The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--40. California Coastal Cold, Part 2

Cold Near Cambria, April 11, 2022, Steve Brown

April 12, 2022

1.

Outside the tent, the world is cold and damp and the sky to the east is a light lemon blue.  To the south are some big, tall very leafy trees.  They are species common to California, one that I, being from the Intermountain West, do not know.  I know the Great Basin so well it almost is me, and I it.  Utah juniper, pinion, gamble oak, aspen, blue spruce.  Home is a place I can define well with words.  Here is not home, and yet it feels so oddly familiar, like I belong here perhaps even more than home.  The air is cold, but moist and sweet, and for once I can breathe because my sinuses aren't dried and caked with thin snot layered up thick like layers of old paint.  It feels good to take in air so freely.  

Yet, it is cold, and very damp; the grasses below my feet are bent over with dew.  I decide to walk west, towards the sound of the sea.  That too sounds like home, the constant pounding of the waves.  It is the most beautiful sound in all the world, even from a distance, and it sounds much different here on the West Coast than along the Gulf Coast.  In California waves thunder.  In Texas they pshhh, or something like that.  Even in a storm, waves in Texas are softer, more drawn out.  In California, they thunder almost always, one after another.  And to hear them and feel that air always seeking to congeal into deep fog is for me to feel at home like nowhere else even if I don't have the name for those incredibly tall, leafy trees south of me, now glazed with the first rays of light.

I walk towards a rail fence where the end of the continent meets the sky, hoping for a glimpse of those glorious waves crashing below.  I am cold, but I don't mind.  I know it's not true, but in the moment, I feel like I'd be happy to shiver deeply here forever just to hear that sound and breath this air.  To breath and to be.  That is the California coast to me.

Behind the rail fence there are scruffs of wet, ochre grasses, berry bushes, and then a drop down to the sea.  Here, the trail turns right and follows the fence-line up a steep hill.  I follow it, hoping for a better view--and direct sunlight.

That line of golden warmth has moved lower downslope somewhat, and I am able to rise up out of the shadow quickly.  The only issue is that with the increased elevation comes also the increased wind.  I immediately seek shelter in some windswept evergreens.  The only problem is that brings the shade again--but it is definitely warmer than that wind.  Hugging a tree, I glimpse west to sunlit whitecaps rolling in.  This is it.  When I just see and be, I am free.  I've always known that.  And yet, I let my days fill up with everything but that.

2. 

I follow the path back down again, away from the windswept slope.  The sun now blankets the wet, grassy expanse in gold, and away from the wind, I can feel the warmth of the sun through my coat.  The path curves inland away from the wooden fence and towards those big, tall leafy trees.  They are golden and glorious.  The bugs and butterflies are out.  And the birds, that have been up the entire time, have increased their chatter and activity.  In a way, each day has a spring, and a summer, and a fall, and a winter.  Four seasons in one day is actually the norm--we are just not in-tune enough to notice it and make the connection with that annual day we break into seasons.

I follow the path around almost to the parking lot where we unloaded our car for camp and find a trail to the sea.  It is actually a small road that cuts down through the hillside.   The banks are steep and covered with grasses and bushes and trees, and all at once I am again in damp shadow looking up at a glowing world of warmth just out of reach.  That constant folding roar increases as I get my first glimpse of the ocean again--this time nearly at eyelevel.  I pick up my pace.

And then the world opens up to the sand and the sea.  There is not another person here, and it feels primal, original.  I stand steady and amazed as again that wind hits me with a smell and force of life not to be taken lightly.

Faced with the unknowns of my kidney disease, I wonder if this will be the last time I will ever see this view.  

It is a quiet wonder, but a deep one.  Life has taken on a depth it never had before.  Each experience seems sacred as it might not have a repeat.

Ironically, facing what could be turn out to be a terminal illness, makes me feel alive at a level I've never felt before.  Fear is definitely there.  But that voice cannot even begin to compete with the quiet, thundering awareness that life is just so damn beautiful.

3.

We have found a picnic area on a low bluff above a beach by the sea, and we have stopped to have breakfast.  The wind is cold and horrendously harsh, and we have pulled out the bare minimum of what we need to get some hot oatmeal and hot chocolate into us.  The one-burner propane stove is hissing its blue flames, the sound going in waves, as the wind does its best to wipe that fire out.  I stand to the side and look out past the metal-pipe railing, down to the beach below and the onslaught of waves, which in this wind, break into fans of fine water-droplets, almost mist, catching the mid-morning sun.

