A Few Words Before the Ascent

This kid can climb like a goat, and descend even faster, as fast as I would normally walk down. She just lays on her belly and make her body straight to slide down feet first. She's a regular powerhouse of locomotion, and there will we be, like a mythical family of dolphins spinning in the sun, wholesome grins showing gleaming teeth.

Oakland Summer

Morning Clouds, Afternoon Sun, that's our standard Summer weather pattern here in great old Oakland. Perfect for night owls that like to sleep in, and the transitions bloom dramatic. "Here comes the sun Little Darling." Love working in Oakland, near the bay, in a "bad neighborhood". The food, the people, the houses, the plants, the animals live within and without me, flirting with cross-dimensional perfection. Rode my bike to work today for the first time, over the Berkeley Hills, 21-miles, streets ankle-deep in the blood of the oppressor fun. Came across the youngest deer I've ever seen while climbing Wildcat Canyon Road out of Orinda. It could barely walk, and gave me look as if to say "Are you my mother?", before stumbling off into the oaks with a distintive irregular leaf-crunching sound. Loved it.

Counted the steps from the 1st Floor to the 3rd Floor, where I press myself into a cubicle the majority of my weekdays. Eighty steps in all. Made me think of that Pink Floyd song - "Life is a short warm moment. Death is a long cold rest. You get your chance to try in the twinkling of an eye, eighty years with luck or even less." The steps became the years of my life. The exercise consisted of walking up the stairs at my normal pace, but going through the highlights of each year during steps 0-37, and then imagining future highlights for steps/years 38-80. Very mind-taxing. The early years fill in with no problem, providing a plethora of easily accessible highlights. A lot of blank years over the last 15 or so, or so it seemed. The future difficult too, kind of painful even, and those stairs wind me pretty bad by the time I'm 80.

Kids Grow

As a child I, on several occasions, wondered what it would be like to start over in kindergarten, do it all better. I now realize that in many ways I am doing just that, only starting in even earlier, if I pay proper attention to the education of my children. Amazing that, after graduate school and all, there could be so much information at the pre-school level that somehow got missed the first time around.

Gumbo and I show an interest in Spanish, so we try to encourage it in each other. He brings me books written in Spanish. I translate the books written in English when he brings those, if the words are simple enough. Good times.

Gumba has no patience for sitting in my lap when I read to the boy anymore, but she hangs nearby. Last night I noticed that she perused each page of two books once and one book twice, upside-down, during the time it took me to read Gumbo Timmy Tiptoes. Her mind moves along at a tremendous pace, so much to teach.

Unrelenting Reminder Demons

Feeling the pressure. Details taunt me, unrelenting reminder demons screaming unfinished tasks. Wait, that's just my PDA, or is it? No rest for the wicked, the good die young, cowboy up. Cliches and memories of immersion in water - all I have left.

Gumba Walks!

She started out slow, but then one recent evening, right about the 14-month mark, she steady walked around that turning point that separates the walkers from the crawlers. Gumbo took another six months to walk like this. The darling girl exudes gurgling joy regarding her achievement, happy to walk with me hand in hand, or leg hair in hand, as the case may be. Crawling remains the fallback mode of locomotion, temporarily retaining the edge with regards to speed and stability. I moved my exercise mat outside yesterday afternoon to get away from her interference for a moment, but did not close the screen door well enough, so as a lay down on it she rushed (race-crawled) toward me with all the excitement, velocity, and momentum of a small pit bull. I literally braced for the hit, but in keeping with her style, she stopped about a centimeter from my face, to stare, to loom, and to grin with overwhelming intensity, searching for her father's acknowledgement and response. Her strong personality and drive to communicate keep me amazed much of the time.

She loves the table that the boy eats at, and climbs into one of the little wooden chairs that are too big for her whenever she can. I sat with her at it for a time the other day while she enjoyed a piece of toast. She spontaneously broke the toast and hand me a piece, evoking the deja vu that lonesome altruistic travelers feel as they trek across time immemorial. That girl is good people.

