We spent the weekend in San Luis Obispo, eating good food, quaffing good drink, and enjoying good company. On the way home Aaron coaxed me to go wine tasting at a winery for the first time ever---it didn't take much coaxing. Strangely though, for all its beauty and weather and culture, California unexpectedly feels foreign to me. This happens every now and then, I think most likely because I am not really from here. No matter where I go in the end, I know that California will remain glorious in my memory...On Sunday morning we woke up to pouring rain, which to be honest, I thought was really cool...but everyone else spent the afternoon complaining about it. Oh well, to each his own. I think I must be biding my time...I may know what I am waiting for, but I'm not sure...

Along the coast there is no age
Old and young are together distressed;
By might and salty pensive brooding.
Moss-wound oak and pungent sage
Green brown and musky dressed;
Rumbling with friendly foreboding.
Along the coast one is wrapped
With tragic waves
And terrible beauty forbidden;
Safe for a moment
desperate the next...
Around my feet ideas lapped
Echoed within the skull's caves
Ragged mind now dulled and hidden...
All to relent
All out of context.
Along the coast a smile plays
Dances and sings to the slate sky
Who's grin is this?
What mouth did it forsake?
A mile-post of days
Sometimes honest, often sly
A slow smile kiss
Who now will partake?
Along the coast you are lost
Long later to be found
Caressed awake
Windy tossed
Dying without a sound

Groatus and I went motorcycle riding Sunday afternoon in the mountains. The temperature was perfect, the sun was shining, and the bikes were running great. So relaxing...

I fell asleep last night with an image rolling around in my brain, put there in part by the book I was reading, part by a very dark movie I saw not long ago, and the rest a mixture of imagination and blotchy black-and-white photographs from old books on the War. I'm not entirely sure why it assailed my tired mind or why I couldn't clear it from my head...

It was a still night in winter near the limits of a small town in northern Italy, during the later part of the Second World War. A scrawny adolescent girl was sitting in the snow by herself, leaning casually against a battered brick wall. A sleepy, thoughtful look hung about her half-closed, dark-rimmed eyes. Bundled close about her small body, held in place by obviously chilled fingers was a worn-out wool overcoat, all rumpled and smudged with age. She wore a tired but faintly contented smile and looked rather comfortable despite the harsh night air.
"'S cold," I commented, lighting a Camel. I wondered if she spoke English. She looked vaguely Slavic. She didn't answer right away and I took my first drag.
"Do you have a place to get warm?" I asked. I bent toward her, to hear her reply.
There were holes in her coat. Little tears or rips here and there, filled with rich red-brown syrup, frozen to ice in the bitter night. Slipping from my fingers, my cigarette went out in the snow beside me as I gently touched her face. She was dead.

I recently finished Lewis' stark and incredibly powerful Great Divorce, and am currently in the middle of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, a very very different sort of story, though also powerful in it's own right. The striking thing that ties these two books together is the uneasy sense that everything we do here on earth is ultimately utterly pointless and insignificant. Well, not quite; C.S. Lewis' words flow with hope and joy, promising salvation based on the choices we make throughout our lives; so by his account our actions do have some value. Yet the fact that all our great achievements and endeavors really mean nothing apart from the love and charity that accompany them remains. Vonnegut of course is much more bleak. It makes a person think though, and reminds one that all the struggle for money and possessions and security is pretty empty, despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to live or have any influence, good or bad, without these things. This is another example of where hope and faith become essential, the only means of survival. Without the belief that God wishes us to work and live among his other creatures, to be 'in the world but not of it', we wallow in directionless distraction. Another good comes from these rather dismal thoughts though, and that is the reminder that the only things that are ultimately worthwhile is loving God and others. We can have and enjoy many many different things, we can be entertained, but when life doesn't go our way, leaving ourselves out of love for Christ and for the sake of another is the only true peace we will find. The reward for the gift of self is greater than any prize we may demand or think is owed. But I am just lonely today, and it is still cloudy.

So it goes.