As cold as it is--and it is oh so cold--there are a few scattered groups of people walking along the beach.  A family of three--way out there to the south--is unsuccessfully trying to get a red, orange and yellow kite up.  It swirls and crashes again and again.  Too much wind, which I'm sure they know, of course.  It would be impossible not to.  I wonder what drives them.  Fun?  Or just stupid inflexible determination?  I'm positive that if they succeed, they will lose that kite altogether.  

My reflection doesn't last long.  It is cold, oh so cold.  The water has finally boiled, and we begin our own war with the wind, trying to get the oatmeal out of the paper packet into the bowl and keep as many of the flakes in there as possible before quickly grabbing and pouring in the hot water to hold everything down in a thick glue.  And then it's the same process with the hot chocolate, a thin dust of dark powder carried off in the wind.

I eat the quickly-cooling paste and drink the hot beverage thinking "This is the coldest I've ever been."  The view is absolutely stunning but not glorious enough to keep us here.  We eat at a pace we've never eaten before, pack up any old way, and sigh with relief to be back in that car.

Yet, strangely, we are oh so alive.

That is what it is to experience that California coastal cold that I love so very much.  I'd gladly do it again and again. I'm not so much different than that crazy family trying to fly a kite in cold hurricane-force winds.  Some rituals are just more meaningful if they involve some brutal futility.  There is some part of us that feels alive fighting against all odds to accomplish something--even if that something is just getting oatmeal to stay in the bowl long enough for water to weigh it down or getting a kite up long enough for one to count to thirty before it crashes to pieces.  

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--39. Icarus at Play Above All That Routine Thought

Icarus at Play Above All That Routine Thought, Steve Brown 2024

It's a hard thing to leave any deeply routined life, even if you hate it.

--John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952

Your only obligation in life is to die.  Everything else is a choice.

 --Dr. Daniel Sanderson

1.  Abstract

Each thought is a living road, like a river, with a current, and a choice between two opposing directions.  Some use the currents of the mind to get them where they want to go; some just follow the river wherever it goes; most spin in circles, lost in confusion because they don't understand the depths and undercurrents of their own mind.  It is very easy to believe one thing on the surface and accomplish the complete opposite because of what the mind truly believes below.  Now is always a moment to dip that ore into the water and feel around and play with the turbulence of the mind.  Some use their thoughts to get them where they want to go.  Most get played by their thoughts instead.  For most of my life, I have been in that latter group.  I often still am.  But sometimes I am now willing to stop mid-thought and get to know the river, and in those rare moments, I can work with the movements of my mind to get me where I want to be at that specific moment.  As a result, the argument that would have occurred in the past with a loved one doesn't because I am able to step away from my routine emotions, those automatic responses to the same old triggers defined by labels I unconsciously accepted long ago. 

Most people think that their thoughts are who they are.  This probably partly comes from As a Man Thinketh.  Thoughts definitely influence your choices and thus your behaviors.  That is vital to recognize.  However, it is absurd to think that you are your thoughts.  If you are your thoughts, then who is thinking them?  Believing you are what you think gives all of the free will you currently possess away to your routine thoughts.  You live up to your labels:  I am impulsive.  I am lazy.  I have a bad temper.  I am an alcoholic.  I am an addict.  I am shy.  I am a shallow social butterfly.  I am a loner. 

We are not our mind.  Our thoughts influence us, but they are not us.  Our thoughts are the stories we believe and the stories we want to believe, but they are not us.  They are the endless, swirling currents of the mind, but there is a very real me paddling that turbulence, and there is also a very real reality below those currents that is the bedrock of the channel that God intends me to get to know.  

When I understand these things, not only the mind, but all of life, moves from being a force to battle or simply endure, to a rich world teaming with possibilities to swim around in and explore--full of danger, yes.  But also full of beauty and wonder!  Once we know that we are not our thoughts, we no longer have to become them.  We can discard the ones that pull us under and latch onto the ones that make us soar.  Our thoughts only control us because we falsely believe they are us.  