Downieville Deathtile Loves Me

Let me start by saying "It was a different time, it was the sixties." But, um, really it was the last few weeks. The infinite and limitless true nature of the universe has once again been presenting itself to me, in a very becoming way. One might even call it fecund. If you can imagine it, it exists, and my imagination runneth wild through the densest of thickets, just, whatever you do, oh please don't throw me in that old briar patch.

Some vacations rule my memories with exceptional vigor, like lighthouses along an dark and moonless coast. Those excursions include my first time to Yosemite when I was five, a trip to Mendocino with friends when I was a teenager, my honeymoon in French Polynesia at age 27, my first trip to Burning Man at 31, and...... Downieville, Downieville, Downieville. I could just sit here repeating "Downieville" in a thousand different voices, all night, and every day. Arrived home late last night after spending an amazing 48 hours in the loving vibrations people call the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Historically a mining town, Downieville once had a population of 20,000 and was briefly the capitol of California. It now gets 80% of its annual revenue from mountain biking. The legendary trails called me for years, in the form of tales of fun and serious injuries from a group I ride with mid-week. Of course, now that I've gone, I can't believe I didn't join them every trip since before I was born, stupid parents I guess. Don't worry, they never read this nonsense. The town sits at the confluence of the Yuba and Downie rivers, at 2,835' (930m), a great place to swim after a ride, right there by the old gallows. A shuttle leaves every hour on the hour, and for the paltry sum of $20, takes bikes and riders to Packer Saddle, which floats at 7,100' (2,336m). Magnaminous genii, or perhaps genies, have spent many an hour constructing and maintaining some of the finest (and I do mean sexy) single-track trails the world has ever seen, which connect Packer Saddle to Downieville, with many routes to choose from. Disneyland eat your heart out. Skydiving is weak. Burning Man is OK, but my every third wish is for another run through the alpine gauntlet of perilous angles, with a snowmelt stream skinny dip thrown in somewhere along the way. Aches and cramps wrack my body to point that I could barely operate a car last night, and I'm not good for a whole lot of anything, but nevertheless doubt I'd be able to refuse a shuttle leaving for Packer Saddle in 30 minutes, if I were still in Downieville. 

Part of it is the mountains. I love that color of sky, thin dusty pine air, endless varieties of flowers, alpine meadows green beyond belief, element ravaged trees, roaring emerald pools cascading into louder roaring emerald pools, pouring around islands full of yellow flowers, drunk with mountain love, talking loud, saying sweet nothing. The mountains rock, regardless of your mode of transportation, but try it on a full-suspension mountain bike and the rocks and trees want to eat you alive while feeding you bliss. There's a section called Baby Heads, where all the rocks approximate baby heads. They stare pitilessly at you when you eat shit. Plenty of narrow off-camber sections with drop-offs to certain manglement, where occasionally one's rear tire will spit out a rock to the chasm side, which one can hear chatter down the rocks in the distance behind, tink, tink, tinnnnnk, which gives me what I imagine would be the same effect as shoving a spike full of andrenachrome directly into my already racing heart. To prevent excessive erosion, and perhaps dangerous riding conditions, the trailbuilders have placed weird looking concrete tiles all along the path in certain very steep sections, commonly known as Downieville Deathtiles (they can be a little slippery, although they never sent me down, but would be hell icy). And get this, you share the trail with motorcycles! That's right, roaring, heavy, dusty, momentum machines blasting up what you're riding down, a complete eye-opener. Don't think it's all downhill. Many a brutal climb went on, and on, especially on the Big Boulder trail, many parts of which I had to hike the bike up. Like Greg the bike mechanic's shirt read - "Another Shitty Day in Downieville". By the way, the mountain eats bicycles for lunch, so everyone gets to know the wealthy bike mechanics well.

I stuck my head under a waterfall, sat on one of those islands in the middle of the rapids to get that mega-stereo effect, raced at breakneck speed along the trees, pushed my luck, used my helmet, used my pads, had some visions. Some part of me will live there always now, and it here with me. After jiving with a place that well, every time I go back I will be coming home, tears in my eyes serious, I nub it, til death do us part, om, peace, amen, allah-o-akbar, happy Indepenence Day, anarchy forever, spiritual revolution in my glassy eyes, lightning bolt beer bottle Johnny Cash jukebox Ghostriders in the Sky, yippy yi yay, yippy yi yo.

