"The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book - a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as dearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell everyday." Mark Twain, Life on The Mississippi
Adele
Photo by Lovise Mills
We were at a dinner party, 5 of us at our neighbor Adele's house. We settled in around 6:00, eating appetizers and having drinks and waiting for dinner to be ready, meanwhile catching up, but also all of us getting to know one another. We had no other plans that evening, just a pleasant time with friends over fine food and drink on Adele's pleasant houseboat that’s filled with art - each piece created by a friend, each with a story behind it.
At one point, early on, the oven timer interrupted the telling of a story and Adele, said, 'Well, we have all night'. Not sure we ever got back to that story, but stories flowed - and that line - 'we've got all night' - seemed so easy and gentle and generous and magnanimous, much like the evening itself.
No hurry. No agenda. This simple evening, this time, these friends, this pork tenderloin to pull out of the oven, this bottle of Dewar's to pour, and oh yes, the story behind the cutting board that looked like a fish, made by Roger, the cutting board a simple but engaging fish design - its surface smooth after all the bread and fruit and cheese and life so thinly sliced . . . we had all night.
And when we don't then we don't. But we don't wait or worry or hurry that time to come. We give it the benefit - take out the doubt - just give it the benefit, the way we would like it to be given to us, which makes it easier to give to others - whom we have no say or sway over anyway. It's how we conduct ourselves, how we live - generously and freely, how we pour - loosely and with a smile, how we enjoy the company of others, and give & take and join the flow, the flow of the moment, the flow on the water, the flow of good company, enjoying the benefits, as we relax into now . . . in no hurry, with no doubt . . . because we've got all night.
gb, 2013
Felines of South Forty
Writing On The Dock of The Bay
When we first moved to the dock, a friend came to visit. She sat at the dining room table where I write, looked out at the lovely view and asked, "How do you get any work done around here?" I smiled and said, "I make it my work."
photograph by guest blogger Ken Spurr
coffee with cream and a spoonful of sunrise
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.
Walking The Planks of Clipper Harbor
One evening 35 years ago at Lake Atitlan, I felt myself joining a silent migration to the shoreline, pulled by the magnificent beauty of color and light. Quetzaltenango was off-limits to us Peace Corps volunteers because of the war. Buses traveled with pine boughs attached to their front bumpers to brush away debris scattered by guerreros on the roadways, while the army pulled over buses in what they called a draft. But of course, I had to go anyway. I've never forgotten the silent, spontaneous stream of people that evening, moving in two and threes, pulled by the power of color, the beauty of light, a powerful sight that transcended politics, passports, and race.
One evening this week I stepped onto our deck awed by the color and light of the setting sun. My neighbor Dennis, whose spectacular photos have sometimes graced this blog, was already outside with his camera looking west - you can see him in the far left, and across the channel, another neighbor stood on the roof of the El Paso House, camera in hand; each of us, perhaps, as Vita Sackville-West once said, attempting to "clap the net over the butterfly of the moment."
One morning while drinking coffee at a little neighborhood cafe on California St. I found a pile of children's books in a basket in a corner and discovered this page from one of my all time favorites. I had never quite wondered about the shape of a blogg before I read this . . . but then Dr. Seuss always could inspire one's imagination and spark one's creativity with his wonderful rhythms and words and illustrations that took us to places we'd never been, allowed us to see things we'd never seen, and perhaps imagine something long before it might ever become a reality for everyone else, including the shape of a blogg . . . and to think that I saw it on California Street. Happy Birthday this week to the one and only Dr. Seuss!
Parade day on Water Street
Best Dock Find Ever
Photograph by guest photographer Dennis Bayer
Writing on The Dock of The Bay
This morning seals and sea lions swim just off our float and pelicans soar through the air. The herring are running and the eating is good. One seal looks our way before it submerges. Sometimes they simply drop below the surface; sometimes they do a serpentine dive, slick bodies glinting in the light, as they go below to where the good stuff swims. It's the same with writing. The good stuff is always below the surface. And when the writing's going well, we plunge in and lose all track of time . . . and later wonder where the time went and where did the story we just wrote come from. . . I learn from my marine friends, though I've never attempted a serpentine submersion on my laptop! I learn from this time on the water, too, where houseboats reflect on the channel's glassy surface while I reflect on the smooth screen of this Mac. I count seven seals this morning. I sip my coffee. I learn that it's a good day not to be a herring.
The Social Life of Water by Tony Hoagland
All water is a part of other water. Cloud talks to lake; mist speaks quietly to creek.
Lake says something back to cloud, and cloud listens. No water is lonely water.
All water is a part of other water. River rushes to reunite with ocean; tree drinks rain and sweats out dew; dew takes elevator into cloud; cloud marries puddle; puddle
has long conversation with lake about fjord; fog sneaks up and murmurs insinuations to swamp; swamp makes needs known to marshland. . . . (excerpt)
