The Twenty Dollar Smile

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Writing On The Dock of The Bay

A nurse drove home through the City after work and stopped at a traffic light on Van Ness. A man with a cup stood on the median. She had seen him there many times before - lean and haggard with a straggly beard, a guitar case at his feet. She made it a practice not to give money. Sometimes, she had a tangerine from lunch that she would give away. But this December night it was clear and cold, very cold. She sat in her car waiting for the green light with her heater on, freezing. He must be really freezing, she thought. So she did something she never does. She reached into her purse and grabbed a bill. A twenty was all she had. She gulped, opened her window, and gave it to him. The man looked at the twenty dollar bill in disbelief. Are you sure???  he asked. Yes, she nodded. I'm so happy he said, his face lighting up with a smile. I can eat a hot meal tonight and I can buy a new string for my guitar and next time I see you I will play you a song - okay? She smiled and nodded and said, Yes, thank you. Then the light turned green. She drove towards home, his smile lighting the way.

Writing Light

Writing On The Dock of The Bay

 

Once I asked my friend Leonard Gardner to help me figure out how to put a new ribbon in my old Smith & Corona upright. He came downstairs to our dim flat where my typewriter sat on a bright blue table and typed: ‘First we must have light.’ I’ve never forgotten that, and now some thirty years later sitting in a room full of light I think how it works both ways – how we need light to write, and how writing itself provides us with light, how it casts meaning and understanding onto the page and allows us to play with our shadow.    

 

 

 

 

 

Answering The Bell

Writing on The Dock of The Bay

We were worried. Santa was running late this year. He summers in the houseboat across the channel. We're sure it's him. All bets are off on whether that's Mrs. Claus. She seems younger. November. Shouldn't he be gone? Toys don't just make themselves. Yesterday he sipped tea in the sun in a breezy aloha shirt as a flotilla of awol geese drifted by. He's lost weight, too. Not always a good sign at a certain age. People wonder. Privately, I edited my wish list to guard against Christmas morning letdown. Also, I had a bit of an off year. Last night I heard ringing - was it a dream? Someone's hull alarm? This morning, blinds across the channel were closed- not a creature was stirring. The houseboat looked buttoned up for winter. That was no dream I'd had, no cause for alarm I'd heard- that ringing was swell.  Once again, Santa has answered the bell!

Box Poem

Denizen of the Dock, Jim Woessner, guest blogger

Tourists freeze because their travel agent                                                                                                          only said "California," which means "sun"                                                                                                              in most languages. But no one told them                                                                                                           you can die from fog exposure in June.                                                                                                              And they say "guten tag" or "ciao bella,"                                                                                                            and ask, "What's it like to live on water?"                                                                                                         "How much does it cost to own a houseboat?"                                                                                                  And always, "How do you deal with sewage?"                                                                                                     So I say "guten tag" or whatever,                                                                                                                         and then "swell," "a whole lot," and "a big pipe."                                                                                                                 Jim Woessner, Little Boxes

  

Birthday Card From My Friend Ron After A Visit

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

Falling Under The Influence of Place

Sometimes place becomes the starting point. Where we go from there becomes an adventure, a journey of creation and discovery. Sometimes, where we started when we began to write, gets left in the dust; so too does the genre we thought we were in. And when that harp plays and it's time to wrap things up, we wonder where the story we just wrote came from, and where and when and how did time itself disappear . . .

One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. - Henry Miller

Fairyland

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

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When you live in a place that's featured in guidebooks and documentaries (not to mention blogs!), it's a different kind of life. At times you have to navigate your way through clusters of camera toting tourists as you take out the trash or bring in groceries from the car. But most of the visitors are happy and considerate. When the woman from Dallas told me, "I want your life!" as I returned from the compost bin, her grin reminded me yet again of the beauty of this place and our good fortune to live here. As if I needed reminding.  Alas, sometimes I do.  It's true - my best teachers don't even know they are teaching me. Last night on the dock an elderly gentleman smiled and said, "It's a fairyland here, isn't it?" I smiled back, repeating fairyland to myself, thinking - we need fairylands in our lives, no matter how old or young we become. 

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty in every age of life really never grows old." - Franz Kafka