Somewhere Between A Dock and B

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

You  find yourself sitting on a bench along the waterfront, swinging your legs. You look down and see a face in the rocks. You wonder how that face got there, and maybe how you got there too. And you think, I couldn’t have done it any better if I’d tried to make a face on that rock myself. You think of all the times you’ve tried and failed or messed things up. And then, all the times you let it flow. As the tide goes out you think about the bittersweet melancholy of loss but don’t dwell, and you look at the girl sitting next to you on that bench and you are flooded with feeling for her. And you realize as you both swing your legs on that bench along the rocky shore by the docks, that you are lucky to have her, lucky to appreciate what you have this very moment and not dwell on the things you don’t, lucky to have seen that rock with the face  today, smiling at you like someone wise from your past, with a view now, from the other side.

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

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

Floating Mirror

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

The houseboat gently rocks but I am unaware of it until I notice the chandelier is swinging slightly. I look out the window and gauge our movement with the houseboat next door. And then I feel it.  Sometimes I must step out of myself to observe my own shape, rhythm, and flow.

Found Treasure

Writing on The Dock of The Bay

Treasures can be found at the Dock's free pile: pink flamingo cups, books by Hesse and Erdrich, 501's - just my size, a topiary giraffe, half a birthday cake, a barely opened bottle of gin. Some days I tell myself - just keep walking -  but then I discover a framed history of Singing Toad Fish, snag a tiny photo album with        b & w snapshots -  no names - struck as I am by its sadness. I donate a jacket, it disappears, then reappears. I try not to take it personally! I wonder if dinner guests will recognize yellow soup bowls, or my new swordfish shirt.  Sometimes I wonder who didn't finish their cake, who is on the wagon, who donated those Penis Puppetry books?! I have my ideas. By far my best dock find is the pole net, used to retrieve a plastic saber floating by, and rescue tongs that fell overboard during the heat of a bbq. Surely pole net would've saved the day when neighbors watched their key ring with yellow float fall in the water and drift away. As I gaze at a recently found artichoke platter and Mad Bum bobble head, I think - today I'll walk away from the pile. Easier said than done; especially when I spy a new purse with matching boots. Leather.

Yearning Man

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

What I needed was a pilgrimage to India, the Camino or maybe Burning Man.

What I did was borrow a houseboat 40 miles south and journey to now.

This morning I sit on the channel, tapping words, sipping coffee,

watching the tide flow out. My wife sleeps upstairs.

The cats are on the deck. They sniff salt air.  

A gull floats by.  Pierre saunters in and

sits on my lap. Begins to purr.

I type one handed now,

one finger. It's 

all I need.

Heart & Soul

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

Returning on foot from pancakes at the Lighthouse, we find two people playing Heart & Soul on a waterfront piano, and an already beautiful morning turns magical. Laughter and music fill the air as we delight in the spontaneous performance of these players, who are out for a walk themselves. Later, I pay google a visit and discover: The Larry Clinton Orchestra, Heart and Soul, 1938. We have a neighbor on another dock by that name. I ask him, "Was that your dad?"  Yes, he replies. "The story goes that my father visited Hoagy Carmichael’s office and was riffling through his files of unfinished songs when he found Heart & Soul. He was intrigued, but Carmichael protested, 'Oh, that?  That’s just been lying around.  You don’t want to record that!'  Fortunately for him, and for piano students forever after, Pop went ahead."

And fortunate for us. Out for a walk, we stumbled across Heart & Soul, and found magic afloat in the air.

Subject: emails to myself

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

On our first night afloat, I discovered that my shiny new Air Mac had no word processing program. How was I supposed to write? It occurred to me that I could just email myself.  How funny, how strange, how totally me. Email myself? Turns out, it’s perfect. I like the spontaneity of email-­‐ the flow, rhythm, and freedom - that riffy feeling of letting it fly, then hitting Send. Emails are best kept short.  I like the containment, the structure, the limitations, even. Like moving from a farmhouse on acreage to a houseboat the size of a granny unit - with no garage or workshop or outbuildings. In thinking outside the box, my own little MacGuyver moment led me to  discover how much I enjoy  thinking - and writing - inside the box. Especially one  that floats on the bay. 

Heron Now

Writing On The Dock Of The Bay

At low tide two herons land in the lagoon and gingerly walk on the mud bottom, their colors blending with the early light, the water, their curved necks darting snake like into puddles and patches of vegetation. We watch from the kitchen table and forget all about our coffee and buttered toast. Their beauty and presence adds reverence to our day; their careful, measured steps remind me of a passage in the Tao de Ching. We lose ourselves in wonder; free ourselves from the click of the clock, from obligations we've made, from sentences we've agreed to well in advance. Seagulls and geese arrive, and light shimmers gold upon the water. Our gazes drift back to the two herons whose grace and unhurried care we later call Heron Now.