This morning is a quiet one
Oppressed by a damp marine layer
From the cold nearby sea...
Everything seems indistinct and distant today
Like I'm not really awake
But I've already had my coffee.
Voices traverse the long chill to reach my muffled ears
But my mind is home in bed,
Back in the little apartment;
The alarm is off
I am wrapped in comfort and warmth
And I know I will never be lonely or sad again...
The jealous morning gives an elbow in the ribs
There is dirt on this floor
Things to do and put away
I am not home,
I cannot reach the arms in my dream...
...I shove back
A smile
A simple thought
An image of Our Blessed Lady.
It's okay to be lonely
It's okay to bleed
Jesus remembers when He was there...
And the clouds will lift
The morning will give way to the fullness of day
Did I still sigh, hiding a hopeful smile?

The rain just won't give up this year. Wrong time to give up my car and get a bike, I guess...!

well, well, well!

Frou Frou has some very interesting lyrics...deeply passionate, sad, sometimes bordering on despair and desperation....strange somber thoughts for a rainy day. The river is high and the sky is low today---they say it will continue raining for most of April---we'll see, this is California after all. I just hope we don't lose any more trees. As usual, I spent the day working by myself. That can be hard sometimes, but today I didn't mind at all. There is peace in solitude when you feel good about life and yourself...I can't get my mind to stop churning with thoughts, so many thoughts; good ones though---and summer is coming...

These guys are really grood. I mean, good...and great. Great and good.

It's raining again
Fog and cloud hide the hills
Rivelets drowning spring weeds
Carving out sandy beds
Spilling into shoes
Dripping on the heart
Time is erratic
Never steady or smooth
Adjusting contrary to our desires
Bluring the present
Wrapped up in the mist
Like a woolen overcoat
Must not forget...

Maybe a weekend in the Bay Area was not such a good idea...

'Cause now I have no desire to be back here for even one more day. Don't get me wrong, I actually have been quite happy with my time working at TAC and being among my good friends and all---and despite it's reputation even Ojai is pretty and quiet and enjoyable...but it is time to open the old trunk of adventure again, and I am already mentally far, far from here. I will miss much from this place when I go, but there is too much waiting for me across that Goldan Gate...
The Last Gentleman and I left on Friday for Santa Cruz and spent most of the weekend with a dear old friend, watching weird/uncomfortable/hilarious episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, smoking, drinking Pisco, laughing, playing guitar and discussing our college days together. We basically didn't sleep (do we/will we ever?), I got sick, and we nearly forgot to eat at all, but his sweet lady made us an awesome breakfast, so we pulled through.
Sunday we went in search of a long-lost cousin of mine, and found her without much trouble in Oakland. I had no way to get a hold of her, so I just drove around trying to find her old work; (the last I knew of her was that she worked at a huge warehouse junk store called Urban Ore on Ashby Ave., and that was two years ago). We found the place, and discovered from a character who looked like a 25-year-old Buffalo Bill that she had quite just the week before---from there it was easy. For a cousin, she's pretty cool, and her turn of the [19th] century apartment kicks booty---1920s-60s decor and appliances, complete with rust, scratches, scuffs and dents, but all fully functional and in daily use. And Johnny Cash was on the Hi-Fi. It was really good to see her again (My first taste of San Francisco was walking the city for over 6 hours straight with her years ago, and I have loved the place ever since), and we all stood around outside with tea and smokes and chats and smiles, and she promised to help out with work and accomadations when I get up there.
From there we booked up to North Bay in the late afternoon for a quick tour of the countryside, and headed back down California One at sunset. Through the City, a brief scrabble to reach the 101, and then the long delerious race for Ventura County with the likes of the Velvet Underground, Doc Watson and Matisyahu massaging our ears...

[sigh]

It is still cold here. There is a fresh layer of snow on the hills and in Ojai it poured rain all night. I have been selling stuff, buying stuff, working on stuff, talking about stuff, and worrying about stuff a lot lately. I'm pretty sure my life has never been as diversified as it is right now...oddly enough, I am sort of thriving off the business, though I am tired as hell. The present is hard and thrilling, the future is bright and filled with wildness and hope, and I am running for all I am worth...but soon enough, I will have other things to live for, and I will slow to a casual walk, making sure I see the sky and wade through the clouds...