| June 13 |
Where is my sunshine? I paid for this vacation, dammit! And instead of
summer, I get a remarkably overcast and cool day, unheard of for
June. But this is an unheard of year and it's the start of my
unheard of vacation. Odd how I feel lonely at the start of what should be a celebration. My plans for spending the first night with Barry have fallen through. He began a Body Electric workshop this weekend and won't be home. Perhaps I should have told him my plans earlier, or been more definite when I did. Perhaps this is just chewing on old fruit, the echo of old wounds. "I do not deserve this happiness so I must make it unpalatable in order to be allowed to have it at all." I remember another Great Journey I took between high school and the start of college. "The journey of a thousand miles begins on the wrong foot," I said to myself when I discovered I had left my train ticket on the kitchen table. I feel like chanting, like I did before my Great Trip to California in 1984. I could also pray to the spirit of the house to mind itself and me, to keep a safe place for me to come home to, and to hold my mundane life "in escrow" until I reclaim it. Don called last night, but I was with Mark and Kristine, so I missed him. I wrote him a note - too chatty and every-day to convey what I really feel: that he is the best hope I have for happiness in another, that I'd like more of his company, that I am beginning to feel safe and intimate with him. One of the things I hope for in this trip is to feel happiness in myself - confidence in self-guidance, courage, and wisdom. Before I left, I sent him this quatrain:
Lines Written in Anticipation of a Long Journey
Unlike a train, the poem knows
The trackless plains, the fatal sky.
He travels best who leaves the lines
And follows where the spirit goes.
So, what will today be, if not a rehearsal of the past? How can I make
this day new? I won't fill a hole that was carved 40 years ago by what I
do today. All I can do is keep from falling in it. Or from trying to fill
it with something that is only an emblem of what I think I lost.Out there, somewhere, dancing in the sunlight, is my true self. He is happy. He is dancing. He wants only for me to find him. "Get ready," he says. "We're going to have fun." |
|
| June 14 |
The day is undeniable. I spent last night on Fremont Peak. The campgrounds have spectacular views of the valleys all around. At night, I joined the FPOA for their Saturday night public lecture and telescope viewing. We looked at gamma Leo and a ring nebula in Lyrae. That's the first time I've seen a ring nebula "in person." During the slide show and lecture, the speaker showed us the Hubble Space Telescope's deep sky photograph. There were over 1500 galaxies in that one small frame of the the night sky. Such abundant life! This morning, I took a short hike near the observatory. I saw a great many wildflowers: California poppy, owl's clover, bunches of lupine, and a showy thistle I took to be Anderson's thistle, with beautiful pink blossoms. The couple at the next camp are having interpersonal difficulties centered on their dog, Dakota. Dakota got into the car as they were packing up, big muddy paws and all. The woman yelled harshly at him. The man, in turned, got angry with her. "Well, what do you expect?" he said, "Him to wipe them off?" She muttered something in reply. The man continued, "He wants to be with you. He sees you're leaving and doesn't want you to leave him behind." "I wouldn't do that," she says. "Well, he doesn't know that," he says harshly. "Come here, Dakota," she says in an exaggerated, loving voice. She hugs him. Then she starts to brush the mud out of the car. While she works, she turns on the car stereo and plays a tape. "I beg your pardon," the speakers blare out in a jaunty tune, "I never promised you a rose garden..." The man, I note, does not hug the woman. I encountered them again when I hiked to the top of Fremont Peak. Dakota and the man climbed all the way to the top, Dakota barking at the vistas. The woman stopped at the end of the trail, about 20 rocky, uneven feet from the summit. The man urged her on, but did not point out the way or offer a hand. She protested. "You can make it," he said. When she finally made it to the top, the first thing she did was cling to him. "I'm not afraid of heights," she said, "I'm afraid of falling." What, I wondered, is going to happen to this man when he finally finds out he is wrong, and it's something important? What's he going to do when the future depends on changing himself?, on being the one who is wrong and correcting himself? He's not going to have the faintest clue. He'll have no practice at it. He's not going to know what to do. |
|
| June 15 |
I spent last night with Chuck and Steve. Or rather, at Chuck and Steve's
place.
