Pass the Beret

Survision has been up in the blogosphere for almost one year! It's such a surprise to me that I've been able to do this, through a wild and woolly time, complete with sudden deaths, community-wide disaster, and ever more profound appreciation for this place I call home.

Blogging has been a wonderful, life-saving process for me. The feedback I've received from Survision readers has warmed the cockles of m' heart, as they say. What lovely souls you all are, thank you.

We're expecting an epic winter season, with mud-slides, flooding, and avalanches of rocks (check out this amazing "debris flow" You-Tube clip) thanks to the de-foliating power of the Basin Complex fire. Since I don't want to rely on unemployment, it feels like time to pass the blogging beret, so to speak.

Checking with the Big Sur Bakery, which makes the fanciest latté in town, I learned that the special local's price for this energizing libation is — $4.25.

So now, for the price of a once-a-month discounted coffee beverage, you can subscribe to Survision for ongoing news and whimsy from Big Sur!

Some of the topics I plan on continuing to develop include:

• Profiles of our unique Big Sur children, their experience of growing up on the coast and where they're headed in the big bad world.

• Our artists, painters, writers, sculptors, musicians and lovers: their inspiration, challenges and joys.

• Big Sur Goddesses, some of the most awe-inspiring women around, full of deep wisdom and wild humor.

• Celebrations of life in our majestic and sometimes demanding environment.

The beret sitting beside me on the Internet sidewalk is the bright yellow button to your left that says "Subscribe". It's just one tap of the mouse, there's that's it! Thank you.

Early morning fog tuck, Partington Ridge
Latté, Big Sur style
Aerial back country view post fire (the "O" marks our home)

Cricket in the House

In these last days of summer, I'm reminded of another reason (beyond the moon and the stars) that I live in Big Sur: the symphony of crickets that come out in the warm evenings to sing.

There's a huge community of serenading Gryllidae in our garden. Like La Tuna in Spain, they start up around sunset and go pretty much all night, chirping below our (imaginary) balcony.

I've always thought they harmonized beautifully: one group making a see-sawing chirp, the other a long, low hum. It's mesmerizing, soothing, the perfect lullaby for sleeping under the stars. The last time I listened to their concert this way, I saw a shooting star, truly one of life's great moments.

There's a tiny tribe that lives in the passion flower arch on our walkway. When we stand beneath it late at night, they give us an intimate performance, in surround-sound.

Last week, I cut some passion flower vines and put them in a vase above my bed. Late that night I was awoken by a lonely little green cricket, singing right next to me. It's considered good luck to have a cricket in your house in many cultures. It can mean the arrival of money (yes please!) or other good things.

So I did a little research on my insect friends. And, oh god, what did I find? (I should have known.) All those crickets are having sex (or crying out for it) especially this time of year, before the long, cold winter.

It's the males who sing, either to attract females (and repel other males) with the see-saw chirp or to broadcast their post-coital bliss to the heavens (the happy hum.) It's called stridulation, and they do it by rubbing their right forewing against the ribs on their powerful left forewing, kind of like playing a violin. Now that's exciting!

Where the crickets live

Be a Goddess

Or just move like one...

On my last day at Middle Eastern Dance and Music Camp in Mendocino this past week, I read this off the tiny skirt of the woman walking to breakfast ahead of me. I had to laugh. So that's what it's all about, moving like a Goddess, enjoying that siren song of immortal femininity. Moving like a Goddess will make you feel like one. It's true.

I'd accepted my dance teacher's challenge to spend a week in the Mendocino redwoods immersed in the scene: multiple classes a day, from Arabic singing to Persian dancing, with a full-tilt live music Middle-Eastern cabaret each night until dawn, no kidding. People of all ages and walks of life came to study dance, drumming, violin, kanun, zorna, nay, oud and more. My roommates were two little drummer girls from Santa Barbara and I felt like a shocked parent to hear them return each morning, usually, though not always, later than myself.

