Quiet Days in Big Sur

The road is quiet. It has a stillness, like an empty stadium after a big game. One wants to walk slowly around its curves breathing deeply, stand in yoga poses at the vista points, and dance along the tops of the stone walls that stare down at the sea.

Without traffic (and there's been almost none at all this past week) Highway One invites contemplation. This quiet feeling permeates our daily lives right now. Perhaps the landscape's level of grandeur needs an empty stage to remind us of the solitude it lived in for so very, very long.

The ancient, enormous forces that shaped this land are more evident when we're shaken out of our daily routines. The road has a secret, which we are distracted from learning when it's busy with tourist traffic: this ribbon of road is the edge of the world as we know it.

Friday evening, as I drove home from the valley towards the ridge, my pickup truck was the only beast on the road for some ten miles. As I dimmed the headlights on the straightaways, the slopes of the cliffs transformed into sleeping animals, while pine trees loomed large along the asphalt trail. The flashes of darkness, then silver moonlight, recalled earlier times when night travel happened only when the moon was full.

Recently, Big Sur folks have made "border crossings" over the slide twice daily, a source of annoyance, but also of amusement and community. As the rains have slowed, people have reported enjoying a brisk morning walk beside their neighbors (even in an un-caffeinated state!) while helping each other push carts full of groceries back up and over the collapsed road in the afternoon.

Since the walkovers have been carefully timed, I learned a new expression in Spanish while driving my friend Mary to the bridge at 6:40 am: "Písale!" (meaning "Step on it!" ) she yelled over the roar of my truck careening through the Big Sur Valley at just over 60 mph. As I watched Mary walk towards the bend in the road, her pack on on her back, I found myself thinking about refugees crossing a mountain pass, leaving Shangri-la...

All of us living here have our road warrior stories. Title this new chapter the "Rocky Creek Slide" and add to it another chapter, begun two days ago, "Alder Creek Monster Slide" which we're told will keep Highway One to the south of Gorda closed for a month. After seeing this photo, you'll believe it.

As of April 15, the only way into Big Sur is over Nacimiento-Fergusson Road. A 2-3 hour detour which begins in the basin of the Valley of the Oaks in Jolon. Now here's more good news: tucked into the corner of this valley is Mission San Antonio de Padua. Built in 1771, it contains countless timeless pieces of the past in its small museum. There's also a wine press, a millstone, and as my young friend Nigel demonstrates here, a 200 year-old olive tree.

Visiting the Missions has always moved me, maybe because they remind me of my 1960's California childhood experience of struggling to build them out of sugar cubes, cardboard and clay in elementary school.

Saint Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, the one who guides us to hidden treasures, so it seems appropriate to visit him on your way to Big Sur. This route to the coast has its share of surprises too: perhaps you'll see the mysterious herd of thundering elk, smell the grape jelly scent of fields of lupine or feel a calm sense of awe as you come to the crest of the mountain above Lucia.

As the Buddhist teaching goes: Impermanence is the essence of life (or as my Dad used to say, The only constant in life is change). On this Friday, April 22 Highway One will re-open at the Rocky Creek Slide. This latest news proves again that it's possible to simultaneously feel great relief and nostalgia for difficult times.

Nigel at the Mission Olive tree photo by Margaret Goeden

Here we go again

Just when we think we're really part of the 21st century here in Big Sur (cell phones, satellite TV, internet cafés under the redwoods) Mother Nature comes along and whompers us.

This is what She did last week, the day before St. Paddy's Day. The fields and mountains in Big Sur are shamrock green, while the earth is wet and getting wetter with the Spring storms. Last Wednesday the southbound lane on Highway One, between Rocky Creek and Bixby Bridge, collapsed in magnificent fashion, beginning a decisive slide down a 200' sandy cliff towards the sea.

I snapped the photo above while crossing over the danger zone the morning after the event, carrying bags to our car in the bright cold sunlight on the "other side". Since it's a tiny dinosaur of a cell phone camera, I had to get very close to the buckling asphalt, to the concern of those around me.

"Honey, it's not a screen-saver," my husband said. Wait, holding a camera makes you a superhero, right? Walking back across the damaged road without shielding myself with technology, the scene somehow became more real.

