Point Reyes

We drove two hours up the coast to Point Reyes National Seashore today. After a picnic and many deer-sightings, O. and I began a six mile hike to the coast, where blue sky meets blue water, and the cliffs of the coastline weave in and out.

Along the way, we discussed the different kinds of questions we ask people around us. The discussion centered around how questions ("How can I help this person?" "How will this person change?") as opposed to why questions ("Why did this person react so strongly? What motivates this desire?"). How questions look forward to the future, while why questions look back to the past for answers, we noted.

Every so often, the discussion was interrupted by a tiny yellow bird (a wren?) flitting through moss-festooned branches, or by a hazardous patch of mud in the trail. Once, we met a red-bellied salamander hurrying along the trail.

By the time we reached the beach, my feet were sore. I liberated them and walked the next two and half miles on the sand in bare feet, occasionally numbed by frigid Pacific waves. I think I lost several layers of calluses.

Sun, sky, sea, soul-searching conversation: a blessed day.

Fall, Dusk

Winter is coming, and the green and gold of summer that have not yet faded are all the more precious and beautiful because they are passing away. They will be gone, tomorrow or the day or week after. They will be gone, and the trees will be bare and the world barren. Winter is coming and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

But for now the trees are green in the park. The sky is clear blue and the sun was warm today. It is setting over the mountains and sending its golden light into my living room, and this is more precious to me than diamonds or gold. Today in the park, I looked up and saw the light streaming golden through the trees and falling on the sweet-smelling grass, and my heart was light as I had forgotten it could be. I smiled, and it felt unfamiliar, as if I had not smiled with a light heart, and seen the beauty of the world, in months.

Which is not true--I rejoiced on the road to the beach two weeks ago, when O. and I wound through the California hills at dusk, and the grass was golden and the shadows of the oak trees lengthened. And I rejoiced by the Sound last weekend, at sunset again. The clouds blushed and bruised, lavender and marigold and coral on a darkening sky. On the little beach, two swans prodded the coarse sand with great black beaks, and hissed at us when we came too close. One was dirty gray, the color of the sand almost: between cygnet and swan.

We are between seasons, and I am torn between mourning summer's departure, and celebrating its lingering presence. We are between, and someday we will be one or the other, but for now I want to be at peace with being both, or neither.

Every Month

I consider writing this poem every four weeks, and last month I actually figured out something to write, and this month I will actually post it, since I rather like it. But do understand, this is pretty much a first draft. Comments?

Like the smell of the grey sea when it races
up the shore, when it throws uprooted seaweed
onto the sand, when it sprays the cold boulders
and the sea gulls float on it, white birds buoyed
up and down, but not carried by the waves--

and like the smell of the damp earth
when the spade crunches into the soil
and lifts a dark mound into the sunny air
and the dirt tumbles down, black, and the worms
hide themselves futilely, as the gardener loosens the roots
of a chrysanthemum to plant it like a flame
burning against the black earth--

and like the smell of animal fat in the fire,
a sausage smoking and the grease dripping--

like salt and seaweed and decay
and like roots and earth and growth
and like fat and flame,
persistent as smoke in my hair and clothes--

Like that, crimson, the smell
of the moon's rule.

(In which I demonstrate that I am totally infatuated with Annie Dillard and with the beach)

I don't mean to be an ascetic, but it's in my blood and bone somehow. I don't mean to be disillusioned or disaffected, I don't mean to expect nothing, but the fear of disappointment seeps into me, from the feet up, like water climbing something dry (paper, fabric). Soon I'm soaking wet, when only my toes were ever touching the sea.

I need to snap out, snap open like a sweet peapod bursting and showing its seeds into the light. I need to wake from the dreams of distance. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek speaks for me:

"Our God shall come," it says in a psalm for Advent, "and shall not keep silence; there shall go before him a consuming fire, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up about him." It is the shock I remember. Not only does something come if you wait, but it pours over you like a waterfall, like a tidal wave. You wait in all naturalness without expectation or hope, emptied, translucent, and that which comes rocks and topples you; it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind.