Watching Shoshanna, Ruby and Nadira dance the night away with their tribe of sisters, and joining in the joyous movement myself gave me some lovely, inspiring memories. Cabaret style belly dancers are truly the peacocks of the Middle Eastern dance world, and those of us transforming ourselves from ducklings to peacocks love the contact high of sensual, confident womanhood.

Men dance too! After Turkish dancer Ahmet Luleci's late-night cabaret performance, I teased him about his costume (or lack of one) "What, this Calvin Klein shirt's not good enough?" he laughed. While I may be a tiny bit biased, I don't think the men work as hard as the women at dancing...they strike magnificent poses, though.

"Translate the music with your body!" says renowned Arab percussionist and outstanding dance teacher Souhail Kaspar, (who reminded me a little of Yul Brynner in the 1956 movie The King and I.) "This is the way you can honor my culture." And of course, like learning a language, you have to learn it the way it's actually spoken by native speakers. To see the teasing between drummer and dancer was one of the best treats of my week. This kind of subtlety is lost when the dance goes completely fusion, with no consciousness of the art form's history, foundation or structure.

While American Bellydance specializes in a fusion of east and west, certain fundamentals of interpreting the music will always apply. That is, unless dancers want musicians to hear the metaphorical fingernails on the chalkboard when they perform in their luscious (and very expensive) Sheherazade costumes.

Dancers themselves are not necessarily passionately in love or more sensually fulfilled than the average Jane Doe. They face the same challenges as all women. But they are fulfilled in the dance, which is an expression of happiness within. They seem to live more in their womanhood. The body, after all, is often our greatest teacher. After much work and exploration, it is where our deepest truths can be found.

The real eye-opener (or ear opener) of the week was the beauty and power of dancing to live music. Lighthearted kanun player Hasan Issakut, with his million dollar smile (his friends say he's George Clooney's double) had no toys until he was 8 years old, when his gypsy Dad gave him a violin that became his “imaginary friend.” The first composition on his CD, "Joy Regardless" is titled, unabashedly, "I love you."

Lebanese-Palestinian violinist Georges Lamman, with his sweet pout and dour sense of humor, taught singing and violin. His students sang transliterated Arabic love songs, while he accompanied on his melancholy violin. A variety of drums kept everyone moving, the heartbeat of the week. The music is passionate, romantic, and festive. Passion, after all, is ultimately about pain, so much of the music is about lost love: I love you and I gave you my all, only to be scorned! Or dance and play now, these are the best times, when the Divine joins us on earth.

Yes, Middle-Eastern male musicians do have a well-deserved reputation. Not much drinking, but certainly a lot of focused appreciation for the feminine, fueled in part perhaps by all those ancient, seductive dance moves, mixed with passionate, joyous music. Find yourself in your body with the music and you will learn amazing things; about yourself, and about your community of fellow-travelers in this life.

A dancer, like an athlete, must do the work to create the high. It’s a practice art and even when the practice is boring, stressful, or disappointing in some way, we keep doing it. Through this work we reap the benefits of a healthier body and spirit. Constantly practicing the necessary mental and physical stength can eventually make the dance look easy. The true thrill is when that transformation takes place.

"Be a pretty martini glass," says Souhail's protegé Zeva, as we hit the downbeat with alternating feet, while Zajira of Black Sheep Belly Dance says she sees herself as one of those antique dolls with strings connecting rib-cage and pelvis. The pelvis hangs from those strings, which swirl around in our hip circles. The "urban tribal" dancers are the most committed in their way, with brightly colored hair and tattoos. It's a trance like form, with the leader guiding the troupe through spontaneous choreographies.

"What’s going on in my head is not always what’s really going on," says the beautiful Nadira, who gave a mesmerizing performance at the cabaret. Yet her internal state was quite different, critical, self-doubting. How funny! Standing in the bathroom, wrapped in our towels post-shower, we have a deep snippet of conversation about the nature of reality. Perception alone is not reality, instead it's a combination of perception and objective truth. The practice of this highly complex dance can lead one to think in these ways.