I wish I had spent the night with Chuck and Steve. They were
a lot of fun last time. But they were very gracious, if far too tired and
dreading the coming workday to frolic. They fed me a
wonderful spaghetti dinner and treated me to a video of Midnight in
the Garden of Good and Evil. As the sun set,
I took a picture of the Salinas Valley from Chuck and Steve's
back porch, looking back at Fremont Peak. I had dreams. One had me defending a report I hadn't written before a panel of experts. Apparently, I was supposed to act as if I had written, read, and understood it. In fact, I was seeing it for the first time. I was defensive, cagey, and evasive, but never admitted it wasn't my own report. The other dream involved Sara, a symbol of entrapment and codependency. Old habits, issuing a warning. This morning, the valley is full of fog. It looks like the whole world has gone away. I got up to see Chuck and Steve off to work, then went back to bed. Two more dreams ensued, both unpleasant. I remember only the last one. I was the light and sound technical director for an amateur theatrical. Betty Freiley was the director. Annoyed with her constant carping and second-by-second directing, I screwed up the lights deliberately, randomizing some of the cues. In doing so, I discovered a special effect that was really quite good. I wanted to take credit for that. But I also intentionally screwed up the sound. I didn't want to be found out about that, so I fixed it and Betty was satisfied with the results. Putting these scenes together, I get a message about authorship and responsibility. I don't need to take responsibility for something that isn't mine; I don't need to do other's work for them. I should be honest, know my boundaries and state them. There is also something about escaping from under an unreasonable authority and - by experimentation - finding something better. So, who is the unreasonable authority? My superego? Trying to punish my id? If so, it's time for my superego to take a hike. Or at least, go on vacation. I will be responsible for my id's behavior. I don't need bad dreams to drive home the point. And I will not sneak into Check and Steve's bedroom to poke around, though I would really like to. Off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then the Hermitage. |
Freemont Peak from Steve and Chuck's back porch, looking across the Salinas Valley |
| June 16 |
I've arrived at the New Camaldoli Hermitage. The oblate staffing the store
and serving as guest master was an odd duck. A couple were
browsing the bookstore, and the woman said to the guest master,
"I'm glad we saw the
sign on the highway. Otherwise, we would have missed it." "Yeah," said the oblate, "I'm not so sure that's good." He seemed to be suggesting it would be better if they had missed the sign, and missed the chance to visit the monastery. Later, I spoke with him and mentioned that they must have had a hard winter. "It was perfect," the oblate said. "You couldn't even tell there was a road down there. We got the solitude we come here for. I'm afraid it may be the last time." I also commented on the new sign. "That wasn't there last September, was it?" I asked. I had been here last September to attend the Bede Griffiths seminar. "No," he said. "It's a threat, that sign. A threat to our solitude." We talked some more about the winter storms. He described about the difficulty of supplying the monastery over the road from Fort Hunter Ligget. "But it's a beautiful drive," he added, almost apologetically. There was one more odd thing. In the midst of praising the solitude the storms brought them, he complained that the phone service was unreliable. Why would an isolationist demand regular and dependable phone service? It sounds a bit like my reaction to my first visit to the Hermitage: I don't want the world to go away. I just want it to go over there. Marc Rene cam by my little cabin for a brief visit and to set up a time tomorrow when we can spend some time together. We agreed he'd come by in the morning, we'd go for a hike, then I could join the monks in the cloister for lunch. For purely emotional reasons, I enjoy being with the brothers for lunch. It helps me feel the absence of barriers. Marc is such a lovely person. I am glad to have an attentive friend like him. The psalms at vespers were full of wonderful imagery. From Ps. 30: "At nightfall, weeping enters in, but in the morning, joy." And from Ps. 29, not used in the vespers, but very apt: "The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders. The Lord is mighty, the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the voice of the Lord strikes fiery flames, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest, and in his temple all say, 'Glory!'" And from Ps. 27: "He will conceal me in the shelter of his tent, he will set me high upon a rock." The reading was from Peter's first epistle: "You have been obedient to the truth and purified your souls until you can love like brothers, in sincerity; let your love for each other be real and from the heart. 'All flesh is grass and its glory like the wild flower's. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains for ever.'" Though the grass grows seer and the petals droop, yet the world continues. There is nothing in the impermanence of life to be afraid of. And this year, at least, I wonder if the grass will ever wilt, or the flowers cease their glad displays. |