I have glutted on richness and welcome hyssop. This distant silver November sky, these sere branches of trees, shed and bearing their pure and secret colors--this is the real world, not the world gilded and pearled. I stand under wiped skies directly, naked, without intercessors. Frost winds have lofted my body's bones with all their restless sprints to an airborne raven's glide.

Winter is the season for feeling that clean and cold, but the frigid Pacific and the chilling fog give me winter in the midst of summer. This purity is the prize, for surrender to the sea. This wakefulness is the reward, this out-of-body experience. The cold crashes over me, splashes in my eyes, tangles in my hair: every thought is washed out of my mind. I come running out of the waves, so awake that my body itself is a dream, dissolving in the bed of the world, when I am awake in the morning of joy.

Place and Time

Today, I was so glad to be in all the places that I was.

I was at the beach, as the fog drifted by and the paragliders floated overhead. I was in the Pacific, getting sand in my jeans, getting salt in my hair. (In the evening, the dog licked my leg, and tasted the sea.)

I was in Haight-Ashbury today. I was eating coffee-malt-English toffee-whiskey ice cream from Ben & Jerry's ("Peace, love & ice cream"). I was in a vintage store, making my boyscout friend wear a giant floppy burgundy hat. In the photo, the hat has draped over his eye, like a veil. His face is hidden, and he says he's glad.

I was walking a dog today, a sturdy black terrier. He barks, he jumps, he races out the door. I walked him for an hour as dusk descended, and he left his scent on every corner. There are secret messages for him all over the sidewalk and the ivy and the posts that hold up the mailboxes. I watch him get the messages but I never know what they are saying to him.

I know what was being said to me, though... I was on the phone today. I was sitting in a stream of words, letting them flow over me, even as I walked down the tree-lined lanes and tugged the terrier out of the street. The stream flowed from far away, but the water was just as fresh as if I were at the spring itself. Listening is good. Later I spoke, and that was good too. (You thanked me for my words, and your gratitude was a blessing. To refresh you refreshes me...)

I was at church today. A visiting pastor, who had conducted a 24-hour funeral, sang to us, about the new Jerusalem. (I thought of you, how you would close your eyes if you were there to listen.) The pastor spoke about prayer, about God's heart for us, about disappointment, and the words rolled over me but they didn't sink in. My friend's words sank in, though: "We need you." Someone is badly sick, and the crazy hectic amazing day camp for a hundred kids is starting tomorrow, 9am. So: I'll play Sally a few mornings. I'm here, I can help--because I chose to rest this summer, instead of trying to fulfill some imperative to be productive. They thanked me, over and over, and I could genuinely tell them, "I'm happy to help."

Blessed to be a blessing, my pastor says. To be a blessing is to be blessed, some days: today. I am blessed. Here is my note of gratitude, and here is my note of apology for the days I despair. Thank you. Life is beautiful, and I am so glad to be here.

Seashore

Blue poured down from the sky and spilled into the water, and the water spilled onto the shore. It flowed up the sand, easily, and glided back down, like a comforting hand on a familiar back, sliding up and down. The sand, having been lapped so many times, took on the water's rhythm. The sand's surface mirrored the water's, only with much slower waves. My bare feet pressed into the mud-ripples. I almost regretted disrupting their calm march, but the soft sand felt so good on the soles of my feet. My stillborn regret vanished like the seawater soaking into the sand.

And the waves licked the shore again, and again. The water rose around our legs, and we sloshed through the tide as the sun turned the sea to silver and fire. The water kissed the sand and ran away, and crept back for another embrace--and eased away again--and slid forward again, and then back--and then forward, again, again. We splashed on: shoes in his left hand, sandals in my right; my dress dancing with the wind, his rolled-up jeans fearing the water that swirled around us. The waves and shore kept parting and rejoining. Meanwhile, our hands flowed together, our movements mirrored each other, like the sand-patterns shaped to the sea's caress while the sea's flow reflects the sand.

{Thanksgiving: not because I feel like it but because I should}

So many good things in my life, things I am grateful for. But everything good here holds a seed of complication. Does the seed sprout because my character waters it, nourishes it?

