Notes on the Road-Old Chatham Meeting in NY is looking for a place to build a meetinghouse on the grounds of Powell House, the Quaker Conference Center- a lovely old mansion out in the expensive sticks of Columbia County south of Albany. When I think of all hell braking loose as Friends try to choose new flooring for the restroom, I can’t imagine bringing dozens of people together to decide on a building site. The meeting put up a billboard this fall showing a prisoner blindfolded and bound. There’s a quotation from Jesus about loving your enemy and the question, “Is this love?”
Across the dirt road from Powell House is a farm for rescued animals, including several horses. Walking out one moonlit night last month, I watched the horses about 11 PM, some grazing and some going to sleep. I tried to be very quiet- sleeping in public must be nerve wracking for someone rescued.
At another Quaker conference center I see deer on a late night walk. There had been some talk of mountain lions there years ago but now the deer seem to be in residence and slow to leave even in the presence of people. I try to walk quietly again and make myself as harmless appearing as possible (on my first hitch hiking endeavor in the early 70’s with only about 40 miles to cover, I used a sign that said “Harmless” and got lots of rides from laughing people). The Redwood forests of this conference center stun me to silence each time I see them. How anyone can be in their presence and not feel the reverence and how fraught with life they are, so much to teach mere people?
Blake, whose birthday is today, takes me from the Redwoods down the hill to the coast on Sunday. We walk the pier and I wonder aloud how I might find out if an old friend from Santa Cruz has died with AIDS. I tried the archives of the local paper online, but I am not a computer person and hadn’t a date to work with. It’s an odd thing to be having dreams of someone often and then stop, as though he has left.
Marshall and I both finish our work travels for the year and leave for a time of rest and visiting his family in Southern California. We leave early as an ice storm threatens the interstate path to the airport. How odd to be on our way to sunny warmth chased by ice. The very cheap tickets on Thanksgiving Day bring us through 4 airports and a dozen hours of travel. We both are accustomed to long flights and fill the time with books, ipod, writing letters, postcards, and journaling. Marshall always has 2 or 3 books he is reading and I always travel with writing materials. Some flights I just read my journal, which prompts more memory of detail than what I’ve written. In my head I begin planning an AIDS quilt for Bill Kreidler of deep rich velvets.
In California we stroll 2 very different beaches. We walk Santa Monica beach down to Venice. While the beach is stunning the whole way with Malibu to the north, the edge of the towns along the beach couldn’t be more different in people and buildings. SM has style and graceful old architecture and money and college kids and surfers. As you approach Venice, clearly there are more homeless and more drug dealers and addicts. There are also more artists and the old buildings are slowly being replaced by new money from big developers. I once saw a man juggling 3 chainsaws in Venice (the chainsaws going) and passing the hat like any street performer. In an empty parking lot some young men had skateboards and long ropes reaching to wind-filled mini parachutes pulling them along like sailboats. Surfers on the water had bigger kite-sails doing a similar dance but along the waves. We’ve none of this in Putney.
The beach in Santa Barbara is the end of a long sloping hill that comes from the mountains and fans down to the sea for maybe 10 miles. One can stand under palms near the surf and see snow covered peaks up under the clouds. The beach curves in a very tasteful and picturesque way from some rocky cliffs in the south and goes straight west to more cliffs after making a graceful crescent that embraces a long pier, a skateboard park, a marina, and a long park for walkers, joggers, and biking. The spacious beach has homeless there at all hours- men mumbling to themselves and carefully packing what little scraps of life they possess. The skateboard park also seems to be a preserve of males only. And how they defy gravity is beyond me. 30 or more skateboarders flying through the air more crowded than O’Hare airport and no crashes- amazing. You can walk 3/4 the way around the marina and see people caring for their boats like a different form of suburbia. And the boats are as different as houses- some so old and torn up one wonders how it still floats. Some so large and ritzy that I know it’s not only bigger than my house but has a better toilet.
The GPS in the car says the closest Quaker Meeting to Santa Barbara is in Santa Monica. I wonder if the FBI uses GPS to find Quaker meetings or goes on line to Quaker.org. We go into Los Angeles to see an exhibition of Joni Mitchell’s art. I am disappointed that it is not her paintings but images of war taken from a broken TV all done up in bright green. The message being isn’t war dumb and deceitful no matter the century. Yes, of course. But I wanted to see her paintings, especially the portraits. The catalog costs more than our monthly mortgage. But there’s news of an album coming out next year of her new songs, thank goodness.
There’s a music store in Marshall’s hometown near 5 colleges and the CD collection there is amazing. I could easily spend a wad there on things I never see back home. Marshall chooses a CD of Horowitz performing in Moscow. In the car we are stunned by it’s majesty and it makes me think we need to replace the speakers at home to truly hear how beautiful this music is.
We travel easily with his parents and it’s a happy relaxing trip for a few days away. It’s odd to have so many cycles or plateaus in ones life. I remember being a young skinny horny lonely school teacher with a full dance card and no true love, a guitar, a VW bus, and no place to call home. I still have the guitar but Marshall has replaced everything else in our 20 years together. What might another 20 look like?
I begin a time of rest without teaching or touch work from Thanksgiving to New Years. I’ve got to shovel out my desk and stack the rest of the wood before snow flies. And I’ve got to rest from another year with trips to 24 groups, going into my 25th year of this traveling ministry. How odd life is as it gets longer- does 80 seem even more peculiar as more change happens? Does a life hold together like a quilt stitched each year? The neighboring Malamute is put down on a gray day. All the neighbors come the night before to say good-bye as she is the nicest person in the neighborhood. I bring her last meal, her favorite- McDonalds cheeseburgers sans condiments. Marshall is there for the vets needle and the last moments to comfort her owners and witness with love. How very full life is and how various the mix over time.