Fishing San Pablo Reservoir

Epic day fishing San Pablo Reservoir with Gumbo, Maria and Bill. All out of power boats so we rented a row boat. The oars were mismatched, so rowing was somewhat lopsided, but we managed to row far anyway. Temperature varied between t-shirt and sweatshirt, but the wind played mellow, so no complaints, although Rocket got plenty sweaty in his lifevest. I let Bill pick the first spot, but after no bites for a good while I let me fishing intuition take control and rowed us to near where I caught a fish last time I was there. Bill professed doubt due to the depth of the water (14'), but Maria brought in a nice big trout after ~20 minutes, so I savored full vindication of my anchor spot choice. Once again the fish swallowed the hook and we made a big bloody flopping stinky mess trying to get it out, with no success, perfect eating size anyway, stringered that bad boy up and hung him off of one of the oar locks. I got all elated, Maria seemed less so, Bill was pretty happy, Gumbo became very interested. Then Bill became hard to convince that it was time to go, not wanting to get left out of the caught-a-fish club. After a reasonable time, in the interest of mitigating tired toddler behavior, I asked Maria to please pull up the anchor. My elation continued, but no one else seemed near as excited, which was slightly off-putting, but not everyone can feel just like me all the time.

As I had been expecting, Bill & Maria changed their mind about cleaning and eating the lovely trout by the time we got to the cars, so I got to take it home, where Gumbo and Robin watched with fascination while I removed the innards & such. I cooked it right away and we all ate some, but Gumbo ate only one of the eyes, after which he decided that he doesn't like fish eyes anymore. The eye from the cod must have been tastier. I myself have never eaten a fish eye and don't know what put the idea into his head to start with. Next time maybe I'll rig for sturgeon, and whatever I fish for I'll use a bigger hook so they don't be swallowing the thing, too bloody.

Finegold 2007

Memory jumps and skips spiralling outward in a zig-zag mental fall from grace. Just got back from camping in the Sierra Foothills east of Fresno. A little piece of paradise called Finegold, big orange dragonflies still buzz the back of my head, shoulders and forehead glow from too much sun. Frogs and rabbits came to me, imparted time-release knowledge I'll overstand someday. Rode my mountain bike to Crook Mountain, peered down at Millerton Lake at deepest dusk, flew down through the invisible dust drift curves which gripped my wheels with ferocity, almost throwing me once, imparting silent time-warp two-wheel drifts other times. Not a lot of smells out there, too dry, except near the creek. I mistook the bullfrog croaks there for horse brays, laughed about it later. The kids had a blast, although I did find little Gumba covered in large black ants once, and massive red welts cover the boy from who knows what type of critter. When we'd driven three quarters of the way home Gumbo asked "Can we go to Finegold?". Later, while getting him ready for bed I asked,

"So, which do you prefer, Burning Man or Finegold?"

"Finegold!" he answered, without hesitation.

Dance? No, run!

Always something new, and another forgotten memory awakened when it comes to raising children. Same way with life deep down in a dungeon or a mine, come to think of it, but more in your face up here in the sunshine. I taught 12-month old Gumba to smell roses. It took three days, one lesson/day. The first day she mostly watched, maybe moved her head toward the large lavender rose slightly, tried to grab and eat it. The second day she moved her head toward the rose, and then tried to lick it. The third day she swung her body forward, lifted her nose slightly, put her eyes at half mast and inhaled deeply, like on a Hallmark card. How wonderful is that? Roses will ever smell sweeter.

I had the boom box cranked up on the rear deck, and was heading into the house for a quick breather. Gumbo, almost four now, had been watching me dance to the Mixtress' crazy break beats from his upstairs bedroom window, and grabbed me as I came in. "Let's go back outside Daddy, let's go."

I smiled down at him, "You want to dance?"