Believing you are a failure may make you behave like a failure, but it does not make you permanently one.  Believing you are a winner may make you behave like a winner, but it does not guarantee you will always be one.  Believing you are a sinner may make you behave like a sinner, but it doesn't make you irredeemably one.   Believing you are a saint may make you behave like a saint, but it doesn't solidify you forever as one.  If the saint can turn towards becoming a sinner, and the sinner can turn towards becoming a saint, clearly those things aren't fixed.  If the winner can have a life experience that causes them to doubt that success and throw away all they've gained, and if the loser can somehow pick themselves up by their bootstraps and become a winner, clearly those labels are not who those individuals really are.  They are simply descriptions of behaviors based on current beliefs.  But someone is behind those thoughts doing the believing and acting according to those beliefs.  Getting to know that someone is key.   Knowing who I am is a very different type of knowledge than knowing who others believe I am.  We get those two lenses mixed up all the time.  We accept the labels others put on us as if the labels are us.  We see us through other people's eyes not realizing there is a very real me behind my thoughts that actually knows who I am.  

Those who understand this can begin to explore the river that is their mind and use its currents to take them where they ultimately want to go, knowing that the mind is not simply a tool to be used, but that it ultimately can become an extension of who they really are.   When this happens, the battle turns to play, and enduring turns to adventure, which is a lot less odious than simply surviving to the end.

2.  Concrete

The other morning, while feeding the chickens, and thinking about what I'd written above, which was still fresh, I realized that the only thing I really desire at this point in my life is to be as comfortable around others as I am around myself.  I also realized that as much as I want that, I am actually terrified of letting my shyness go because I've let that label define my existence for so long that I can't conceive of my life without the quiet, screaming terror I feel in the company of others.  

Then, I realized that if I let that shyness go, I will be unstoppable because I will be a man without desire and will be totally free to just experience life on its own terms and help others the best I can.  Unlike many others, I don't need things, power, or prestige to be happy.   And I am now so comfortable with myself alone that I'm never lonely when alone.  In solitude, I almost cease to exist in the most wonderful way.  If I'm out there in the valley, I get so caught up in the light and taking pictures, I become that transparent eyeball Emerson talks about.  And if I'm out in the garden, I get so busy watching the bees, I forget there is a me holding the hose.  I have no ambition, no fear.  I have no desire for anything beyond now.

Out there, feeding the chickens that morning, it hit me:  if I can feel that free by myself, why surely it is just as possible to feel that free in a room of full of people or while saying "Hi" to someone while walking down the hall.

What has divided my life into two different realities has been one simple belief:  I am shy.  Shy people are comfortable in their own company and are terrified in the company of others.  That's just how it is.  Who says I am shy?    I have.  My parents have.  Anybody who has met me has.  But does the bedrock me, the I below those stupid, silly thoughts really believe that?  I don't think so.  In my dreams, I am always a rock star and always have been since I was a little kid, not because I want to be famous, but rather because there is a me who knows exactly what it feels like to be free from social anxiety--that I who desires me to drop all that shyness horseshit.  At night, free from doubt, I become who I'm meant to be.

Long, long ago, over twenty-eight years now, I drank way too much on a regular basis, but it was easy for me to stop both because I was lucky enough not to become chemically addicted and because I never believed I was an alcoholic.  I was man angry at God for making me shy.  I was trying to slowly kill myself because I didn't like my existence.  Once I got rid of the anger and started to enjoy life, I had no more desire to drink.  

Long ago, over twelve years now, I was addicted to pornography.  Because I was addicted that habit was a little harder to overcome than drinking, but with sincere prayer and the help of God, it was still a relatively easy behavior to stop because although I knew I was addicted to pornography, I never accepted the label of being a pervert.  I knew at my core that I was morally clean and had the same, normal, healthy sexual desires as everyone, and that I had just been foolish enough to let a thought-fungus use my brain as its host.  I became aware of this one night when the sexual thoughts running through my dreams were absolutely disgusting and not something I'd ever be interested in experiencing even as a pornography addict.  I knew then that some negative energy was trying to take over and force me into becoming who I am not.  However, because I never believed I actually was a pervert, I was able to get over that addiction fairly quickly once I was serious about extinguishing the behavior.  With the help of God, I was free within a few months.

But shyness, has been different.  I've been battling it since about the time I was twelve.  For short periods of my life, it became excruciatingly crippling.  There were a couple of years in college I basically talked to nobody other than a few friends.  The terror I felt around others was extremely painful.  I'd move to intentionally give me a fresh start, and for a while that would work, but then shyness would creep in again.  Things got a little better when I just accepted it and quit fighting it.

That goes back to what I said in the first paragraph.   It is very easy to believe one thing on the surface and accomplish the complete opposite because of what the mind truly believes below.  Because I had so identified myself with being shy, I was terrified of losing that part of myself, if I actually changed.  It had brought me a few good things.  I'm very comfortable in my own company, and although I don't have a lot of friends, the few I do have are very close to me.  My shyness gave me myself, my friends, my wife and my family.  Accepting that shyness as a force in my life was better than constantly battling it because I no longer hated God and myself for the anxiety I was feeling.   