|
| June 17 |
I continue to have unhappy dreams, mostly in the scenario of being a
teacher or a student who does not know the lesson, or must defend or
explain a lesson he does not understand or believe in. Marc and I went for a walk to Lime Kiln Creek. He is a remarkably strong spirit in what at first seems a slight, almost frail frame. He has the most sincerely blue eyes, and his blond hair and beard get wispy at times, giving him a fuzzy halo when the sun hits it right. While at the creek, we talked about our mutual discovery of our parents' inadequacies - how they were unable to give up the attention they focused on their own lives to give us the attention and love we needed as children. We spoke about how looking for that love as created difficulties in our adult lives - mine in my hunger for and fear of intimacy, his in trying to find and be his true self and not the self others seem to need him to be. I am glad to have reached a level of intimacy with Marc without traveling the well-worn path of sex. We also talked about Bede Griffiths and The Marriage of East and West. On the hike back up out of "God's Grove" (my name for the peaceful forest glen beside the creek), Marc commented on how, once out of the glen, we no longer felt the "breath" of the river. This brought up Griffiths' discussion of pneuma, which we both liked: [Owen] Barfield showed how a word like 'spirit' (Latin spiritus, Greek pneuma, Hebrew ruah, one may add Sanskrit atman) originally had many meanings. It could mean wind or air or breath or life or soul or spirit. A common understanding of this phenomenon is that the word originally meant wind or air, then as the connection between breath and air, and between life and breath and between soul and life was realized, man gradually grew in understanding until he came to conceive of a supreme universal spirit. I had lunch with the monks. One mentioned a local man who had deliberately set fires in Los Padres National Forest so he could make money renting fire fighting equipment to the Forest Service. More grist for the mystery mill. I left after the mid-day meal and headed for a campground in the middle of the Central Valley, in a region known as The Lost Hills. |
1. Marc Rene Dauphine at Lime Kiln Creek (God's Grove)
2. Lou in God's Grove (pricture taken by Marc Rene) |
| June 18 |
A Meditation on St. Peter's Epistle
"The grasses whither, the blossoms curl."
So said St. Peter to St. Paul.
Come, my love, let's give it a whirl.
Who cares if summer leads to fall?
For summer ever leads us all.
Last night, I stayed at KOA of the Damned. Some would say all KOAs are
damned. But at this one, I was awakened about 4:30 AM by a bone-bleaching
howl. Whether it came from a coyote or the campsite across from mine,
I couldn't tell. And didn't care. I packed up and left.I arrived at Lake Isabella after driving up the Kern River. The sides of the river canyon were awash with blue and purple flowers. The early morning sunlight slanting through them was especially enchanting. I found my next stop - Hobo Campgrounds - and camped at one of the few unreserved and unflooded campsites. Then I went looking for Remmington Hot Springs, which was supposed to be up the road a piece. I nearly died at this place. I found the path to the springs easily enough and, as the guidebook said, followed the path that went steeply down from the road about 300 feet to the Kern River. Going down, I slipped on a gravelly slope and skinned my right need badly. All for nothing, it seemed, for when I arrived at the river the spring and the two tubs meant to contain it were nowhere to be found. The extraordinary run-off from the winter snow melt had completely hidden them. If they were still intact, they were about ten feet out in the rushing current of the very cold Kern. Disappointed, I started back. When I reached the steep slope where I had slid, I leaned forward so my hands could grab the trail as well as my feet. I made it halfway up the slope, paused briefly, then gathered myself for the next lunge, another 50 feet or so. I knew the car was not far from the top of that steep incline. I made it to the top and leaned against a rock in the shade. But something was wrong. I could not stop panting. I didn't seem to be taking in any air. My heart was pounding and would not slow down. I closed my eyes. I was feeling dizzy and slightly nauseated. I was also becoming alarmed. I opened my eyes briefly - and grew very frightened. There was no color. There were the outlines of shapes. I could see the leaves on the trees before me trembling slightly. But everything was an oily texture, devoid of contrast, depth, or color. It was painful to look at. I shut my eyes. "Heatstroke," I thought, and panicked. If I passed out, I would roll back down the hillside. No one would be looking for me. I'd be done for, cooked. There was water, but it was in the car. "Stupid, stupid," I