Covid Peace O Mind

     There are so many cute little cabin names up by me. Our cabin is set in the low sierras and we have been traveling up to this area, and renting for years before we were lucky enough to find/purchase our mountain escape.

    As if pancake breakfasts, pee wee golf, movies under the stars, and floating on a lake weren't quite enough for our souls our cabin fulfilled yet still another role this year.

     This has been some year.   Online teaching ( and all the craziness this entails 24-7) facing CovId (w/it's own set of fears and anxieties) worrying about my children, worrying about our political climate, and finally the toll of the pandemic on my own health has almost knocked me down.

   Big Sigh.

   When I leave the Bay Area and see those low foothills- even just an hour of driving before our cabin a calm washes over me.  I can't describe it but I sure feel it. It's as if my body knows what is happening?   And even when I pull up, and we lug in our gear, trip after trip, we are still animated and talking.  And when I stand out on that deck, and all I can hear are the leaves rustling, or some kind of deep hush sound,   my shoulders drop as if to surrender.

    I think I may have a name for my cabin? 

Converged

     

    There were just so many instances in my life when my father tried to shove his own tastes and likes down my throat.  It was common place; I accepted it. Did I want to listen to my AM radio in peace?  You betcha.  Did I want to watch "Love Boat," without a lecture on dumbed down culture? You better believe it!  Of course, the worst part was the public shaming.  How many times did I want to just melt into the hot vinyl seat of that  1968 Belvedere station wagon when my dad blared his KJAZ station at full decibels so that I could "appreciate" Lester Young's solo at a traffic light?  Or how about when he tricked my sister and I into seeing what we thought was a cute little fairy tale movie in this tiny, dirty, obscure theatre in  north Berkeley ? It actually turned out to be Jean Cocteau's interpretation of "Beauty and the Beast," and not the warm fuzzy Hans Christian Anderson one we were so familiar with. I still remember those disturbing animal costumes even though I was only nine.

    My father redeemed himself my freshman year of college when he drug me to a play in San Francisco. I was majoring in drama and was home for the weekend.  I would have much rather been with my friends that night but I  had sadly run out of excuses.  Our tastes converged that night.  That play, in that tiny theatre in Fort Mason, was a blend of arguing, passion, timing, emotions, and the intricacies of family relationships.  "True West," was one of Sam Shepard's finest works.  I remember my father and I talked, and overlapped the whole drive home from San Francisco eagerly sharing the best dramatic nuances we had seen, and heard.  We were still talking even after we slammed our car doors in unison, and started up the concrete path to our home- oblivious to what had just finally happened between us.

Summer of '66

  

   I have vague memories of Myrtle Beach.  I have just a few.  They are all in black and white- just like the pictures.  I remember we were happy, though.  We were all so gloriously happy. It was a huge old house with hardwood floors and I remember the backyard was small, just a grassy opening bordered by tall grass or reeds and it was a gateway to the beach.   There was a brief stone path for the conventional but really all you had to do was part those grasses with both hands, and have at it.

     There was plenty of laughter and cold drinks, and my uncle was speaking to my father then.  My grandfather even wore short sleeve shirts, and smiled a lot. He stood out on the open brick porch and sipped his Tab.

   We were oblivious to all this down on the beach each day screaming, and shrieking in the foamy green bathwater.  We buried each other in that fine white sand daily, and marveled at our excavation work anew.  I didn't stay with them always.  Sometimes, I left their melee, and wandered down the beach a bit, in search of the perfect beach washed lion's paw. I was so determined that summer before my mother got sick.