I asked the two gentleman standing above the gaping hole that was once a highway, "So when are the engineers showing up to fix this?" "Engineers don't fix things, we fix things!" they said emphatically.

"What about putting in a one-lane road over there?" Playing the know-it-all local, I pointed to the empty flat space next to the northbound lane. "It's not so stable," replied the Sheriff standing nearby. So I jumped up high, landing firmly on the pavement, just to see what would happen. "Good thing you're little" they said and we all had a good laugh in the early morning sunshine.

Those of us who were here for 1998's El Niño season remember months of an impassable highway, reduced employment, insanely long "town runs" for supplies. And yet, in light of recent global events, this one just doesn't feel like such a hardship.

"Hardship" is defined as "a condition that is difficult to endure; suffering; deprivation; oppression". What we are experiencing here, (as a friend said wisely as we conferred at the Post Office yesterday) is “inconvenience”.

It's dark, stormy, and cold this morning, but there is a songbird singing in the wet woods beside our house, high true notes, as if it were warm and sunny outside, singing for his mate, to help build his nest and comfort him on the coming summer evenings.

Did I say it was cold? People are beginning to get concerned with filling their propane tanks, and grateful for the wood they've held onto over the winter months. Fortunately, I am one of those who still find it romantic to build a fire. We are living like quasi-gypsies: flashlights, vitamins and overnight bags in the car, ready for a sleepover somewhere other than home, due to a downed tree, power line or slide.

Fields of lupin and poppies are on the way, early spring Daffodils are drooping but beautiful. A symphony of happy frogs, birdsong and pouring rain: it's Spring in Big Sur!


Itty bitty pictures taken by Linda Sonrisa on her cell phone

The Three Mouseketeers

You might ask: how did this happen? How did two dog and wild bird-loving grown-ups end up with not one, not two, but three cats?

Here are some possible anwers:
Mice and their large cousins, rats, are everywhere in Big Sur, happy rural rodents with big appetites and no sense of decorum (running across the dining room floor at dinner time, for example, or squawling and gnawing all night between the walls).

Kittens are irresistible. And when someone hands you the one you didn't choose, 'cause the one you wanted is playing hard to get, well, you can't say no, can you?

We actually have a secret craving to be mauled by furry creatures who climb on top of us in bed. Oh, wait, that could be, um, misinterpreted.

So here they are, the three mouseketeers, in their favorite team snuggle position: Lola Augustina, Lady Pearl Grey, and Minerva Minnie-Moo. Three great mousers who still regularly go through tubs of cat food and vats of milk. Lola is curious, Pearl is calm, and Minnie (the previously shy one) will be all over you in no time, just like the proverbial "cheap suit."

Our dog is endlessly patient, enduring their curiosity, sniffing noses with them and staring back into their feline eyes. He only snaps at them when they get too familiar with his food bowl.

We have been invaded by this trio, and find ourselves to be happy collaborators in the good life they're enjoying in our home. They are living art, really. You never know where they'll turn up in a domestic tableau: beside the vase of calla lilies on the dining table, stretched out on the sheepskin beside the altar, or perched on the yoga deck staring out to sea. They pop up everywhere, reminders from the animal kingdom to check in with this moment and purr with contentment.

To be honest, we have asked, "want one?" to a few friends, only to realize that we could never choose which one to part with. So, we have three cats. A trinity of feline love that graces our home. And when the three-headed cat stares down at us in the mornings, meowing for breakfast, we laugh. In this way we remember just how silly we are, and how blessed, too.

photo by Toby Rowland-Jones

Snow on the Mountain!

Brrrrr! If I was really adventurous, I would have hiked to the top of the ridge and jumped in the snow drifts there this weekend.

However, I have a life-long dread of snow. Which I think may be hereditary (my mother left Minnesota for the same reason that Sam McGee longed to go home to Tennessee). She taught me the Cremation of Sam McGee (a ballad her father used to recite as well) and told me to buck up on cold California mornings on my way to school: ("It's nothing like Bemidji, darling," she'd laugh.)

So, snow is very exotic in my world. I've never skied (well, cross country once, in high desert, not especially alpine snow near the Grand Canyon) and now that I'm edging closer to the age of well, let's just say it, frailer bones, I'm not interested risking it. Give me a cute outfit though, and I can do the aprés ski thing fine.

