Tonight’s Sunset

Tonight the sun set over the ocean like a slice of big bright red cherry pie, juices flowing and spreading across the horizon.

Across the way, the moon shone full and silver in a melting Japanese blue sky.

Both were streaked with clouds--

Yellow-gold for the moon,

Peach and blue and pink and gray for the ocean.

A tall Torrey Pine split the moon shimmering through the dark spiky branches.

Both stood whole.

Dark clouds streaked above the ocean like smoke flowing sideways from a chimney.

The whole sky like one big “on the other hand.”

Things I Miss About NYC

Conversations with people

The grit, grit, grittiness of the city, the sidewalks, the air

People who talk to people

People who notice people

Granite boulders

Pocket parks

Elm trees

London plane trees

Sweet gum trees

Beech trees

 All kinds of people

All kinds of trees

Winter

Summer

Fall

Waterfalls, Fountains, Rivers

Central Park

Grand Central Station

Union Square Farmer’s Market

Indian Food

Burmese Food

Angelica’s Kitchen

Thai Food

Roma Pizza

Van Leuwen’s Ice Cream

Café Mogador Monday's after meditation

Bach Vespers

Organ concerts at the Little Church Around the Corner

The entire East Village, especially my meditation group

The West Village

Brooklyn artists  (Areta and Peter)

Beautiful old buildings, even ugly old buildings—just old buildings

Crowded sidewalks

Buses and subways that come every few minutes

Subways

People on subways, in stations, on sidewalks, everywhere, everywhere

Cabs

Looking every night at the Empire State Building to see what color it is

Lying in bed, on the sofa, on the floor, and looking at the Empire State Building

Standing on my balcony and looking across the urban canyon

Watching people party on a balcony a block away

Walking, walking, walking the streets

Vast old upper west side apartments

Tiny little east village apartments

Huge east village illegal-sublet apartments (I’m talking to you, Sadie!)

Bathtubs in kitchens

$2000/month tiny apartments with bathtubs in kitchens—or no bathtubs-- and a five-floor walk-up

The Upper West Side

Riverside Park

Central Park West

West End Avenue

Tibetan shops

Tibetan sales people—the best in the world!

Rockefeller Center Ice Rink

Beautiful doors

The 19^th century

Dry cleaners, grocery stores, nail shops, banks, and cell phone stores every block

French food

Rasa Yoga

Zabar’s

The East River

The Hudson River

Stuyvesant Cove Park

Ukrainian shops

Free ferry to Ikea in Red Hook

NY Public Library

Bryant Park

Ping pong tables in Bryant Park

Luxurious public restrooms in Bryant Park

Christmas shopping bazaars

Doormen

Fairway grocery stores

Grand Central food court

Sunday flea market/farmer’s market on Columbus Avenue

Chocolate chip cookies from Levain Bakery

Soft Bavarian pretzels from Blue Moon Bakery

Beautiful yoga students and sweet, gentle yoga at the Hamilton Senior Center and JCC

Marymount Manhattan College

2 Penn Plaza

IBI

Minar

Statue of Gandhi

Statue of Gertrude Stein

Tango dancers on west side pier

Julie’s backyard—the only one I knew

People who ask me questions about myself, even if it’s just how much I pay for rent

People who want me to ask them questions about themselves, even if it’s just how much they pay for rent

Everyone I ever knew in NYC

Addendum to the Previous List

More Things I See in California That I Didn't See in NY:

Seagulls sitting in the middle of an empty road staring into space
Empty roads

Rabbits quietly nibbling grass on an open hillside
Open hillsides

And on a rainy day, I'm the only person I see holding an umbrella

Things I See in California That I Didn’t See in NYC

Snails on sidewalks

Boxer dogs

Men in their sixties with bright blue painted toenails  

Sand on my windows

Giant birds of paradise

Poison ivy growing in cultivated shrubbery

Palm trees

Bougainvillea

Torrey Pine trees

Dog poop all over the place

Beach birds eating busily in the sand and skittering with the tides

Pelicans flying overhead

Surfers

Wetsuits

People gathering on the cliffs to watch the sunset over the ocean

My cat walking on a leash

Lines and lines of waves

Beach Life 2: Sea Urchins

When I was 12 years old, a woman I didn’t know gave me her shell collection.  

I was a budding young scientist, who had set up my parents' study as my laboratory, with my microscope and collections of rocks, leaves, seed pods, twigs, and anything else I could find. 

One day, my dad walked into my haven while I was in the middle of a reverie of exploration and told me to stop what I was doing and greet our company.  I looked up to see a strange woman I'd never seen before.  She was wearing a big hat and had red hair and fancy jewelry, and she didn't look like any woman I'd ever seen before.  She was clearly not from around here.  My dad announced that she wanted to give me something.  I couldn't imagine what she would give me, and she scared me.  I stood back afraid to even look at her, but she told me she had  heard I collected shells and rocks, and now she saw for herself that I did, and she had a shell collection and she was moving away and wanted me to have it, that she had collected these shells personally from all over the world and was entrusting them to me and to please take care of them. 

I could barely speak I was so thrilled and nodded “yes” vigorously and thanked her at my dad’s urging and started going through the boxes of shells, gently fingering each one, taking in the colors and shapes of the candy-colored spirals, swirling pink spikes, tall peaked golden cones, snow-white angel wings, soft sunrise-painted ovals, buttercups, scallops, whelks—shells of all varieties perfectly preserved. 

Two were my particular favorites:  a long flat quill-pen shaped, translucent tan bivalve and a purple dome with tiny bumps all over it that reminded me of the Taj Mahal I’d seen in books.  I held the first like a pen in my hand and pretended to write with it.  She laughed and told me it was called a pen shell.  A perfect name. 

I held the other one in the palm of my hand and looked at its beautiful patterns of vertical lines pouring out of the star at the top center and down the sides, evenly spaced, and interspersed with bumps.  I turned it over and looked inside at the smooth, empty, concave, pale underside.  “I love the patterns!” I told her.  She said that if I saw it on the beach, I wouldn’t recognize it and I definitely couldn’t hold it like that because it would be covered with prickly purple quills and that the animal lived inside.  She said it was called a sea urchin.  That was infinitely more mysterious to me.  An urchin like David Copperfield?  A lost child?  But it looked so beautiful and rich.  I treasured it most of all my shells and carried it with me for many years.

But until today, I never saw a sea urchin in the wild.  And it was just like the one I had as a child, except that half of it was covered with purple spines.  It was lying with its belly and the flat bottom of the shell exposed.  The spines were down in the sand.  I didn’t know what to do.  What if it were still alive?  The ocean was much rougher than usual this morning—the water was much higher up on shore, the waves were unusually white and choppy, and the currents were the strongest I’ve felt--even in water barely covering my ankles, I felt a deep pull.  Maybe it was still alive and the water would bring it out to sea and it would live again.  Or maybe it’s time had come and gone, and I could take it home with me.  The underbelly was full of a grayish gelatinous mass, and a brownish stem-like material, protruded about a quarter of an inch from the center like a belly button.  It could be an opportunistic animal in there, not even a sea urchin, and they could all be dead.  I waited and watched.  I looked for something to move it to the water and picked up a fan-shaped, gelatinous piece of seaweed, scooped it up and moved it along until the water picked it up and swept it out a little, then receded leaving it still on shore.  No more interference, I thought; it was enough just to see it.

Beach Life: Heroic Dogs, Bird Legs, Lavender Skies, Leaping Dolphins, and Seaweed Trees

Heroic Dogs

This morning I was walking on the bluffs above the beach and saw two barechested, tan, chiseled, handsome men standing with a dog, looking out over the ocean and talking softly.

They caught my attention.

As I got closer, though, what really got my attention was the dog.  It was a medium-build, short-hair, grayish brown, muscular, nondescript dogs’ dog--and it was covered with scars.   Large patches of fur were shaved off with long lines of black stitches.  Lots of them.  One on the dog’s right side.  One on the left shoulder, one down the thigh.  And there was a white bandage sliding down the back left ankle.  This dog looked seriously beat up.  Could they have been fighting this dog?  The men looked so nice and kind in their faces and eyes. 

I asked nonchalantly, “What happened to your dog?”

“He saved my girlfriend from a pack of coyotes.”

“Wow, he’s a hero.”

“Yes, he’s a good dog.  He’s had a rough couple of days, but he’s alright now.”

“That’s good.”

The dog turned to face the men.  I looked at the men in the eyes and touched the dog softly on the rump, scrambled down the path to the railroad track, looked back up at them, and moved on down to the beach. 

Bird Legs

When I was a kid, we made fun of girls with skinny legs by calling them “bird legs.”  And if a girl didn’t eat much, we said she “ate like a bird.” 

Having observed a lot of beach birds lately, I’d have to say these were inadvertent compliments, or at least not accurate descriptions. 

First of all, bird legs are cool!  They are so sturdy and delicate all at once.  Often longer than the bird is (no matter how you measure it), they hold up the whole bird’s body weight and quickly propel the bird skittering along the sand like air.  The birds flow along the line of the sand and water, running into and out of waves like little kids.

And, second of all, the way birds eat is determined.  Nothing deters them.  They run along on their long, skinny, tough, mobile legs, and poke their long, skinny curved bills or short beaks or whatever they have for a nose/mouth combo into the sand here, there, and everywhere, undaunted by whoever is walking by, surfers, children, whatever, and they barely pause except to run to the next spot.  

I’ve been watching a bird with brown and white speckled feathers on his short oval-shaped body and a long arched beak.  The bird opens its beak one inch as it pokes down into the sand, poke, poke, poke, running along quickly, ahead or behind the next wave, skitter, skitter on its fast long legs.

Lavender Skies and Leaping Dolphins

A few mornings ago right after sunrise, the sky over the ocean was lavender, and dolphins leapt arcing in the air, while the birds skittered along the shore.  Maybe this was the same day the dog saved the girlfriend he loved from a pack of coyotes.

Seaweed Trees:  Pull Up the Roots

As I walked along the beach this morning after seeing the heroic dog, I saw a middle-aged couple looking intently at what looked like a large fallen tree with its root bed exposed to the air.  A long rope of seaweed, maybe 10-feet or so, wound out along the sand like a vine with bulbs and leaves.  At its base was what looked like a huge root system: a mass of intertwined branches, doming in toward the center from which the vine extended out like an umbilical cord.  We all looked into the center. 

The roots looked like the dog’s scars and the birds’ legs. 

"Pull up the Roots," the Talking Heads sing, "Wilder than the place we live in...I don't mind some slight disorder....Everything has been forgiven.... Pull up the roots, pull up the roots."

 

Wild Bunnies and Stone Bears

This afternoon I cut through a little used corner of the UCSD campus.  It was after 5 pm in the last week of summer school, and there were only a few people along the way.  Jasmine scented the air.  I chose the path lined with magnolias and azaleas, just so I could smell the delicate, subtle sweet scents of my childhood in Louisiana—so familiar that the first time I almost missed them.  Then I passed through a glass doorway in a shallow hall that connects buildings, and along a sidewalk alongside the back of the building.  Shrubs blocked my view as I circled a small rise for about 10 feet, and then I came to a grassy knoll.  Three brown bunnies formed a perfect triangle on the grass, nibbling away, until I startled them.  They sat up, ears alert for my movements.  Their backs have an orangish-colored fur; their ears are tall and white on the inside.  I told them I bring love and peace, but one bolted for a far bush anyway.  The others started eating again, and I quietly walked on.

That’s one of the best surprises about my new life.  I see wild bunnies almost every day.  They graze on the hills around the college, and I usually see them every morning walking to the office and most evenings too.  But I had never seen them on this hill before, and it was so quiet and secluded, and they were so wide out in the open that it was startling.  On the hills where I usually see them, they stay close to the shrubbery and are camouflaged by the grass and bushes.  I have to look for them.  This time, I couldn’t miss them.

I was returning from spending time at one of the sculptures on campus—a huge stone teddy bear, placed right in a triangle of grass between the engineering buildings—all glass and metal and high-tech new buildings that exude wealth and science.  Huge granite boulders—8 of them—piled on one another to look just like a giant cuddly teddy bear.  Makes you want to hug it—or be hugged by it—and definitely climb all over it—and run around it and play peek-a-boo.  Students have been known to hang a flower lei on it and a tie.  I asked how they got up there, and one of my colleagues shrugged and said, “They’re engineering students.”  A tribe of Native Americans in the area—the Pala—donated their sacred stones for the sculpture.  The stones are beautiful.  Just to be around them feels good.  Certain angles where the rocks meet one another reminded me of Elephant Rocks in Missouri and Enchanted Rock in Texas.  It’s like a miniature, man-made version of a wonder of nature.  And it’s a bear.

UCSD is not a cuddly campus.  It’s huge and sprawling and disconnected, with no real center, no architectural cohesion, no clear flow, and lots of little isolated worlds.  But it has stone teddy bears and wild bunnies, magnolias and azaleas, and the air smells sweet all the time.

Pelican Play

This evening as my friend Trish and I watched from a bench on the bluffs overlooking the ocean

A lone surfer bobbed on the waves and caught a few short, sweet rides

A line of brown pelicans flew south over our heads like flowing silk

Dogs sniffed our feet as they passed by

A small blind dog licked Trish’s hand

And then out of the south, the curving line of pelicans swooped back north, turned out to the ocean, dipped down, flying as close to the water as they could, like they were surfing, and followed the line of the waves as far as the eye could see

PS

I forgot to mention the pelicans; ravens; sandpipers; the cherry red of the bougainvilla bushes; succulent vines running all along the ground with fuschia, white, and yellow flowers; and the superfine, soft-as-silk sand sparkling with gold flecks.

I moved to San Diego in January.  Now instead of stepping out into midtown Manhattan every time I leave the apartment and having a stellar view of the Empire State Building from every window in my home, I step out into jasmine- and orange-blossom-scented air, palm trees, pine trees, eucalyptus trees, and birds singing.  Instead of walking up and down 3rd Avenue and all over the city and riding the subway, taking the bus, hailing cabs, I hop into my Fiat 500 Pop with a sunroof and drive down the Pacific Coast Highway for a few minutes, park, and go into my office with a view of the ocean. 

 

These are the steps I take to get down to the beach most days. I walk a short block, then along a ridge, down a short path, over a railroad track, down a longer, steeper path, and then I'm here. Most of the way the path is lined with purple flowers. The air is sweet and salty and fresh. The waves are beautiful. The surf and surfers are too. Life is a dream.

I live in Del Mar, a block from the ocean.  I'm telling you this because I still can't believe it's real.   Until now I've been too stunned to write.  Stay tuned for tales from the beach and Southern California!