But now I have the thought, Why even be shy?  Why not let it go and be as free all the time as I am right now in my own company?  Why live two different lives--the exhilaration of being alone and the terror of being in company?  Why not just be free?

I'm pretty sure in a short period of time that one thought will change everything.  Even if it doesn't, it's a very important thought to have.  Why be shy?  Why be anything you don't want to be?

Thoughts are to be used.  They are not who we are.  You can cling to them or let them go as needed.  The key is knowing what is it that you really want.

When you know your true direction, you will get there eventually.  It has to be.

I think the story of Icarus is an unfinished story.  It is a story told by those living in those houses below to justify being stuck in lives of simply enduring the routine to the end.  It is a story based on fear of change, a story based on a strict belief in limitations.  There probably is some fact to it.  Icarus probably flew too close to the sun.  He probably did something stupid and tried to soar midday to show off his skills to others.  Instead of drawing a crowd of enthusiasts for flight, for soaring beyond current known limits, he drew a crowd of doubters, of disdainers of glory, those who gleefully watched him crash to the earth and said, "I told you so; I knew that would happen; if God had wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings."  And then they went inside and shut their door, because that is exactly what a person driven by fear always does.  It is routine behavior.

So, the story they miss is that Icarus is up there flying now.    

3.  Now

Each moment provides the opportunity to name a fear, let it have its say.   Then instead of doing its bidding, choose to play.

  

  

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--38. California Coastal Cold, Part I

Manresa Uplands State Beach and Campgrounds, Steve Brown 2022

April 12, 2022 

After a bad tasting dinner at an overly priced restaurant on the Old Fisherman's Warf, we drove up the coast to Manresa Uplands State Beach and Campgrounds, which is unlike any campground I've ever been to.  It is well off California Highway 1, accessed by Buena Vista Drive, a narrow, curvy road that winds through a mixture of low, wooded hills, open farmland, and occasional small residential developments.  It was nearing sunset, the trunks of the oaks golden on one side and deep in purple-blue shadow on the other, but we were tired, and the road seemed to be going absolutely nowhere noteworthy.  After a while, I wondered if we'd gotten lost and started to get grumpy.  Marci assured me we were headed the way Google told us to go, but I didn't see how that could possibly get us to the beach. 

The way I'd always known the coast is as follows: there you are on Highway 1, literally hugging the coastline, the ocean crashing way down below you; the road curves inland slightly as you drop down to a valley of farms; and then the road curves out again to a small, beachside town, and a couple of state parks and campgrounds located right on the beach.   There's no getting off California 1 miles away from your campground and following winding, very worn, not-well-maintained road that seems to go nowhere.  Something must have gone wrong.

Though tired, the experience must have been deeply meaningful because I can still see the late afternoon sunlight on that shaggy landscape now.  I no longer know where on that road it is, but somewhere there is a building with a corrugated metal roof amongst some great trees that were throwing shadows across it, but then there were these patches of sunlight reflected back from the metal that just exploded between the shade.  It's these moments that always make the trip.  They seldom occur at the designated scenic spot.  They often happen at gas stations, rest areas, or while passing an old barn.  Usually, they involve light.  But not always.  They can be dismal, verdant green scenes sopped by endless rain.  But to me, they always stand out.  At such moments, I think to myself, I don't know what the purpose of other people's life is, but this is mine:  All I need to do in life is witness this.   

That is what the road trip is all about.   It's about what happens between the destinations.  I'm human.  I know if I didn't reach whatever destination I set out for, I'd become frustrated, and in that moment, I would most likely not be able to enjoy the journey.  And yet I also know from experience the most remarkable sights will occur when least expected--that tug of the heart that says, Yes, this is it.  I sometimes doubt the meaning of life could be so simple, and yet I know it to be true.  That doesn't mean that's the meaning for everyone though.  Who says we all agreed to this journey called life for the same reason.  I do think we all took this journey to learn to open up, to learn to love more fully, and to take in more light, feel more glory.  But who is to say how that glory is manifested is the same for each of us?  Someone else may feel that power through a hardball hitting a leather mitt; or feeling the perfect arch in their back as they go over a metal bar; or being stunned by countertop gleaming after a good scrubbing.   

