Friday, May 4, 2018

TGIF

The house phone rings.  And so it begins.

It happens to be Vlad, confirming dinner tomorrow night.  I had already begun to assemble this post in my mind.  Vlad loaned me some books on our mutual friend, the poet W.E.  I am finally able to read it, as I have been felled by a virus I picked up on the flight back from Denver on Wednesday.

(The grand kids were wonderful to see, hold, kiss, hug.)

This book, "Perspectives" was written on the occasion of Bill's 80th birthday.  There are some splendid poems dedicated to him; some written by people I knew.

Poems of the wild California coast, so deeply evocative.  I grew up there, was a teenager and a young adult.   I walked the twisting scrub trails at Pt. Lobos, listening to the sea lions basking on the rocks below.

Found my church in those land and seascapes.


I lived in a remarkable geographical and literary area, the home of John Steinbeck and Robinson Jeffers.  As a young adult, I worked in a theater next door to Doc Rickett's laboratory on Cannery Row.  I lived near the famous Tor House of Jeffers.  They were real people, members of the community (though the community did not necessarily look favorably on them in their lifetimes).

Meeting Vlad last month, and reading these works, brings it heart achingly close: my past, the experience of a young mind face to face with the wild winds, cliffs and turbulent waves of a world older than humankind.  As I said, I found my church there.  I became a disciple of Walt Whitman and Thoreau.  I had the romantic notions, typical of youth, to live in the wilderness, away from the horrors of modern man.  Thoroughly unequipped to do so, I lived there on the edge of it, and used its influences for my music and writing, and later photography.

That's another remarkable thing about the place:  home of Weston and Adams.  Their photography very influential to me and thousands of others.  An amazing constellation of artists of all kinds.  And the gifts continue: many of my friends from high school there are themselves working artists with galleries and a lifetime of expressing their craft.  Such persistence.  Such focus.

Have you seen the movie Midnight in Paris?   I imagine that I could live back in the time of Jeffers, Weston and Adams, Steinbeck, too, and befriend them all.  I also imagine that they were all a pain in the butt in one way or another.  Such is the way of humans, and often times, creative artists.

So while this virus has me under the covers and sucking copious amounts of water, I am enjoying the journey of this book.  And, if well enough, the company of Vlad tomorrow night.  But if not well, I will pass.  I would be horrified if I passed on my calamity to a 97 year old darling of a man.

Have a great weekend, and be well.

13 comments:

  1. Oh I love this so much, Tara. Suddenly I am reminded why poetry was my first love, through which I saw our beautiful planet. These words, the words of our elders ringing achingly true year after year after year. Yes, Midnight in Paris, but perhaps the new movie would be Midnight in San Francisco. Oh the wandering poets who made their way there. Hope you are starting to feel better. Take care and be well, dear friend.

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  2. Hope you feel better soon.

    You describe so well that ache and gratitude for having had the rich sensual and spiritual experience of living on that section of the Pacific coast line in our youth and reading the poetry of California poets and seeing the photographs of the California photographers. All that is so much of who I am as well. And Denise Levertov is at the top of my list of beloved poets.

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    1. and did you know that some of her greatest influences were WCW, Thoreau and Emmerson? The lineage continues.

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  3. Beautiful images! Fever makes you so poetic!

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  4. Ha! No fever yet, but it's in my chest and that's never good.

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  5. Such an interesting post. But be well, Tara. Rest. Rest. Rest.

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  6. What a wonderful remembrance of youth. Don't forget John Muir ;-)

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  8. "Found my church in those land and seascapes."

    Beautiful!

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