view of the Pacific when entering the lobby of the Mauna Kea. Dinner at Mama’s Fish House. Going twice through the Panama Canal. Harvesting honey. Swatting off bees as we ran the honey harvester. Kate in her bandana, trowel in hand, Ninja Weeder! Quiet evenings with the dogs around the fire pit. Doing our laundry in Paris. Seeing heather and tartan making in Inverness. Cooking together. Holding hands.

    We went to Greece and Turkey, Korea and Singapore, most of the way around Latin America, enjoying each other, laughing and having frustrating moments. We worked together as a team, making Andover a spot better than it was when we got there. A place fruitful with Apple Trees, Cherry Trees, Plums, Pears, and Currants. A sweet place with hives of Honeybees working hard. A place filled with fresh Vegetables and beautiful Flowers all season long. A place we nurtured that nurtured us back.

    We cared for, played with, and cried over so many Dogs. Over Jon and Joe. Over Mark that one year. And finally we uprooted it all and carried the festival of our life to Shadow Mountain. Where life became merged with Mountains, Wild Neighbors, Judaism, and the grandkids. Yes, she’s been dead for three years. But neither gone nor forgotten.

     

    Just a moment: After the food poisoning and for much of last week, I fell into a slump. I mentioned this when I talked about how my psyche can suffer when my body feels bad. After some self therapy, literally, after the nausea fading not even into memory but away, after reengaging the bar mitzvah work yet to be done and prepping for my final conversion session with Rabbi Jamie, my strong self has returned. Able. Caring. Dedicated. At work and at play. Wish I had a way to alert myself when I head off the rails since the self I condemn then is in fact the same self I now applaud.

     


    Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase Memories Travel

  • Awe

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

    Shabbat gratefuls: Kate’s yahrzeit. Lighting the yahrzeit candle. Frost on the Lodgepole’s at Black Mountain’s peak. May 15 in Minnesota. Planting ok then, in days past. Self-care. Nuggets win in Minneapolis. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pine. Douglas Fir. White Pine. Fraser Pine. Ponderosa Pine. Kate’s Creek. Maxwell running full. Bear Creek.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate

    Songtan, 2016

    One brief shining: The boardwalk felt soft, welcoming as morning Sunshine filtered onto it through the Forest, its planks took shade and sun alike, filling it with gentle magic while not revealing the wonders rising only feet from its sides, where the Coastal Redwoods, which can reach over 300 feet toward the sky, with trunks requiring many hands for a complete hug, soared up from the Valley soil with grace, power.

     

    Awe. Wonder. Amazement. In my belated but so appreciated first contact with these giants of the Forest. Each one with the presence of a meditating Buddha. Still, rooted to their place, focused on their wooden dreams. Diane told me of the efforts firefighters went through to save the Sequoias, putting aluminum fire resistant blankets around their bases to protect them. I would help. The majesty of these Trees made me want to weep with joy. That we share the Earth with such entities.

    This is a possible outcome of travel. Transport to a place unexpected, even unimagined. Oh, I had an inner picture, an expectation about how it would be to see these Trees. Nothing prepared me for the sight of them. The unique and powerful sense of self they project. Wild neighbors are so precious because they show us the limits of artifice, of bending the world to our will. Wild neighbors are natural Taoists, accepting the world as it comes, adapting to its changes.

    Of course, I’m most familiar with Lodgepole Pines, Aspen, Mule Deer, Elk, Black Bears, Foxes, Mountain Lions yet the Coastal Redwood and its near relative the Sequoia are my wild neighbors, too. Just further away. How bare, spiritually, would be my world without them. Can you imagine? A world with no Wild Neighbors?

     

    Just a moment: Been thinking about the purpose of universities. Came up with three to start with: 1. Collect, curate, and conserve the deposit of human culture. Imagine and execute ways to keep it available to generations yet unborn.  2. Foster a culture of critical thought. 3. Provide those moratorium years for each generation where life becomes exploration and adventure.

    What other purposes underlie this grand social experiment?

     

    It took me until yesterday to get my Mountain legs back. To once again be here, in my life. Some psychic pain over the last few days occasioned in the main by back stress + food poisoning. When my body’s not right, it’s easy to spiral, confusing a wounded body with a wounded soul. I became febrile, fragile. Old. In need of assisted living. Foolish for living this long alone, high in the Mountains. My judgment compromised by a younger self’s commitment to the Rockies.