It was 30 degrees on Partington Ridge most of the weekend, and I enjoyed tending the home fires, doing yoga, reading the New Yorker and assorted creation myths I've just discovered in one of the many, many books I own that I have yet to read. A true bookworm party-girl of the old school, I enjoyed a glass of champagne while taking a very HOT shower Sunday afternoon, opening the window to yell at the cats who were circling the bird feeder hanging from the olive tree. Yep, I'd say that's eccentricity!
photos by Linda Sonrisa

Coming home

Something we quietly acknowledge about living here in Big Sur, our sweet little secret is this: it's GREAT to come home, from anywhere. Whether from a day trip to Salinas or a month in Bali, as we drive back down Highway One we feel the magic.

We have our special rituals, places where we stop, get out of the car, take great gulps of fresh air, reach up our arms and smile. Looking down that coast at cliffs, ocean, clouds, perhaps a condor or two, we experience the involuntary ahhhh of the exhale and mmmmmm of the inhale. If we're returning at night, there's nothing like that moment of looking up, throat open, wonder streaming down, as we gaze at the abundance of twinkling stars in the heavens welcoming us home.

Right now I feel like I'm in a state of grace. So this is what a week-long yoga retreat (in the jungles of Mexico) does to the soul. Four hours per day of yoga and meditation. Further enriched by connecting with our amazing teachers and with all of the wise and funny students, while enjoying delicious vegetarian meals. Now back home, all I really want to do is curl up in the sun, like one of my cats, and breathe.

From time to time I'll gaze out at the world from behind my fur, in great peace. I want to lazily watch the hummingbirds while listening to the breezes in the trees. Life has become one long shivasana (resting pose) interrupted by all the running around (work-errands-classes-relationships) that I have to do to keep it going.

One of the great gifts that guided introspection in a formal setting brings is the undeniable, undiluted fact that the answers to your life's questions can be found inside you. This is both blessing (ah, so simple!) and curse (good lord, look how I'm everywhere but there!) Yoga and meditation are tools for listening to one's higher self. Living in natural beauty (or consciously appreciating it wherever you are) helps, too. Breath, movement and nature are all teachers, it's just that really showing up for class is still hard.

Last night I admired the constellations of Sirius and Orion chasing the moon in the western sky. A silver column of moonlight stretched across the sea to the bathtub in my garden, and I thought, well, here I am. Perhaps all my questions, worries, regrets, even my great joys, don't really matter. Maybe even the "answers" aren't so important. What matters is having a life. And for me I'd add this to the recipe: sharing this journey with my fellow spiritual travelers.

Shivasana on the mountain, anyone?

Photos by Linda Sonrisa

New Year, New Leaf

I've been trying to avoid this news for some time: it's really 2011, and time to get serious with all my New Year's resolutions. Not that I have that many, and I've made sure that they are achievable. It's just that last week marked the 12th day of Christmas on January 6, (also the Day of the Epiphany) and I enjoyed a "last hurrah" trip to the City to welcome in the New Year with a few dear women friends.

While most folks diligently turn their "New Leaf" on January 2, I like to wait, just a bit. To extend the afterglow of guilt-free holidays and gently ease into all those healthy, positive behaviors. How I enjoy giving myself permission, knowing that the new, pure me is about to appear within a few weeks. No more drinking champagne every evening and eating all the delicious treats that materialize and multiply all season long, just like frisky rabbits!

Which brings us to the next degree of possible procrastination regarding the New Year, New Leaf syndrome: the Chinese New Year, which begins on February 3. 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, a warm fuzzy kind of year, v. the Tiger, which we just completed. Think of a snarling, fur-flying year with a bite, one that woke us up to realities and forced us to face our fears. The Bunny year, on the other hand, will be full of abundant creativity, serene endurance and mellow loving fun. Sounds good!

In January, and again in Februray, the smooth ribbon of the New Year highway stretches out before us, no potholes, detours or Do Not Enter signs. Although disappointments soon begin to stack up, and our Happy New Year! wishes seem a bit deflowered, we hold onto the pristine dream that Life is better, simply because we've said so. It's a time of new vision, of letting go of clinging to the past. No more crying over spilt tiger milk, let's hop into the present instead.