I just know for me, when my eyes take in light, I am.  At this point, even if I lost my sight, that's what I'd keep doing because that light is forever burned into my being and will never leave.  Now that I've seen it, I no longer need sight to experience the California Coast.  No matter how glorious the next life is, I will remember this one forever because I'm simply blown away.  My religion talks about enduring to the end.  If I'm fully in the moment, there is no enduring--just awe of the rich tinfoil tapestry shook out before me sparking light every which way oh so gloriously.  

Today, on the highway home from work, out in the least attractive patch of desert in the entire valley, tiny stubbles of tumble weed that had been mowed repeatedly by the highway and stunted to almost nothing had turned that deep maroon they turn to in the fall shortly before dying. When there is beauty like that there, well the California coast is simply celestial in comparison.  When I die, all I want to do is thank God for making Earth so beautiful, and if those who have near-death experiences are correct, and Earth is indeed a dismal place compared to Heaven, well then, I don't need any rewards for attempting to live life right.  God can leave his mansion for the others.  I'll be content to spend the eternities looking at the new flowers.  Is there any more grand purpose for existing than to exist and be fully aware of it?

I think Hell is simply existing mostly unaware of what you've got because you're stuck inside your mind you can't get out of it.  Like everyone, I sometime place myself in hell through my thoughts.  But I'm in training, and by focusing my eye more frequently on now, I spend less and less time in the hell that is my mind, that hell of my own making.  

I want to see.  I want to be.  Always.

Well, usually.  I'm getting so I'm not so fond of the cold.  This was true even two and a half years ago.  And there is no cold like California coastal cold.  My brother tells a story about visiting the coast after we'd lived in a valley in northern Utah that frequently got down to -5 and once in a while -30.  We lived on a ranch, and because my brother and sister had to feed cows in that weather, they had coats made for it.  Once in February, my dad, who lived in Reno, took Lloyd to the coast.  Lloyd brought that big, green coat made for surviving in Alaska to Fort Bragg, California thinking he'd be toasty.  Oh, how wrong he was.  Just because the thermometer says it's 40 degrees doesn't make it so.  There is cold, and then there is California coastal cold.  It doesn't start until about fifty miles north of Morrow Bay, but north of there that cold is very real.  I've since been to the Oregon coast many times and its cold is nothing like the cold between Crescent City and Big Sur.  It's got to be the ocean currents, and it can be brutal.

We drove down this long park service road to the campground.  It took us fairly high up on a hill to some pale green mowed grasslands between big, broad oaks and other similar trees.  The sun had just set, and we pulled into the special parking lot that was for unloading only and had 30-minute parking.  As I opened the door, I could feel that cold closing in.  I grabbed my coat.  

We had a lot of camping gear, and neither of us were happy about the distance from the car to the tent site or how hard it was to find the site that we had reserved.  We became less and less happy with that distance with each return trip with more of what we needed to survive that cold night.

Yet, I had to admit it was beautiful.  Acres and acres of mowed expanse between gloriously big oak trees.  And the restrooms were also very nice.  Even cold, tired and grumpy, I could not discount that this was a beautiful place to be.

As I've gotten older, I've realized the same thing about life.  Though I've had some heartache and definitely some big insecurities and at times crippling shyness, I cannot discount that this life is a beautiful experience.  I know some moments are so brutal for some that they are left with life-long trauma that covers their lens on the world with an icky black film.  That is understandable.  Life is not equal.  Life is not fair.  But I also know that we are so connected to this our temporary home that there is some part of everyone that knows the beauty here is undeniable.  They may give up hope, feel there's no way they can ever access it again, but that realization that life is beautiful is still there somewhere.  This book is a grand wish that somehow, I might clear just enough crud off a lens to stir a memory.  And if not that, that it will at least serve as a simple reminder to myself to be present more often than not.  Even with all the shit we go through (some way more than others), this thing we call life is a grand gig, even camping in that California coastal cold.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--37. One

Morning Cloud, Steve Brown 2024

And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable.  This is a simple thing to say, but the profound feeling of it made a Jesus, a St. Augustine, a St. Francis, a Roger Bacon, a Charles Darwin, and an Einstein.  Each of them in his own tempo and with his own voice discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things--plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time.  It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.

--John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, 1941

I am obsessed with near-death experiences and reports of an afterlife.  I spend more time reading books and watching videos on that than any other subject, including Steinbeck, the subject matter of this book. Although many years ago I was seeking some assurance that this life isn't all there is, after reading and watching videos of hundreds of accounts, that is no longer what draws me to the reports.  I am already absolutely sure I will still exist long after I stop breathing.  No, what draws me to these accounts is that same oneness Steinbeck speaks about.  Though clearly an agnostic, and at most times in his life, an atheist, Steinbeck identifies through the study of ecology an "expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time".  