    Yet this morning, as I feel my way into shabbat, my new Jew soul smiles. You’re where you belong, Yisrael. And not too old. Not yet.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Judaism Plants Travel

  • Backing Away

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Monday gratefuls: Shadow Mountain Home. My pillow. My bed. The Rockies. Living in the Front Range. Amtrak. Garrett. Sleeping car attendant. Travel. Diane. San Francisco. Muir Woods. The Japanese Tea Garden. That early transitional Rothko at the De Young. The Thinker at the Legion of Honor. Ukiyo-e prints. Japan town. Bernal Hill. The Mission. 12 Lucky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Homecoming

    One brief shining: Found my key under the chair arm where I left it for Ana, opened the door, and came home for the first time in eight days, medieval French music played quietly downstairs, a power outage and generator start having turned it on, rolled the Travelpro over to the ottoman and used it like a hotel luggage rack so I could get at what I needed, my meds and the Lidocaine patch, went downstairs and using the remote turned off the music, sinking into my chair. Ah.

     

    Don’t like saying it out loud. Admitting it to myself. However. Traveling has changed for me. Probably permanently. I had all the usual delights in San Francisco. Seeing Diane on her home turf, her home on 12 Lucky, her jogging route up to Bernal Hill, and the small town like neighborhood commercial area which includes Wise Son’s Deli and an $8 haircut. Visiting amazing places like Muir Woods and the Japanese Tea Garden. Seeing great work by artists old-like Hokusai and Rodin-and new like Lee Mingwei’s Rituals of Care. Being driven by a native up one lane, yet inexplicably two way streets angled like steep Mountain roads. Seeing Earthquake shacks, lived in today, but built as temporary housing for the victims of 1906.

    Diane and I visited Japantown, drove through the beautiful Presidio, and I bought some new clothes not far from the Chancellor Hotel across Union Square. Bonobo’s on Grant Street. I would make the journey again (well, probably not, but you get the feeling) just to see the Redwoods. So stunning. So magnificent. So alive. These beings remind me that life’s boundaries are much looser than our often blinkered day-to-day allows us to see.

    And yet. At the start of each day I felt good. Walked over to Sears Fine Foods for breakfast. Met Diane. We went here or there, the Asian Art Museum, the De Young, Muir Woods. After walking any distance or, even harder, standing in one place, hello-museums!, my back would signal me through hip pain, sometimes even neck pain. Not long after I walked bent over, neck awry. Even with the lidocaine patch, the stretches, the very occasional NSAID. Gonna make one more pass through the medical system. See if there’s stuff I’m missing, could use. If not, and I’m not expecting anything, my traveling days have changed.

    I can go for a couple to three hours of sight seeing, after transportation which has its own ouches.  Then. Back to the hotel for the day. I’m done. Either I go somewhere and stay a while or it won’t make sense to go. At my son’s in Korea I can stay in their apartment when I need to rest. I’ll get over there next year for his taking command ritual, maybe stay a couple of months. Might cough and faint in dismay but I might buy a business class ticket so I can arrive more or less uninjured.

     

     

     


    Art and Culture Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • In them thar hills

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Friday gratefuls: Hills. Bernal Hill. Diane’s jogging path. Wise Son’s. Since 5771. 12 Lucky Street. Earthquake shacks. Mission. Valencia. 24th Street. Community Music Center. Maru Sushi. Chancellor. Unafraid to have a 13th floor. Bell guy. Laundry. Cool nights. Mild days. 6 sunny days.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Neighborhoods

    One brief shining: Drove in to Diane’s well organized garage, got out, and waited for her, taking pictures of the murals across from 12 Lucky, when she came back we walked one lane Lucky, with cars parked on both sides to 24th, where we turned left into a low scale neighborhood with $8 haircuts, a street sign: Latino Cultural District, and a ways down Wise Son’s Deli where we ate breakfast, lox and bagel for Diane, latke smash-up for me.

     

    Last day on Powell Street. Back on Amtrak tomorrow morning at 8:25 am. Powell, California, and one other street have working cable cars. Diane pointed out an interesting aspect of other street cars used here. Some of them are faithfully restored models from the past or, in other cases, from other countries. Very cool.