Dancers and musicians, like all performers, live most vividly in the Now, and understand that no one can do your work for you. This translates into a higher level of personal responsibility. While so much of what we achieve and learn happens in community, I alone am my pilot. No one’s coming to save me. Who'd have thought that this could be not only a liberating concept, but also an exciting one?

Gawahzee dancers of the 19th century
The divine Ruby
Ahmet in fine form
Sheherezade
Ahmet & Hassan share a laugh
Souhail bangs the drum for Aisha
The lovely Janikea
Zajira
Nadira
Casbah stage
For more pics, go to my Flickr site!

A very special season

It's late afternoon in summer at the ball park, warm sun casting long redwood and sycamore tree shadows on the infield. The crack of bat against ball, thwack of ball into mitt, voices calling out “Nice hit!” “Go, go, go!” and “Come on home!” And sweetest of all to a former “four eyed", ball-wary kid, "Nice try!"

Some years back, a very eccentric lady used to play a wooden flute to discombobulate the opposing team. When up at bat, players braced themselves for Crazy Jane’s serenade. Today, strains of Bob Marley stream across the field, played on someone’s car stereo.

Once again, Big Sur "Socko" Softball is in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The park celebrates its 75th birthday on Saturday August 23. "Socko" a close relation of softball, was introduced in Monterey in the 50's. It's been played in the Big Sur State Park since 1976. In the rogue's gallery of winning team photos you can identify retired players, and see the fathers of some current ones. The fashions have changed, but the collective glee of the winners is consistent down the years.

Is Life a drama or a game? With sports, there’s drama within the game, but the objectives are always clear, hit the ball, make the run, score the point. The opportunity to make a memorable play, the one your friends talk about after the game, is always out there. And then there's the audience of neighbors, families, and friends. Hanging out and watching the game is a favorite pastime too.

With 16 games canceled due to the huge Basin Complex wildfire that threatened the park last month, league players are happier than ever to play ball. Pitchers pitch to their own team members, so the batters get the pitches they like. To offset this advantage they get only two strikes, not three. So there's lots of hits and lots of runs in this game, making them much more interesting than pro games, with their stolid pace and intense competition.

On this field, players can make mistakes! There's a preponderance of fly balls. Team members encourage each other through the good and bad plays and loudly dispute the bad calls. Joshing each other as only small town intimates can, they gossip behind home plate, steal bases, suffer minor (and sometimes major) injuries. Above all, they laugh, a lot. Umpires mimic big league banter to everyone's amusement. Where else but on a locals' playing field can a 50-year old sport the imprint of baseball stitches on his forehead with pride?

It feels like real play.

Players are waitresses, bartenders, chefs, gardeners, business owners, salespeople, health center, hotel and construction workers who double as artists, surfers, renegades and all-around bohemians. In yet another strange twist of fate, this past Sunday the Cielo restaurant at Ventana Inn burned down in a fire that began in the kitchen. This afternoon Ventana's team is out on the field, playing Fernwood's Dogs for a bit of "normalcy."

Socko Commissioner Chris Counts says, "Big Sur Socko is the Wild, Wild West of Softball. We have 8 teams and over a 100 players in a town of less than a 1000 year-round residents. Just about anything can happen out on the field, and much of it is very funny. We might look serious out there from time to time, but for the most part, this is a very lighthearted league."

Big Sur Socko has a couple of interesting rules, unique to the park's habitat: the "Tree Ball", meaning if your batted ball hits the sycamore tree encroaching on left field, or the redwoods on the edge of right field, you're entitled to sashay over to first base.

Counts' favorite rule is the "In Play" vegetation rule: All balls that reach vegetation between the left field line and the embankment (known colloquially as the dyke) in right-center field are "in play." "In every other league, they would call balls that go into the vegetation 'dead,'" he says, "meaning that a player gets one base and has to stop. By making those balls 'live,' defenders confront an interesting dilemma ... is it worth getting poison oak to stop a runner from scoring?"

In addition to the pleasure of whooping and hollering for your friends, the softball scene is a special treat: sitting on the benches outside the diamond, fans look up to see the formerly green, now charred, slopes of Mt. Manuel. The lines are the same, the peaceful face of the mountain looking down onto the ball field, inspiring faith in a world made safe again, at least for a while.