Through a different set of lenses, all near-death experiences reinforce that same oneness profoundly, including the "elastic string of time."   Time, as we know it, apparently only exists in this realm.  But unity, oneness in purpose, is eternal and God-driven.  

This is sometimes difficult to comprehend in a world of predator and prey, of conflict and survival, and yet, I believe we all have had glimpses of it.  I know William Blake did.  As did Wordsworth.  It is that feeling we only get when we are fully connected to now.  The feeling a young boy gets watching an ant move across a concrete walk on a fall afternoon when the shadows are chilly, and the sunlight is so gloriously warm on the skin.  The way that light hits the black ant body and turns it almost golden, but not quite.  The way the quartz crystals in the cement sparkle and dazzle the observer's eyes.

I'm certain everyone has had such a moment.  Maybe, it was sitting on the edge of a soccer field squinting into the late afternoon sunlight as you watch your son or daughter kick a ball.  A blanket over your lap, your eye focused only on the movement of your child--how glorious he looks with his long shaggy hair glistening under the warm touch of the late afternoon sun.

Sometimes I see that moment and know that truth doing dishes--when sunlight streams in window just right and turns the bubbles into pearls.

We don't doubt unity at such times.  We know it.  Because we are fully in the now--that magical suspension of time and thought where all we do is exist.  And feeling that, knowing that, produces profound gratitude because at some deep level we've always known it:  despite the duplicity of this world, we are all one in purpose.  We exist to exist together as one.  Here, now, and into eternity--we are always in school, always learning an ever-deepening connection to God's love.

I've seen cats experience that often.  Dogs too, but not quite as frequently.  They'll just sit in a shaft of sunlight and stare off into space--happy to just exist as part of everything else.

Steinbeck may have been an atheist.  But he is a mentor.  He saw the connections between everything, how everything we do impacts everything else.  And that it matters profoundly.

He looked in the tidepool and saw the universe.  He looked out at the universe and saw the tidepool.  And he recognized that they are the same.

After reading and watching hundreds of near-death experiences, I know there are literally thousands of individuals who know that oneness in God's love is our reality beyond a shadow of a doubt because their unshakable experiences with the afterlife.  They fully comprehend this life is but one tide pool in an ocean of existence.

But we don't have to die to know that.  The cat stretched out in a bar of sunlight knows it.   And we can feel it too.  Anytime we are willing to stop and be still.  It is a gift to all life.  The lion and zebra know it when they come to the water pool at the end of the day, and there in that late afternoon glow, suspend their roles as predator and prey to drink from and be sustained by the living water that is all life. 

And once we are willing to absorb those moments, we will never ever be the same.

God is all.  All is God.  The purpose of life is living.  And the moment to do that is now.

In this mortal life, it is perhaps impossible to remember that always in the midst of the tempest and turmoil, but the more time we spend in those magical suspensions of time soaking in sunlight, the more humanely we respond to the chaos and conflict around us as we are slowly and continually refined by God's love though our willingness to simply to exist as part of the whole.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--36. Simply Glorious in Monterey

Monterey Docks, Steve Brown 2022 

              The first time I’d ever been as far south along the coast as Big Sur, I was shocked to find groves of redwoods.  I knew they were there.  Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been a student of maps.  I’d seen the groves marked on various road atlases.  But there is a difference between knowing something abstractly and having real knowledge that something is true.

              The redwoods aren’t hard to conceive in northern California.  Everything is so wet and verdant, life springing up everywhere, even under the harsh winds blowing off the coast— ferns, moss, wildflowers, big sweeping strokes of black trees on high bluffs leaning inward—giant trees a few miles inland seem inevitable.   As awed as one is by the enormous, spongy hush one feels walking along a trail along the Avenue of the Giants, one isn’t necessarily surprised to see those magnificent trees.

              However, the coast south of San Francisco is different.  Though by no means a desert, things dry out quite a bit.  Hills are windswept, and outside the rainy season, pale green to golden yellow.  Oaks have replaced most confers.  Mist, though present, comes in short waves, broken by periods of intense sunlight.  Wildflowers, other than the California poppies that seasonally blanket the hillsides, are more scattered.  The landscape simply does not look like it would support trees the size of skyscrapers.  And along the coast, it doesn’t.