said to myself. "How can you die here on this hillside when you have so many plans?" But then came a calm, rational thought. Up here, even 200 feet above the flooded Kern, a breeze would suddenly pass by. I remembered Marc's words about "the breath of the river, the spirit of the river." Spirit, breath, life. With my eyes still shut against the painful light, I pulled my shirt over my head and held my arms out from my sides. I was rewarded almost at once by a cool breeze. I stayed that way for several minutes. Slowly, my panting grew less desparate, my heartbeat less painful. The dizziness faded. I was able to open my eyes a slit. It hurt, but there was color. Green. And beyond it, blue. A few more minutes and I was able to open my eyes all the way. I finished the hike back up to the car walking as if the world were an eggshell and at any moment I might break through it and disappear. At the car was water and fruit juice and shade. The flowers resumed their normal hues, and the smell of a blooming buckeye told me I was once again firmly in this world. That evening, while soaking in the pool at Miracle Hot Springs (a much more accessible and crowded springs next to Hobo Campgrounds), I talked to and made friends with a man who was travling with a Green Turtle tour group. A nice man, we talked about biology, quantum physics, and ethics, and then he invited me to share dinner with his group. Afterwards, I showed him my car and how I use it as a camper. He said, "When you're out camping like this, don't you get lonely?" I said, "One of the reasons I go camping like this is for the solitude. I get lonely sometimes, but I can always go to the next campt or visit someone along the way. I could travel with a group like you, but then I wouldn't get the solitude." |
A buckeye in full bloom on the hillside above Remington Hot Springs |
| June 19 |
An old man at the Bodfish Grocery and General Store said that they had
had a very late snow and several days of slow, cool rain. That's why
there were so many wildflowers. "That woke 'em up," he said. Rather than heading directly for Lone Pine, I took a short trip to Red Rocks State Park and then a side trip to a do-it-yourself opal mine recommended in the AAA guidebook. That was a mistake. Although the signs said the mine was open, there was no one there. After traveling 30 minutes over twisting, barely passable desert roads, I was feeling a bit put out. I looked around. Trailers, but no cars. After yesterday's experience at Remmington Hot Springs, I wasn't about to wander around the desert by myself. I picked up a rock that might or might not have a bit of opal in it and left. Signs I saw on the way to Tommy's:
The first night in Lone Pine, Tom and I talked about relationships: his with Sasha, mine with Bob and how I thought things were going with Curtis and Don. "When I left," I said, "Curtis wanted to know if I'd miss him. Don asked me to send him a picture of a naked man from everywhere I went. That pretty much sums up the difference between them." Tom mentioned that he'd once seen Bob at the Steamworks in Berkeley. It was the first time he had ever seen Bob's dick. He found this remarkable, since we'd all been housemates for more than a year. He also noted that, although Bob was having sex in a private room, the door was left open. I said that fit. We had a laugh about how Bob and I had beat Tom and his boyfriend to having sex on the condemned Embarcadero Freeway. Bob tried to time it so I would come just as the clock on the Ferry Building was striking eight. We almost made it, too. Tom said he was completely surprised when Bob and I broke up. "You two seemed so happy." "We were happy," I said, "but it was an illusion." Tom asked me to explain. I didn't do too well, but I think what I meant was that we took each other for the image of what we thought would make us happy, and because we had what we said we wanted, we were happy. But it was not what either of us really needed. When each saw he couldn't really give what the other needed, it was very sad. There was genuine grief. There had been genuine happiness, but then there was genuine sorrow. "You know, I think Bob was jealous of you," I said to Tom. He was astonished. "Not sexually jealous," I said, "but jealous of the attention. You'd come home on weekends and the two of us would do this kind of brain dump. I think Bob was jealous of that." Bob and I would also engage in these "brain dumps." Bob's mind fascinated me. It was so bright and eager, so willing to share the excitement of its discoveries. When an idea delighted him, he flooded the space around him with that joy. I loved to soak in it. He wasn't consciously giving it away anymore than a candle gives away light. It was there, it was spontaneous, and I ate it up. So much of that spontaneous joy was missing from my childhood. My mother could do it, and perhaps there's where I learned to love it. It made the world safe and liveable, inviting, a home. His laughter made a home that I could live in, that I wanted to live in. It occurs to me, before I go to bed, that Don also frequents the Steamworks. The possibilities for gay soap opera are endless. |