Rosie Kenworthy, grown up tomboy, has been playing ball with the boys in her neighborhood since she was 9 years old. Before batting, she paws the dirt with the ball of her left foot, does a quick little hip shimmy, then, crack! She's off to first base. Real Big Sur ball players carry their mitts in their cars, artfully dodge the multiple squirrel burrows that pock-mark the field, and are always up for a little celebration post-game. Despite rivalries that sometimes arise even in this bucolic setting, at each game's end opposing team members high five each other, and say, "Good game."

"Field of Trees" photo by Chris Counts
Hayden Will with Dad's mitt
Dale Diesel comes home
Slopes of Mt. Manuel
Rosie at bat
"Good game"
(photos by Linda Sonrisa)

Fire relief, Big Sur style

Some of what I'm hearing from my neighbors and friends these days:

"I'm home. It looks the same, but everything is different."
"My attention span has evaporated. I can't relax completely, can't even distract myself with a book or a movie."
"I have fire dreams."
"It feels like we're in a time warp, living a dream."

Or maybe like a movie, when at the end, we realize the heroine has been dead all along, and we've just watched a flashback of her life's last moments. Living in Big Sur is dream-like anyway. We constantly pinch ourselves at our good luck in being here. To think that really, Big Sur is gone, and we're only playing out her idealized survival in our minds, is just too eerie. This ghoulish thought fades away though, as I see the ferns growing back, already, in the ashes. Renewal!

One thing I think many of us feel now, is a kind of nostalgia for the present moment. I thought the possibility of a certain experience was gone forever, and here I am living it again. For example, listening to my neighbor's enormous orange rooster, Harold, crow throughout the day from his coop in the redwood forest below us. Miraculously, he and his sister hens survived, let loose in the forest during the 2 1/2 weeks of mandatory evacuation. Or simply sitting and looking at the ocean, hearing the crickets, feeling the warm summer breeze.

Last weekend, a local couple brought a free meditation weekend workshop to the Big Sur community, at the Big Sur Lodge, led by the folks at the Art of Living Foundation. It was well-attended and very rewarding, according to friends who participated. I almost went, but stayed home to record the minutes of the ridge's annual homeowners' meeting, an exhaustive post-fire debrief. We also painted the entire inside of my house very bright colors, which helped too. It's easy to be cheery in a house with walls of celadon, pumpkin and turquoise.

As I looked at the delicate Peruvian lilies in my kitchen sink Saturday morning, trimming them up and putting them into a vase, I remembered learning about flowers from a book I bought at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden after my house burned down in 1991: The Clover and the Bee, a Book of Pollination.

Quite the naughty title, I remember thinking. I read it thoroughly and centered myself, coming to earth again as I looked at the precise drawings of pistils, stamens, stigmas, corollas, petals and sepals. Not to mention the glorious, moist anther! This morning I inspect each flower's nectar guides, little landing strips for pollinators. It's all about da birds and da bees, I mused. Even flowers advertise sex. Eat here! Pollinate me!

There's nothing like a children's book if you want to learn something new, perhaps something you wished you'd learned as a child. The presentation, the language, the use of illustration, in this case, impeccable, by the "grandmother of contemporary botanical artists", Anne Ophelia Dowden. These books are all geared for the openness of a child's mind. Ideally this is how we all can learn, throughout life, approaching learning like play.

Taking a breath, pausing to really observe something simple, brings my soul into focus. This process helps me trust life. If I can savor each moment, then the terrors around the corner just aren't that bad.

And support, like renewal, abounds: If you'd like to help our community as it faces the rock and landslides to come this winter, you may want to attend the Big Sur Fire Relief Gala Benefit on Saturday August 9, at the Monterey Conference Center. Or make a donation! Funds will go to the Big Sur Fire Relief Fund, the Big Sur and Mid Coast Volunteer Fire Brigades, the Big Sur Fire Management Planning Process, and the rebuilding and restoration process.