              But then the road will curve in, and tucked in behind a big, round sloping ridge, sheltered from the wind, will be a grove of magnificent redwoods along a clear creek.  It’s so surprising, so breathtaking.

              These scattered groves of giants around Big Sur were perhaps my favorite part of our honeymoon trip in September 1997.  It was the thing I looked forward to most on our return trip.  I’d planned on stopping to eat at this restaurant we’d had breakfast at on our honeymoon.  It had a back patio that overlooked a sparkling river and a grove of redwoods beyond that.  We watched birds and took in the sunshine.  It was glorious.

              However, this time, the flat tire changed everything.  It was getting late in the afternoon, and we were riding on a donut spare.  Monterey would be about the maximum recommended travel distance on it.  We needed to get to a tire shop before it closed.

              So, all those stops—that amazing lunch—had to be scrapped.  All that I would see of the redwood groves of Big Sur were the ones I could see out my window as we quickly drove by.  And some of those had burned.  It was still pretty, of course.  It just didn't match my expectations.

              Another day, another trip, I would probably let that sour my mood.  But because I had been diagnosed with kidney disease and was told it could be serious, I was mentally prepared for this to perhaps be our last road trip together.  So, nothing was going to infringe on that sacred time--especially not my mood.

              Perhaps this is why something as simple as standing together outside a tire shop near the docks of Monterey in a cold wind is so imbedded in my memory.  It was a few blocks of small, industrial buildings, rusted chain-link fences, stacks of tires, cinderblocks, and long metal poles.  Yet, in that afternoon sun, next to my woman and the finite time I imagined we had left together, we might as well have been eating on the back patio of a fine restaurant overlooking a river in the redwoods.  It was simply a profoundly stunning experience.

              That didn’t change afterwords when we drove down to the Monterey Docks and walked along the choppy bay in a bitter wind to Old Fisherman's Warf, the big, beautiful purple-blue flowering heads of Pride of Madeira contrasting against the white sailboats and deep blue sky.

              All was glorious, simply glorious.

    

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--35. This Moment

Stopping to Enjoy One Moment on the Way to Work, Steve Brown 2024

This morning, I woke up from a beautiful dream.   I thought I was in a rut, working in a small restaurant, going nowhere, living in a house with a leaky roof that I didn't have the money to fix.

I am at work--the details from the dream here aren't clear--and I get this call from a Mexican restaurant owner in the area.  He's speaking in Spanish, and I can't really understand him.  I had Spanish in collage but barely passed the class, and that was years ago.  It's frustrating, but I know this guy.  He is a tall, slender, older gentleman with warm, brown eyes lined with soft wrinkles.  His food is amazing.  I can tell from his voice he's feeling pretty desperate in the moment.  I stay on the line, ask him to repeat things over and over, and then I give back what I think he's saying and have him say, "si" or "no," whether I've got it right or not.  We do this for quite some time.  Turns out his one stove-burner died, and he has a big pot of beans to heat.    Not just any beans.  He uses white beans and cooks them with lots of garlic, onions, and who knows what.  They are heaven to the mouth.  He's wondering if I can come get them and heat them on our stove.  I say yes.  To me it's like if Paul McCartney has called up and asked, "Hey, I'm trying to work out some lyrics on this song; would you mind coming over and giving me a hand?"  This guy, though not famous, is to food what Paul McCartney is to music.  And it doesn't matter whether the world knows it or not. I do.

So, I let my boss know the situation, and I head out.  Our place, a small, a locally owned Denny's-like joint, is at the end of a long block with an alley that starts next to it running down the length of the block.  The Mexican restaurant is near the other end, and the quickest way is down the middle.

It's late afternoon, and I'm headed down this concrete alley that slopes down in the middle for drainage.  It rained all night, and I woke up to a wet living room and the feeling of slow moldy doom--a life spent working to get nowhere.  But now, the late afternoon sunlight is igniting the various brick rear facades of the businesses gloriously.   That is reflected in the long puddle.

Halfway down the alley a large electrical pole, golden orange, is reflected in the puddle.   Something so pedestrian yet so beautiful!  

Wow!  High, on one of those gray metal electrical cylinders, a bald eagle, his head intensely yellowed by the sun, his eyes glittering!

This is it.  I don't know about others, but for me, this is enough.  This is why I'm here.  Not to accomplish anything in particular.   Simply to be.   