"No. I want to run!"

So we set into running in tight circles on the deck in our bare feet, to the tune of an 11-minute version of Sugar Magnolia (Dick's Picks Volume 14). The fun and hollering caught the attention of Gumba, who I quickly picked up and tucked under my arm like a football. We ran and ran until we were all out of breath, and then ran more. As the Grateful Dead are want to do, the song had a complete silence in it for a time, three minutes before the actual end. We thought it was over, and so when it started up again at the beginning it made me laugh, and we all had to keep running to the bitter end or accept defeat. Ever since her time that day as a football, Gumba has put her outside arm forward when I carry her, like she's flying or pointing, waving if we pass people. That gives me that feeling that I'm flying when I walk with her, makes me walk faster. "Up, up, and away".

Rattlesnakes and Butterflies

Life decided to play with me. With twinkling star eyes she keeps handing me every last thing I have ever wished for, until I feel like there is nothing more to wish for, unfulfilled desires fade into twilight fireworks. The list of blessings runs long for presentation here, but here are some recent highlights:

Saw five turkey vultures sitting in a dead oak tree, arranged for maximum psychological effect, on a hot weekday.

Ate lunch in a canoe moored to a dead oak tree full of woodpecker holes. Woodpecker came by while we ate, the vibrations travelled through the tie line, into the canoe, and up my spine to the top of my scalp, glowing gold, refracting time.

Swam with the fishes in Lake Sonoma, somewhere I hadn't visited in ~30 years, since before it was a lake, let a few tears of joy salt the water. Used to be nudists and hot springs, but those all bubble on the bottom of the lake now.

Called dragon flies to me, like when I was a kid in our Petaluma orchard. Hoka hey.

Saw a hawk carrying a 3-4 foot long snake from my living room window. The snake writhed and gleamed in the sun, the curves of the end of it's tail clear against the soft blue sky. I used to wish to see that so bad, soooo bad, ever since the time I thought I saw such a thing when I was 12.

Had an amazing afternoon trail ride at Briones park. Direct impact with an oak tree let me watch my blood steadily darken my new yellow gloves, the right glove turned as red as the oak where my bike chipped it's bark, nothing major but it woke me up, a ceremonial blood letting. I wrecked while avoiding the wreckage of the rider ahead of me, again. Funny how the passage of time changes during sideways slides, jumps, and right before wrecks, action packed moments blossoming solid seconds. Sometimes I feel like maybe those're the only times I'm really alive, then and in the throes of love. Maybe those memories just stand out better over the years, inner gyroscope activated adreno-testosto-fun reminders. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

Near the top of the biggest climb I saw a young diamondback rattlesnake, stopped to say hello. He rattled at me and slid off the trail back into the tall grass. What a beauty. The pattern on his back called to my ancestors, potent.

A butterfly bounced along just in front of my wheel the rest of the way up, leading me with levity, showing off for me with impossible patterns of movement and color.

John Muir, his body buried in nearby Martinez, got up from the spot his spirit reclined near the trail, blade wild oats dangling from the corner of his mouth. He ran along beside my bicycle, laughing and shouting and encouraging me with endless possibilities and mountain visions as the grade grew steeper. The thistles were purple, the mustard yellow, the grasses reddish-purple, blended together undulating satisfaction. John's my bud.

Willow had her baby and we're going to see her this Sunday, gift of gifts. Willow's cool as the ocean wind, and I feel so happy for her, excited for all our children & other dependents by any other name. My generation feels oats of late, clear light.

White Lightning's Still the Biggest Thrill Around

This picture of Hurrican Wilma making risk-laden love to Puerto Rico back in October of 2005 remains one of my very favorites. Fall coconuts, fall, just don't fall on me.

This merry month of May it thrills me, riddles my muscles with pinball electricity, hurricane strength soul winds howling day & night, enough to drive a weaker mind mad. People tell me my facial expressions are often childlike, my friendship with danger juvenile, my fantasies adolescent, compliments that only goad me on. I have searched my whole life through, from infancy to Alzheimer's, and those giant stereo, rope swing into the lake, live on a boat fantasies keep coming back, wanting to dance past dawn. Fuddy dud fantasies, like living pain-free, can't hold a candle to good old storm-chasing, not for now anyway.