What better way to celebrate than to continue to celebrate? In what we hope will become an annual event, my friends and I enjoyed San Francisco's De Young Museum's Post-Impressionist art exhibit last weekend, walking through Golden Gate Park wrapped in our winter coats, mufflers and hats. We strolled through Shakespeare's Garden, then admired the masterpieces of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Gaugin, Renoir, Seurat and more.

Later we had yummy coffees at the museum café, where another dear local friend joined us. We made a side trip to Thailand for dinner at Marni Thai's in the inner sunset neighborhood, then returned to Cavallo Point to drink champagne and watch a movie. Of course it was You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger with Josh Brolin, shirt open to the waist, cavorting about with other romantic nitwits. Like most of Woody Allen's films, it ended with that ice-cream on the sidewalk feeling. Then we read Tarot cards and drank scotch...

So, now, as you can imagine, I'm ready for 2011 (more or less). Below are the elements of my annual "New Leaf" program which I'm offering to the Great Rabbit --

• Drink more milk.
• Memorize and recite my favorite poems to my friends.
• Hula hoop almost every day.
• Cultivate reverence.
  
• Dance, write, play, laugh, make love and breathe deep.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO US ALL !

I want to ride a Seahorse

The holidays are a time for togetherness and sometimes, if you’re lucky, for family healing. Last Sunday we took my Dad to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where we marched him all over the place for about two hours, a significant accomplishment at age 82.

With his artificial hips and game attitude, he watched the feeding of two plump, playful sea otters, touched bat rays and starfish, stood beneath a crashing wave and laughed as a diver exclaimed nervously about a hungry eel that was tapping on his mask.

At the end of our visit, up an escalator and waaaay down at the end of the hall, we found the most exalted exhibit of all: the Secret Lives of Seahorses. I had forgotten that seeing these creatures inspired my original desire to visit the Aquarium, so seeing them felt serendipitous, a bit of extra magic for the afternoon. (These outrageous life-forms will be there until 2012, plenty of time to have them render you speechless on a few occasions.)

On a pilgrimage from the Bay Area many years ago I attended the arrival of the Jellyfish at the Aquarium (they're still there). It was a melancholy time in my life, and as I wandered among the mysterious, slightly psychedelic jellies they gave me a strange kind of hope for a simpler, more pleasant existence.

While the Jellyfish could be from Outer Space, the Seahorses are the stuff of pure childhood fantasy. If they didn't exist, Disney would have had to create them. In fact, their shape recalls sculptures of ancient Greek horses, or the square physiques of the centaurs in Fantasia.

Coming close to each tank, our faces light up with delight. As the glow of beautiful living habitats reflect in our now young eyes, I remember the words of proto-environmentalist Rachel Carson, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?" Such profound beauty opens my heart.

My favorite, priceless gift this holiday season: my husband and my father quick-stepping around the corner of the Seahorse exhibit like two little boys, interrupting my reverie over the leafy sea-horses. "You have to come see this," they announce proudly. "The males give birth!"

Apparently seahorses are the only species on earth where guys have this privilege. So I promptly follow them to watch a video of a big daddy sea horse working hard to pop the cutest little baby seahorses (13 total, we counted) out of his pot belly. Seahorses mate for life (surprise!) and as they dance at dawn to celebrate their love, they rub bellies and the female slips the male her eggs. Isn't Nature brilliant?

Of course, this past week I shared my story of the wondrous Seahorses. After singing Christmas carols all over Big Sur on Wednesday evening, (and being fed sumptuously by Deetjens Inn afterwards) I confess my new, secret passion: "I want to ride a Seahorse!" I cry out, as I walk beneath the winter stars, good food in my tummy and Cabernet in my bloodstream.

"Oh Linda," replies a friend, "You can't do that. Seahorses live under water!" "I'd hold my breath," I insist. Perhaps I'll hunt down a bottle of Alice's "Drink Me" (in order to make myself the right size for this adventure). Later, my husband assures me that in order for me to join my tiny aquatic friends, there will be a special bit, bridle and scuba gear for me under the Christmas tree.

Photo courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium