Giving Thanks

On Thanksgiving morning, I walked out to the cliffs looking over the Pacific.  The wind was whipping the waves into a roaring frenzy.  It was cold.  The clouds were full and active.  The water reflected all the colors of sky.  The tide was very high, running up the sides of the cliffs.  It was a beautiful day.  

I am so thankful to be here.  

I never once had a thought or dream of living in Southern California, although I do remember once about 30 years ago thinking it would be nice to live by a beach.  Nevertheless, somehow, through a wild dance of circumstances well beyond my control, although I played my part, I wound up here, and every day, I am grateful.  

I talked to my father in Zachary, Louisiana, and he said the tides were hide on the Gulf coast too.  The oceans and skies connect us.  

Thank you to everyone I have ever known for the richness of this life.

Listening to Trees

I wrote a prosy poem, and Wayne Mareci liked it, took photos to go with it, and turned it into this photo essay on Medium.Com.  Thank you, Wayne!

Listening to Trees

Here's a video of me in my new home. Thank you to my friend Barry for the vision, artistry, and skill to make this video.  Hope you enjoy it!

Unexpected Delights # 2: Best Tomatoes Ever!

I just had the best tomato of my life.  Seriously.  And I bought it from a grocery store.

I grew up on homegrown tomatoes from the rich brown soil of Louisiana, the red dirt of East Texas, and the black dirt of coastal Texas farmland.  I watched my mother’s father carefully tend his tomatoes, thumping vines with his thumb or the end of a garden hose to help them pollinate.  I ate my mother’s mother’s fried green tomatoes in cornmeal batter and her cucumber and tomato salads.  I ate my mother’s tomato sandwiches with tomatoes from my father’s garden.  I ate tomatoes from gardens all over Zachary, Louisiana.  And I have eaten countless local heirloom tomatoes from farmer’s markets from Vermont, the Hamptons, New York State, and California.  I get tomatoes almost every week from the Garden of Eden CSA farm.  They are all delicious.  I love tomatoes, not quite as much as watermelon, but still…I love tomatoes.

Not the common red thing called a tomato at most grocery stores and restaurants.  I haven’t eaten those for years.

Still, tonight I had a new tomato experience: dry-farmed tomatoes.

These tomatoes are grown without any irrigation.  They have to dig their roots deep to get their sustenance.  They seek the water far underground.

And the taste, the taste, oh, I have never tasted such a rich, sweet, deep, complex tomato.

There is a Vedic chant that translates, “May I be like the cucumber that when it’s ripe falls from the vine.” 

I’d like to propose a new chant, “May I be like the tomato that digs its roots deep for the sustenance that’s already there and tastes like heaven.”

For the prosaic-minded parts of ourselves, here’s an article about dry-farmed tomatoes:

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/goldengategardener/article/Dry-farmed-tomatoes-how-to-grow-them-3169535.php

And for those of my readers who live in San Diego, I got them at Jimbo’s.

Unexpected Delights # 1

About 6 pm this evening, I was walking on the beach past some kids boogie boarding.  The tide was coming in close to the cliffs, and the waves were fun.

Most of the time on these beach walks, no one greets anyone.  Everyone just does their own thing, in their isolated bubbles.

But this time, as I walked past some blond teenage boys skidding into shore on their boogie boards, one of them catches my eye, grins, and throws me a frisbee.  It soared over my head, but I ran and snatched it up and threw it right back to him--a perfect throw right into his hands--he didn't even have to move--and we laughed, and I walked on, as happy as I could be.

My Coquina Heart

I was sitting on the cliffs and looking out over the ocean just before sunset.  Feeling the crisp coolness of the air on my skin.  Smelling the mix of salty ocean air and sweet jasmine—rich and heady yet spacious.  Dazzled by the rich aqua grey blue of the water, the shimmering sunlight on the water, white crests of wave after wave rolling to shore in long angled lines, the pinks and yellows and blues of the sky, white and grey clouds dotting the sky, huge red sun glowing behind a pendulous dark cloud.

I thought of the Atlantic Ocean and Vero Beach, Florida, and how different the ocean is there—the water saltier, warmer, rougher; the sand whiter, fluffier, and coarser; the air much, much thicker, and the contours of the land softer—thick green vegetation and marsh instead of Del Mar’s high red cliffs and velvety soft, densely packed, tawny and black sand.

My brother Trevon and I live on opposite coasts in vacation-destination beach towns.  My mom, who first took me to the Pacific, died in Vero on the Atlantic.  

The time came back to me--the all-absorbing weeks that felt like a lifetime when I stayed at Trevon and Lisa’s home and visited Mom in the hospital every day with my mother’s brother, Kent Beyette.  

From cold A/C to searing heat to cold A/C to searing heat—an endless round from one extreme to the next, from the nest of home to the sauna of the car to the frigid intensive care unit.  Kent, who grew up in East Texas without air conditioning and lived in Florida and Arkansas, was unfazed by the heat.  I could barely breathe.  The sun seared my skin.  It was blazingly hot and humid, like I was immersed in a hot tub and everything everywhere was more hot steam without even the possibility of the tiniest sip of cool air or breeze. 

We learned the route to the hospital and the maze from the hospital door to my mom’s room.  Most of the time we drove one of Trevon’s spare cars, the one with the black interior and navy blue exterior and inadequate a/c and the tiny hula dancer in a grass skirt bobbling on the dashboard.  Kent admired my driving.

When we visited mom, Kent would spend most of the time sitting in the waiting area, reading an assortment of mindless books and observing the comings and goings of people.  When I needed a break, I’d go see him, and he’d tell me something funny or the idiosyncracies of what he was reading or he’d listen to my report on her condition.  Sometimes when it was time to go, he’d come get me with the gentlest tap on the shoulder, a kind look or word, and we’d walk quietly back to the car, the heat always a choking shock when we walked outside from the frigid hospital.  He took me to the ocean to swim and taught me to boogie board.  He bought me a Florida fishing license so I could go out on Trevon’s friends’ boat, and when he caught a fish, handed me the pole to reel it in.  His kindness, quietness, and presence in those days will always be with me and comfort me.

At various points, my sister Leyette and brother Sharlon were there with us too, and it was almost like Kent was our father in those moments.  After all these years of my mom’s wandering and my own, I had a family, and we were together.

We each have gifts.  My dad is great at funerals.  Kent is great in hospital rooms.  I remember when I was in the hospital when I was 6 years old, recovering from kidney surgery, and my dad turned on the TV and the news was featuring an aircraft carrier, and my dad said my uncle Kent was on one of those and was a pilot.  I was confused how someone could fly a plane on a ship, but Dad patiently explained how it worked to me, and I was filled with awe.  I also remember Kent in my Aunt Cecile’s hospital room in Lafayette, Louisiana, many years ago, sitting patiently for days with her and my grandmother, sitting quietly and reading or listening or entertaining us all, as suited each moment.

The beach in Vero has a lot of coquina shell in it, and on one of my trips there, I collected a heart-shaped piece of coquina slightly smaller than the palm of my hand.  The beach in Del Mar, California, has very little coquina, but recently I found an identical piece here.  Same size, same heart-shape.  Only slightly lighter, with a little more space.

I hold them both in my hands.  Vero in the left.  Del Mar in the right.  I am home.  A pelican flies close overhead, and I know my mom is too.

Sightings on the Edge of the World, #2: Tonight's Sky

The sun had already set when I walked to the cliffs above the ocean tonight, and the crowds had dispersed.  Only a few people lingered, and the path felt empty.  The sky was steel blue and cloudy; the ocean shimmered an even darker blue.   The sand was damp brown.  It was quiet.  And right where the sun had set was a glowing red line.  As I walked along the line of the horizon, the red deepened and broadened and layered up under and through the blue like ripples on water. 

Down on the beach, a little white dog stretched out on the sand, belly down, legs out, as the surf came right up to it.  A few feet in front of the dog, little birds skittered about, following the edge of the water.  The dog's person walked along between them.  A lone surfer was bobbing out in the waves.   Some kind of boat moved further out along the horizon.

A mountain had mysteriously appeared above the ocean, piercing the clouds--a big, solid dark blue mountain where usually there was only sky. 

By the time I turned to go home, a thin layer of opal yellow filtered through marking the line between sea and sky.  Red and blue rippled up through layers of clouds, and the blue mountain stood firm.

Both the beginning and the end of my walk were marked by a most unusual sight:  a young, tall, thin, extremely pale Asian woman wearing a long black duster coat and black unzipped ankle boots with thin white socks and a huge bright red backpack that ran from above her head to the bottom of her hips.  It was the color of the sunset.

On my way out to sea, she was slowly walking in toward the street, and on my way home, she was trotting back out to the cliffs, running almost on tiptoe, with her long coat flapping around her.  Maybe she’s camping out on the sky mountain now.

Missing NYC: Riding Out the Storm

Tonight I miss New York City.  I lived in New York for 14 years, most of the time living on the top floor of a 15-story apartment building in midtown Manhattan with a wide open view of the Empire State Building.  I just moved here to sunny, temperate Del Mar, California, a little over 2 years ago.  A few days ago I received my official California state driver’s license.  The more I settle into California, the more I miss New York, especially at the crucial stepping stones.