I hate that I am finally getting around to writing a complete (if brief) post only now that I am upset. But this is my confession, my record of where I am, my bare heart, turning toward the One Who made it. "Why are you so downcast, o my soul? I will yet praise Him, my Savior, my King."

So many good things in my life. Thank You, Lord, for sunshine, for safety, for fresh food, for garlic and green pepper and lentils and onions. Thank You for the crashing waves, the green and blue water roaring shoreward from so far away, the foam riding the muscles of the ocean. Thank you for the reflection of the sky on the wet sand, for the resplendent clouds mirrored on the earth, for the grit of silicon between my toes, for the stretch in my legs and in the arches of my feet as I walk along the beach. Thank You for my family walking beside me, for the joy we find in each other's company, for the love that binds us, for the plans you have for us, to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future. Thank You for Your mercies, new every morning, for Your faithfulness when I am blown and tossed by the wind, tumbled by the waves.

Uproot the weeds in my heart. Wash me in Your water.

Let me praise You first. You are first and last in my life: be the first thought in my mind when I wake, the last before I slip into sleep; be the first shelter I run to, be the last home I return to; be Alpha and Omega, Creator and Judge; be Who You Are. The great I AM. You are God, and You are good, and You are more than enough.

Kite

The kite swooped and danced.

We both watched it, intently, but I kept looking back and forth between N. and the kite, my eyes traveling along the lines of the kite string. Her gaze never wavered from the rainbow kite above us. Her hands, though, responded to the kite's fidgeting. The angle of her body and the position of her hands echoed the gliding of the kite, spoke to it, puppeteered it. They both moved so gracefully, each absolutely absorbed.

There was nothing else in the world--only this duet. The ocean behind her was only a painted backdrop, a study in purple and green; the sky, likewise, was blue canvas; the sun, a tilted spotlight. It all faded away, for this moment.

The sun stopped setting, to watch, and even the waves paid attention. The silent sand stared up at the show. We were all in the audience, our lives set aside. All that mattered was this counterpoint: this exuberant kite (straining to escape, then plummeting earthward, then soaring toward heaven again) and this grave girl (concentrating, quietly). This swaying. This wind.

Sea and Sand

[subtitle: A quick lame post cuz i'm behind]

Sometimes I forget the feeling of sand on bare feet: the grit between the toes, the sinking in with each step. The sand was especially soft this evening where we were walking along the sunset-ly shore. My feet sank deep, and the footprints gaped like the entrances to caverns, with water seeping into the bottoms. We left parallel trails of pockmarks along the edge: where the ocean mingles with the sand--where the sand dances a frenzied dance in the swirling water, and settles back into being a solid--where the crowd of sand particles welcomes the seeping water into its embraces, and absorbs it like a city absorbing a new wave of immigrants--where the boundaries is fluid--even the boundaries between solid and liquid and airy element: where the waves reach, and creep, and turn back, and water sprays, and foams.

The freezing water foams white, and the setting sun gilds it. The waves crash in silver and lace and steel. Nothing stops the sea.

Beach

I went to West Meadow Beach today for a beach clean up.

The day was gray and damp, rain splattering down onto the sand, leaving it pocked and patterned. The rocks on the shore gleamed like pearls. At this beach, the smooth stones all seemed translucent and bright: a garden of tumbled quartz, rose and white and peach and lavender. The occasional white seagull floated on the gray water, arching its wings and squawking.

We scrutinized the tangled beds of blond reeds washed up on the sand and stone. We stooped and selected the things that didn't fit: inorganic-looking rods (discarded straws), strands too brightly colored to belong (escaped plastic ribbons, curled), bottle caps blue and red, the corpse of a tin can, frazzled and frayed rope. The shriveled skeleton of a popped balloon. With chilled fingers, we teased these artifacts out of the reeds, collecting them in a huge dark sack. The black bag flapped in the ocean breeze and dragged on its belly across the lovely-hued stones.

Beside us, the waves murmured. Overhead, the sky continued to cry, as we crept along the shore, discovering and discriminating. Each moment was like one of the shore's sleek stones, and every stone was like a jewel, and I wanted to take them all home.