April 2010, in Some Walnut Shells

Spring storms blow in rough and wild but cannot quench my blistered feet blazing around the verdant trails. Wind and rain, flowers and sun, this tree huggin' soil worshipper zims that vernal edge singing the body electric, feeling real Walt Whitman up in here, Leaves Of Grass, up in here.

"Buddhas do not wash away ill deeds with water, Nor remove transmigrators' sufferings with their hands, Nor transfer their realization to others. Beings are freed through teachings of the truth, the nature of things. --Buddha

Swam Donner Lake at 9:00 AM 4/26/10 for ~1 minute. Yes, there was snow on the beach. Immersion in cold water is some crazy stuff. I do believe I liked it. Then I learned to snowboard; loved it.

Used to wait for my favorite pet wild freshwater crab sitting on the shore of San Francisquito Creek. I did not know one could find crabs in freshwater until she scuttled by my favorite creekside basking spot, little blue devil with her home under rock. I hope her descendants scuttle there still.

Kids' art takes me places people plumb forgot existed, and beyond. My son convinced me to roll down a steep grassy hill in Tilden Park with him, the one between the botanical garden and the Brazilian Room. Had completely forgotten how dizzy that can make a person, but now it's the freshest, way. Daughter did it too, of course - 1st time's free.

Son says "I wouldn't want to live in a little bitty world, and have a little bitty life, because then you would be born and die in like five minutes." Might be good enough for Alan Jackson, but we're looking for that step up.

"Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation, a way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings." --Octavio Paz

Chthonic. Look it up. Jung laughs with us while Faust and Faunus smile vacant past unthinkable dreams, or are those memories? Reflections of reflections through looking glasses and shattered knives.

"This life disappears only very quickly Like something written in water with a stick." - Buddha.

Found daughter trying to figure out the cover to Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and The Holding Company, yes the real album cover from 1967. First it brought back memories of myself trying to figure that art out, then I went ahead and actually looked at it. It has to the funniest album cover of all time. Long live R. Crumb. About Janis on the back my daughter said "She's happy."

"There ain't no money in poetry. That's what sets the poet free...cold dog soup and rainbow pie is all it takes me get me by." --Guy Clark Windy

Winter night, edge of Tomales Bay: no tent, old bag, let breeze in strong through zipper. tickling chill woke me every 20 -minutes - I laughed and thanked lucky stars for wil...d gifts, turned over to more ochre dreams.

Feeling inspired for more night hikes after last full moon traipse in the howling cold wind & pouring rain. Have finally realized, with a little help from a extraordinarily visionary friend, that we do not have to wait for any weather, moonphase, or water temperature to arrive.

"May we have the confidence of joy and delight When food and wealth accumulated with miserliness are left behind And we separate forever from cherished and longed-for friends, Going alone to a perilous situation." -The First Panchen Lama

San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade 2008

"I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."

--passage from the Bhagavad Gita that flashed through Robert Oppenheimer's mind following detonation of the first atomic bomb. The same thought visited my mind at age six, shortly after lighting my first firecracker.

In all my firecracker loving years I had never attended the Chinese New Year Parade & Festival in San Francisco. For someone that loves firecrackers as much as me, to have stayed away for so long, even during seven years of living in San Francisco, was duh, buh, duh, dumb. The drums, the firecrackers, the street food, the half-wild kids, politicians smiling from hopped up mustangs, music & light washed over me, fired up my old explosion craving cycle, eyes wide for concussion colors.

When I was a kid I believed my drug of choice to be the ringing in my ears, and it may still be. We used to cruise along on our BMX bikes, lighting firecrackers as we rode, throwing them at each others wheels, laughing and laughing and laughing. Those were my pre-teen summer suburban halcyon days. Gunpowder in our nostrils, fingers numb and discolored from short fuses, law leering with suspicion from air conditioned squad cars. We ruled the cul-de-sacs and dry creek beds, slinging Black Cats and Thunder Bombs, for as much as $1/firecracker, if we didn't like you.

The crowds were not heavy due to forecasts that called for rain and 60+ mph winds, but the streets were far from empty. I of course love storms and proceeded undeterred. An air of fun and burnt gunpowder danced rainy figure eights up and down the drizzled streets, to the tune of yelling kids. Next year I will drag the kids along for sure, typhoon or not.

Dined at San Francisco's oldest Chinese restaurant afterwards, The Four Seas, pleasant enough, very classic. My mother has said for years that hunger is the best spice, and we were quite famished, so the fare satisfied fabulous. The leek & shrimp dumplings were extra good with lots of leek, and the rest hit the spot.

Woke up the next morning with my pockets full of fireworks, much to the children's delight. When we were done lighting them off I started mixing some unsweetened aloe vera juice into a shake. Gumbo wanted to try some, so I mixed up a little apple juice with a couple ounces of it and let him try it. "Tastes like kid alcohol." he says, right away. Yes, um, kid alcohol, we all know what he means, but, at age 4, how does he know?

Big Storms Love Me

Big storms all lined up to take their turns with California, just like in my life. Sixty-plus mile per hour winds expected on the flats, which means we can expect gusts past 75-mph at my house, lucky enough to have been constructed along the centerline of a ancient laughing demon wind tunnel. I can hear the howling souls rip by already, going to get my head shaved in a few. This lovely grandmother off downtown Oakland wields a straight razor and bottle of sting juice with charm reminiscent of my adolescent fantasy image of Dr. Feelgood, for a reasonable price, winter be damned.

Storms-A-Comin'

Accordion skies contort, invert, and weep young widows' insanity laughter. The muffled shrieks follow me as sudden pressure changes, send icy fingers through my open window. Some would call it a storm, but I take it for a gray harbinger of clockwork death driving mindless dust devils to engage fallen leaves and relapse victims, cutting out the dead wood, cleaning up the cities and poisoning the bay. The rain falls on Mt. Tamelpais, I can see it now, but not here yet. The rain calls me, texts me, clogs my inbox with invitations, knocks on windows at odd hours, asks if we would join the dogs of weather that rule the sky, text messages of the wild just a short vibration on my hip, again, again, persistent canine questioning. This storms-a-gonna wash me right down the stormdrain to the bay, and from there into the wide Pacific, just what Dr. Feelgreat ordered.