Come back to the five and dime, Sarah Jane

Here is Big Sur's own lovely Sarah Jane Nichols, born in the Dome House on Partington Ridge on July 11, 1981. Nature child, accomplished horsewoman, Londoner, actress and aspiring celebrity. A woman of unique confidence and experience, Sarah is a beloved soul.

My first vision of the teenage Sarah: On a summer afternoon, sunlight filters through the dust on the road, the air smells of bay and eucalyptus. I’m energized from my long walk. I hear the rhythmic rustling of leaves and look up to see a maiden on horseback coming up the path, bathed in picture-perfect light.

Atop a bay horse, she wears a proper riding helmet and sits in an English saddle. Horse and rider move quickly past me and then break into a canter up a small slope on the other side of the road, birds twittering in their wake. It was a scene right out of my imaginary childhood, a glorious moment.

Sarah was on horseback before she could walk. Mom Sula Nichols sat her on Sheba, her Aunt Kate's mare. There was a mule that used to follow Sheba everywhere, and she'd sit on the mule. Sula taught her the fundamentals of the ancient art of horsemanship. "When I was a little girl, before I could ride on my own, I used to dream of galloping horses by myself," she says. Now, when she rides Jake, a Friesian horse, she says she feels like a knight, in shining armor.

These days, she does "3-day eventing" working with the equestrian set in Pebble Beach. This is cross-country, show jumping and dressage. She trained and competed in France, England and Germany for four years. "If it's in your blood it doesn't go away," she says. "Horses are the most intuitive creatures on the planet. They're amazing athletes and performers. I love how they communicate, especially the problem ones. I'm kind of a 'horse therapist'," she laughs.

When she was ten years old, Sarah lost her Dad, Lewis Nichols, in an “over the edge” car accident. The narrow roads and steep cliffs in Big Sur are unforgiving to wild young men. The event, she says, shaped her life. She wears a sweet tattoo in the small of her back, composed of a horseshoe, a California poppy, and her Dad’s initials.

“When something hurts so bad, it is almost a relief when it starts to hurt less, even though you’re still in pain. You know you will never feel as bad as you did at first.” Talk about a mature perspective. To go through life knowing what real loss really is, she says is both "a strength and a weakness." Sarah is a rare creature, profoundly sensitive and tough as nails. Growing up in Big Sur with her loving family has helped her enormously, she says.

Some of her favorite first memories include: "The smell of the dirt in the summer time, going up the road. The smell of the heat and the dirt, maybe it's the oak or bay trees that give the air that smell, I don't know. The feeling of the air, not too warm, not too cold, perfect." Spoken like a true horsewoman. "Calling out to my cousins, Vanessa and Warren, who live up the road, with bird calls. We used to go down the hill in our Big Wheels, totally naked, using out bare feet for brakes. We did that as long as we fit on the bikes. Covering ourselves in mud and painting designs on ourselves with pomegranate seeds. Oh, and bareback riding in the moonlight."

When I ask Sarah what she wants most in life, she replies, without missing a beat, "To be famous," then quickly backs away from that, talking about happiness, and the usual blah blah blah. I encourage her to go for what she really wants. She's ridiculously photogenic, and has great presence. Perhaps most important of all, she has grit. She's our own young Brigitte Bardot, a vibrant siren with a tender heart.

The Basin Complex wildfire that touched down on Partington Ridge destroyed Sarah's family home. Nestled against the mountain, looking down the canyon to the ocean, it's a spot where you are often above the clouds, eye-to-eye with hawks and condors, looking down on all of creation. The family plans to rebuild, and she'll be part of that process.

Sarah Jane's fans hope she'll always come back to our five and dime...to grace us with her light.

Sarah as a wee sprite
With equine friends Derek Zoolander and Jake
Puppy pile in Mexico with brothers Torre, Jasper and sister Layla
Glam shots of Sarah
No, that's not Sarah on the right, but Brigitte Bardot, in the '60s

Armageddon cigarettes

I fell off the cigarette wagon on Wednesday, July 2, the day Big Sur went into mandatory evacuation. Yep, I'm a closet smoker, have been for years. I quit, with much ceremony, 6 months ago, saving that final butt in a Veuve Cliquot matchbox, tucked into my jewelry box.