    Yesterday was San Francisco daily life immersion with a visit to Diane’s antique filled home on 12 Lucky Street. Many of the pieces of furniture I recognized from Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia’s house on the farm. 12 Lucky is a peaceful, calm spot with various salvaged items from Diane’s jogging up Bernal Hill, finds of furniture and plants that others have thrown out. Lucky Street is off the main street of her neighborhood but parallel to it. A quieter environment. She’s been there 14 years.

    Her neighborhood has a definite small town feel to it, lots of Latinos, some Samoans, Jews, African Americans, remnants of the halcyon days of the late 60’s. A spot where a person can live a normal life in a city, especially with Bernal Hill so close by.

    Diane has taken me by the hand this week. Showed me her town. Commiserated with my aching back. Been understanding when I bail out on a day early. Thanks, Diane. Much appreciated.

    Yesterday, too, we saw earthquake shacks. These tiny homes built of redwood, most under 900 square feet, were built to house victims of the 1907 earthquake. Most are gone but a few remain scattered around the city, several in Bernal Hill.

    To do that we drove up and down steeply inclined streets with cars parked on both sides and only one available lane for two way traffic. It was Diane’s milieu and that was obvious from the way she navigated. Yet. For an outsider? Would have been nerve jangling to drive here. Especially with a manual transmission as Diane has.

    We returned to the Chancellor via Mission Street and Valencia, Mission still with nefarious activity, Diane’s words, yet apparently less than before. Valencia more a young urbanite location with restaurants and bike lanes.

     

    My back is worse than I imagined. Very limiting. I have about a half day or less of energy. Makes future travel plans much different from what I might otherwise choose.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • Tea and Art

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

    Thursday gratefuls: Sam Wo’s Wonton soup. Chinese donuts. See’s candy. The Japanese Tea Garden. The De Young. Its early Rothko. Golden Gate Park. Taking a rest. Jazz floating in my hotel room window. Sunny weather. San Francisco. China Town.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chocolate

    One brief shining: Walked down a sidewalk, a side street of Chinatown, past the mural with a meditating Buddha rendered in psychedelic colors, wearing sunglasses, past a Buddhist temple, recalled the Golden Sagely Monastery from further up on Grant, past afternoon closed restaurants to the Sam Wo, a restaurant Diane remembered because of its famously rude waiter, Edsel Ford Fung, ate a delicious bowl of Wonton soup, and for desert we left Sam Wo’s and found our way to a one-pound box each of See’s chocolates.

     

    Oh. Could be misunderstood. We only bought one pound of chocolate. Didn’t eat it. Though we did get the best butter peanut candy as a gift. Which we did eat. And it was good.

     

    Started yesterday morning at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. What a beautiful place. Irises in bloom, purple daggers thrown up toward any pollinator happening by. Wooden bridges. Metal Moon bridges. Granite bridges. Koi in the delicately designed pond with small flared stone lamps and Lilies floating upon it. A few Coastal Redwoods at its perimeter. Stones and Rocks honored for their presence and rough prominence. Some rounded topiary.

    A tea shop with a bench overlooking the pond where Diane and I sat. Heard a man with a Stanford Engineering sweat shirt explain that he and his wife came there every year on their anniversary. The Koi swam below him.

     

    From the Japanese Tea Garden we walked over to the De Young, passing by a wonderful band shell, and the Academy of Sciences. Magnolias in bloom.

    The entry way to the lobby had a crack in its paving Stone which, I noticed, continued from the pavers through much larger blocks of the same Stone set here and there. Andy Goldworthy, Diane said. Simple. Profound.

    On our way to the Modern and Contemporary Art galleries there was a large Ed Ruscha tryptych. Much larger than anything of his I’d seen before. A landscape, probably a desert, with his trademark words written across it. He’s a favorite of mine from my Walker days.

    Found several interesting American artists represented including Grant Wood, The Threshers, and a Thomas Hart Benton. Also a few new to me. Many commenting on the struggles of workers in the early part of the 20th century.

    An early Rothko from his transition away from representational toward abstraction. This one had more shapes than his later paintings, but also had colors floating on each other creating their own environment like his mature work.

    A Taiwanese conceptual artist Lee Mingwei had four installations, all clever and interesting.

     

    Well, gotta go. Diane’s picking me up for a deli breakfast at Wise Son’s near her house.

    Back more and more problematic. A real limitation. Damn it.

    (not edited. will do later)


    Art and Culture Family Feelings Fourth Phase Travel