"Gone are the days when we stopped to decide
Where we should go, we just ride
Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams
Gone, both dream and lie"

--excerpt from "Crazy Fingers" (Hunter/Garcia)

Once Around The Sun

Soon after her 1st birthday she stood up without the use of hand holds or other assistance, during a picnic lunch on the rear deck. I have yet to witness the phenomenon myself, but the mama says it's spectacular.

She sings little songs now, of her own composition.

She understands what we say more and more, and wants to be included.

She's learned to suppress the urge to cry when her brother hurts her now, as long as it's not too major. I think that her point there is to avoid endiing her play time with her brother, and not get him in trouble. Besides, she prefers to avenge insults herself, with a quick hair pull or ear scratch.

She loves listening to music, dancing to music, and making music, just like her daddy. My girl is a dream come true.

First Swim of 2007

Oakland's Lake Temescal welcomed me in, took me by both hands then held me like a long lost lover greeting her shell-shocked soldier fresh back from a life of carnage. Nature worked her charms with calculated synchronicity, extracting synergistic power surges that shade the memory with mists of plum & gold. The air temperature worked with the manzanitas, the collegiate couples with the tatooed gangster families, the sand with the grass, trees and sky forming a blurred periphery from my floating flat on my back in the middle of the lake vantage. Less than 15 minutes in the water and I staggered out, weaving to and from until I fell on my towel in the sand, did some stretching, counted some lucky stars, beat it on down the line home. Must build stamina, swim all night every night, transform or die, turn my head to breathe as I sleep, transform as many others as will join me. Swim, just swim until you can't.

The heat had the family falling out all over the rear deck when I got home, added a real special happy vibe. Counted more lucky stars. Great night at home, replete with emotional depth and spiritual wonder. Pondered rough estimate of lucky stars, based on luminosity of gratitude.

Grizzly Peak Century

I scarce believe my feet pedaled me the length of the course, but as far as the questionable assumption that my experience consists of more than colorful figments of my imagination goes, they did, the left one in cahoots with the right. 71-miles, 5,500' of climbing, temperatures into the low 90s, my first century (metric). Also the first time in my life that I rode bicycles with my father. Epic, HELL of epic. Average Speed: 13-mph Maximum Speed: 47-mph

Words are crap. Crap on a stick. All the same, they are the primary communication tool given us to work with. Until I find a better way to convey my love to the masses, might as well distill goodness from them. Mmmmm, essence of crap, on a carved & sculpted stick.

Views of San Francisco, Mount Tamelpais, and the Golden Gate Bridge from Grizzly Peak did their best to take our breaths away, gasp, wheeze. Photographers lined the road with tripods trying to cram the crispy vistas into little boxes. At the top of the last (Rheem) hill my whole body commenced to trembling, and my sunburnt mind said in a helium voice from somewhere far over my head, "Hmmm, the onset of shock." Forced myself to sip a little fluid, quavered on down to the finish, got a 20-minute massage and felt a world better.

What a blast! My father and I floated to our respective homes on Cloud 9. Once again, words are CRAP! Let's do it again, faster. Ride to live.

Twas Ever Thus

Justine, lying back against a fallen column, one curl lifted by the sea wind, said "In the whole of English only one phrase means something to me, the words time immemorial." from Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell

"Twas ever thus." --Mr. Natural

I recommend developing a taste for loose green and Oolong teas. They help invite magic, beyond coincidence. Old ally tea, more effective than NATO. The abyss remains vast & receptive as ever, patient for our attention.

Live Fast, Die Young

"Live Fast, Die Young" from Bull Rider, by Johnny Cash

That looker of a wife of mine said to me, as we merged onto 24E off of 13S, "Whoa! Feels like riding in a go-kart!" A heartfelt and hearty thanks to the engineers at Ford and Volvo, as well as all the motorcycle riders I ever saw pop wheelies on the freeway. Racing along the trees at break-neck speed becomes a state of mind, alert & engaged.