It’s 22 degrees in New York City tonight, 57 degrees in Del Mar.  Granted the blizzard turned into a typical winter snow in the city, but still it’s snowing in New York, and I miss the snow, and the cold and the grittiness.  The toughness of it all.  The camaraderie.  The “we’re all in this together” attitude.  The drive and energy.  The charge.

Here, we all walk our individual walks along the cliffs above the ocean at sunset, striding calmly, no worries.  Maybe at most, petting a dog or two, saying “hi” to a person or two.  No big deal. Nothing to stress over.  Nothing to talk about.

I watch the colors of the ocean, the sky, the sand, the flowers, and they take my breath away.  Radiant, translucent, vibrant pastels.  Sweet sage-and-ocean-filled air.

There I checked the colors of the Empire State Building every night, often wondering what they stood for, which ethnic group was being honored, what holiday, sometimes looking up the answers online, and looking out at the lights, listening to the traffic, feeling the buildings all around me, the grid, the movement, “the dance of the charged energy particles,” as my friend Barry would say.

I miss the food.  El Parador, Wild Edibles, La Giara, Cosette, Naya Express, Libretto’s—my neighborhood restaurants.  Each particular taste right on the tip of my tongue.

And I miss the people.  All the people I would never know as we walked past one another.  People I sort of knew, enough to greet.  And people I knew very well, from the inside out and outside in, and who I will always love.

I am glad the storm wasn’t as bad as expected, and the city can go on about its business and be itself in every way again. Thank you New York.  You are a rock.

A Tribute to Billy Causey, Music Minister, First Baptist Church, Zachary, Louisiana: The True Music Man

I grew up in Zachary, Louisiana, as the oldest child of the pastor of First Baptist Church on Main Street in the heart of town.  When we first moved there in 1961, I fell in love with the Minister of Music, Wayne Vincent.  He was my first love, and I would pick bouquets of tiny white flowers from the bushes around the church and give them to him and imagine our wedding.  I was 3 and a half years old, so he didn’t take it too seriously, but I did.  When he left to move to the big city, Baton Rouge, I was crushed.  I couldn’t imagine life at First Baptist Zachary without him. 

Around 1970, when I was 12 or 13 or so, a new music minister arrived, Billy Causey, and I was immediately swept away by his enthusiasm, vitality, good cheer, beautiful voice, trumpet-playing, and all-over love of life.  He came with his sweet wife Judy, the drama teacher, and they soon produced 2 very cute children, Clay and Clacy, who became darlings of the congregation, much like my sister Kim and I had been when we first arrived.  To say, I loved them all is an understatement.  

They brought new, fresh, young energy that revitalized us all, at a critical juncture—the heyday of the 60s, and they were able to ride with the energy of the times and bring it into our little world in a way that expanded it but didn’t overturn it.  My dad probably had a hand in that too, but that’s for another story.  Simply put, Billy and Judy, Clay, and Clacy, provided a nice counterbalance to my dad’s seriousness and authority, and lightened things up considerably, but with real depth of feeling.

Billy was the one who made the youth choir a truly exhilarating experience, giving us music to sing that cheered our hearts and felt contemporary and cool; taking us on tours to Disneyworld, Washington, DC, and points all over the southeast; and most of all, being a true friend and mentor, listening to our heartfelt concerns and caring about each of us.  He did it all with such depth of feeling, genuine love of music and people, openness, kindness, humor, and bonhomie, that we couldn’t help but follow him.  He was the Pied Piper, the Music Man, leading us along paths that expanded our hearts and confidence and helped us sing our hearts out.

Plus he could sing.  He had a beautiful voice that brought out the best in our voices.  And he was funny.  

As I moved away and into my adult life, I longed still to hear Billy sing, and I asked him to sing at my wedding.  I was always cheered, moved, and heartened to hear him and see him when I visited.  He had a way of looking at you that made you feel seen and heard and known.

He died yesterday, January 6, 2015, in  Zachary, still a young man.  Many, many people will miss him, his voice and presence, including me.  Even though, I haven’t lived in Zachary for 38 years, he has shaped and moved me and inspired me all this time and always will.  

Thank you, Billy, for encouraging us to sing and embodying your faith with true devotion, humor, and beautiful, strong music. Sending you many bouquets of tiny white flowers and singing “Softly and Tenderly”….

Low Tide, Blue Skies

The tide is way out today and the sky is clear blue, revealing much that is usually hidden.