But when the flames were coming down the mountains, I bought a pack of American Spirits (the good cigarettes) and proceeded to smoke like a fiend, air quality be damned. Then I gave away the pack, keeping a few in my glove box as my "Armageddon cigarettes," you know, the ones you smoke when the world is coming to an end, or your world is anyway.

If only it wasn't so bad for you. When I'm smoking it's usually just a couple a day, but there is no really sane justification for the act of inhaling tobacco. I began while a college student in Madrid, and so smoking reminds me of black coffee in cafés, train rides, and coyly asking the nearest attractive man for a light. "Tienes fuego?" "Do you have fire?"

Both my parents smoked when I was a kid, but quit. I succumbed to peer pressure because, hanging out in nightclubs and cafés in Spain I looked even more Californian /American as a non-smoker. I remember people proffering cigarettes from their packs like sticks of gum while standing around, drinking "copas." I had a lover who smoked "el tabaco negro." He was from Cataluña, and is probably dead now, or very sick, he smoked so damn much.

So, smoking recalls my mis-spent youth. I imagine it confers an erotic elegance to my persona, and is my comfort when the old hand to mouth thing kicks in when I'm sad or nervous. I should have kept sucking my thumb instead. Then there's that subversive urge to say, the hell with it, who wants to live a long time anyway? Old movies were also my downfall. Watching them now I marvel at the complete abandon the actors have in smoking (and drinking.) Lucky sods. Until they got old and had to breathe out of a tube.

In Japan, it seems the population's longevity adversely impacts the universal health care system. Hence, the amusing tobacco warning on packs there—"Please, try not to smoke too much." Long, lonely drives in my car were always a problem, the siren call of the cigarette louder than usual. Plus I have probably risked my life digging about in my purse (while driving) for a mint or a stick of gum immediately after smoking, to "cleanse my palate" so to speak.

I'm of the tobacco smoke screen school, using it to shut down feelings, and gather my thoughts instead. Like any addiction, it's being intimate with a habit instead of with myself or other human beings. Having a smoke is just so much damn easier than that.

Sometimes I take tiny cocktail straws, those itty bitty ones, and breathe through them, since someone once told me the experience mimics emphysema. OK, OK, so I'm quitting again, this is the point of this post, to really "grow up," bust myself on this nasty, secret habit and come clean for good.

Let's take a poll: Will I succeed this time? What will the last cigarette be like? Will I have a ritual and burn that last pack, or ask a friend (again) to store it in her kitchen drawer, 40 miles away from me? Will I lament losing my sense of immortality? Will I keep one or two hidden ones back, to enjoy without guilt when I find them weeks later? I've given up on my Birthday, and on New Year's many times over. I've pondered that last cigarette, infusing it with all kinds of meaning. I will remember everything in that moment. I'll be like the Indian (on the American Spirit package!) smoking my peace pipe one last time.

I'll tell you a secret: what works for me now is not concern for my lungs, but for the skin on my face. I love my face, and as I approach (finally) maturity (the half-century mark is looming) it is falling, just a bit. Smoking....get this...causes WRINKLES. This cannot be. I will fight crow's feet (which I can see) harder than polluted lungs (which I cannot.)

I smoked my last cigarette last night on Highway One, driving home after enjoying a cocktail with a girlfriend in Monterey. When I pulled over to heed nature's call (hey, it's something we Big Sur girls do discreetly outdoors, one of life's lesser known pleasures) I looked up to see something I haven't seen since before the fire: the glorious Milky Way. YES! The Moon and the Milky Way, the real reasons I live on this coast.

You know the problem with the "Armageddon cigarette" approach? I always smoke that damn last cigarette before Armageddon, which of course is always just around the corner. But I'm going to make a public commitment here, to really stop. So Mom, if you're reading this, that was my last cigarette at 10:30pm last night, driving over Bixby Bridge. For real.