Friday night: Rebecca's Soul Train "Takin' It To The Streets" themed party. Paint yourself a mental picture of at least 40 Mission hipsters dressed to the nines in bona fide disco wear, starting from 24th Street and Bartlett, shaking their asses off in the front of the library, on the BART, at Embarcadero BART station, in the middle of Market Street, turning the Historic F-line into a party extraordinaire. The F-Line operator even let us take over the PA system for Soul Train pep talks. People joined and left us all along the way. Rebecca organized us into the two Soul Train rows with that charismatic dance instructor voice, better than most could have, what with the wild whiskey pounding dancers. We hit the Castro sometime after midnight, which seemed a good time for Looker & me to hail a cab. After the cabbie heard about our evening, he turned us onto the side of himself that raps, the MC Mars side. He freestyled for 5+ minutes, rapping all about our soul training - hands down dope shit, reminded me of the teenage rappers on the J-Church that used to pound the windows for bass while tapping the grab bars with a pencil and flowing big fresh. We bought his book of short stories, Don't Take Me The Long Way . So surreal, so so so surreal, and chock full of levity.

Saturday: Went to see Bret in the UCSF chemo ward. The doctors diagnosed him with rhabdomyosarcoma (bad) a couple months ago, leading to chemo-therapy Round 2 of 4 last weekend. It felt great to be able to suit up and show up for Bret. That ward leans towards depressing the smile smack off even the most jocular human. The view from the eleventh floor went on forever and a day, striking beauty. Heavy stuff this cancer, but a profound blessing for me, a chance to feel true friendship, up along the rough wall of bonding pain & fear transcendence. Bret's boy turned four months old today, such a wise little being. Whoa Nelly that's a lot of love swarming over us. Makes me cry sometimes, but not too much. Maria told me long ago, "Crying is honest. Crying is good." Smart woman let some wisdom slip there, and mine, well, they might just flood Big River.

Drove the family up to Megan & Paul's cool 440-acre co-operative land trust community later in the afternoon. Megan & I had talked about a visit for the past ten years, so you might say we'd looked forward for a minute. The place, called Monan's Rill, rides Mount St. Helena about 1,100' up the southeast side. Exceeded expectations with a dramatic, gutteral, sub-sonic auditory hallucination. Trees, rattlesnakes in the middle of the trail, owls, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, and valleys, and rocks, big moss & lichen covered monoliths, the moon, the planets, the hip people, the shiznits by any other name. Gumbo played extra well, sharing all he had in a breathtaking display of emotional growth. A boy about a year his junior grabbed the hat off his head, and then demanded the tricycle on which he sat. I expected Gumbo's typical response would have consisted of throwing his new friend to the ground without hesitation, before deliverance of a well placed farewell kick prior to speeding off, but instead I overheard him cry "let's share!" Sweet, yo, very sweet.

Sunday: Rode from the San Francisco Ferry Building to the Larkspur Ferry and back. Took a detour and checked out the San Francisco National Cemetary, which I had never visited before. The oldest stones I saw marked folks' graves that died in the 1920s. No birth dates for most of those. Maybe they didn't know, didn't care. Our culture overrates quantitative analysis, tricknology promoting social inequality, trying to make a dollar out of shame. That's right, I said kill your television, a jillion pixels of high definition or not.

Watched the swimmers at Aquatic Park, promised myself once more that I'd try that sometime.

Laurent crapped out at the Larkspur Ferry, and I used the opportunity to chase that original 11-year old man coming of age ride or die quality of thought. Back then, in 1981, I just up and gave up on Saturday morning cartoons, preferring instead to start my morning by striding out into the brilliant Santa Rosa sunshine, picking up my yellow Ashtabula BMX style dual-tube framed killing machine half-way down the walk, having been left unlocked and ready for fast escape. I would ride to Kelly Beardall's house, and then we'd rip the world to bite-sized pieces in wolfish ways, travelling where our inner magnets led us, with the mandatory 7-11 pilgrimages. We sprinted when we felt like sprinting, jumped off every handicap ramp, layed down a 20' 180 degree slide at every stop, gave everyone the finger, lived on the bikes until dinner time, loved the bikes, took bruised and scraped up succor in the dried out creek bed with one vertical side. So I intentionally got lost, rode without direction, ignoring posted bike routes, choosing scary looking streets full of cars, stopping, sprinting, stopping, sprinting, observing the unfamilar, loving that pain in my legs. Got home and worked in the yard the rest of the day, then the standard Sunday night volunteer gig. The weekend still felt young and corruptible, so I did my best to lead her astray as she convulsed, and clung, to her long, last moments.

Heart of Spring

Topped 80 degrees in the wandering haze of West Oakland today. Spring has welcomed me into her heart of hearts. She dares me with fiery rays pouring out of her eyes to swim, swim, swim in the lakes and creeks. My vision goes blue, then gold, then clears to a Jackson Pollock depiction of myself walking along the rough asphalt path to the beach at Lake Temescal, the sound of ducks, people fishing on the opposite shore, gritty sand between my toes, that breeze off the bay rubbing me down, gentle now, not too cold, then plunge beneath the surface, off to swim with fishes.

This late April sunlight has me in the zone, singing to the stars, lighting candles at the feet of our wooden Buddha, ravenous for the bliss of deep meditation, whitewater roar of joy from a cave beneath a boulder right in the middle of the river, feeling love for even my enemies, don't ask me how, always hated those fuckers before.

Flower scents follow me for miles, play childhood games with me, tap me on the shoulder and then disappear, only to come back in 3 seconds to slap me with vague forgotten memories, make me want to cry and laugh and just lie there in the street like a old blind dog on a hot day, the fragrances know, have known me for years, tracked me across continents, genetic algorthyms for aromatic rings known as vernal spirits, ancestral floral allies from my grandmother's garden, microsopic fountains of youth that have come to show me the meaning of love, bless us with a hundred thousand more miracles, dole out reassurance that there're plenty more where those came from. The old story tells it that Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk had magic beans, but it turns out that that all them little seeds can wax magic if you work with them, fe fi fo fum.

This mood won't last forever, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

An Orifice By Any Other Name

In her zeal to convince me to shave my goatee, my venerable spouse took to calling me Crotchface and asking me when I planned to shave "that pubic mass". Gave me an idea, or two. Carol and I agreed though, no matter how I puckered and twisted, my faux coochie lacks the tender mien of vagina veritas. I think you will agree that the strong point would be the clitoral hood. We are still getting laughs out of it, and broaching Berkeley-esque topics such as how it relates to Jung's Man And His Symbols, east-west politics, and gender roles at home & in the workplace, weeks later. If you're a guy not having fun experimenting with different facial hair configurations, you are missing out, big time.

Self-Portrait of a 3-Year Old Male

The boy's art never ceases to amaze me, because I'm his father for the most part, but also because it's a major trip any way you slice it. Makes me want to draw, finger paint, build a sculpture, let those moonrises shine right through me, bask in heartfelt gratitude.

Chicken Foot To You

Chicken foot to you! The boy has taken to saying this phrase that he coined, whenever life's circumstances call for that extra bit of cuteness and humor. Mamacita asked him what he wanted to write to me on my birthday card. He responded with "Chicken foot to you." Maira gave him this chicken foot when she came over for our March full moon hike. She gave it in a bag with some Latvian sea salt, although the salted chicken foot is not a Latvian tradition, yet. We've kept it in a bowl in the garden window with some salt ever since, watching it's evolution and trying to pose it every now and again. Pretty stiff of late. Sometimes Gumbo will stick one of his hands out from under a bed or from under the foam of his bath, with his fingers mimicing the pose of the chicken foot, and ask "what's this?". It is of course supposed to be a chicken foot. Much mileage out of a single chicken foot and some salt. Soon after receiving this chicken foot I was lucky enough to get to try eating one at Restaurant Peony in Oakland. Not quite delicious, but not so bad either. Yes, I know, commercial chicken farming is sad.