And I all of the sudden I have this sensation from deep inside that in some preexistence I'd chosen this moment and all that came before, including waking up to a soggy living room, in order to be here and witness that eagle and serve the owner of the Mexican restaurant on this day, and that as long as I am fully invested now, whatever that might be, with love and service, I am doing exactly what I'm meant to do, and what that is doesn't really matter.  I know in that instant life isn't about what you accomplish but rather who you become.   If we enter each moment intently, openly, unguarded, willing to serve others, there is absolutely no way of getting life wrong.  

And then I woke up.

I had such a moment last fall, writing and looking out the sliding glass door behind my desk at a single sunflower illuminated by the last direct sunlight of the day.

I don't always remember it.  I have moments when I feel lost, frustrated and question the meaning of life.  But all of those times are spent in my head in negative inner dialogue that either attempts to puff up my ego and justify my actions or beliefs, or just as often, wallows in self-doubt and pity.  As soon as I realize it and refocus again on now and tune my eye into some detail of the world around me there is absolutely no question about why I'm here: to live.  It's that simple.  Life is its own meaning.  Because long ago we chose it.  You might not be able to intellectually grasp that. I'm not sure I can--it's so different for everybody, but at the same time, all the same. Yet, I'm pretty sure everyone can feel it--but only when you get out of the could-have's and should-have's and enter this moment completely.

I think life is going to get very difficult in the near future.  We will reap the consequences of our collective choices.  Smoke filled skies.  Mind-boggling winds and great floods.  These will become more and more common.  As will political strife.

But there is no moment that cannot be either narrowed or widened to perfection through an eye focused on learning the lessen that moment exists to teach.

All life can be glorious--even death and destruction--when the soul is open, and the eye is focused.  Similarly, the most naturally glorious moments can jog by unnoticed because we are stuck in our mind, stuck on our devices, or stuck in our addictions.

But this moment is our entry into eternity.  Always.  It's just deciding what we want now--to be distracted or to be focused.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--34. Here and There, Then and Now, Writing Highway 1 from 780 Miles and Two Years Away

Mailboxes, California 1, Steve Brown 2022

1.  Getting There

It's getting more difficult to get back there again.  Highway 1 is slowly slipping away.  Unfortunately, it's doing that literally--sliding off into the ocean at an ever-increasing rate due to landslides driven by wildfire-deforestation and high-precipitation storms, one more dream being devastated by climate change.  Yet here, I simply mean it's slipping away from me.  If remotely practical, I would hop in my car today and be on my way.  Instead, all I have at this moment is the sunlight on the oaks outside my living room window and Juniper-blobbed ridge behind still deep in shadow, an intensely bright lemon-white sky behind that.  It's stunning, but it isn't where I need my mind to go now.

I can access the events that day, just not the particulars.  Writing lives or dies in the details--and real or imagined, those details have to be experienced deeply by the writer while the words hit the page.  Otherwise, the narrative feels deeply contrived and sickly sentimental--a string of adjectives and overly written metaphors.  

I want to write sunlight on whitecaps below where the mountains suddenly climb down into the sea as real as if it were so for me now at this moment.  That is the only way for it to be that real for the reader also.  It isn't what words are on the page.  It is what is between the words on the page--an energy that is transferred from the writer to the reader--the description on the page intensified dramatically by what the writer leaves out because he's there so intensely he can get it right with just a few words.  That involves an honesty that can't be faked--a frozen daydream.  All great books are frozen daydreams--the churnings of the mind snap-shotted for the reader again and again until a narrative emerges from all of the intensely colored dots placed next to each other.

You have to be there before those rusty, colored mailboxes just off the highway--oh so close to the hillside dramatically dropping out of sight, jeweled whitecaps rushing in to where the waves break but cannot be seen.  You have to be there, in your head, snapping that picture, thinking, "Damn, can you believe, someone has to stop here each day to get their mail before heading up the gravel lane on the opposite side of the highway to a house somewhere on a hillside even higher, to look out always on that--on that!--where an entire continent crashes into the ocean with thundering majesty."

You have to be there in your head as you write it.  Or it's just sticky works on a page.

2.  There, Perhaps (After Going to and Returning Home from Church)

Once you know what it is you long for, you can usually get back.  I long to stand in that sodium light and look out at whitecaps almost as far as the eye can see--that magical line where ocean meets sky.  I long to feel the weight of the deep, to know unfathomable depths from the hard, choppy surface, that from up here, certainly appears to be stone.  True, if I fell, although it may kill me upon impact, the water would certainly give way before my body did, but from up here that seems almost impossible, so solid the sea seems, and yet also, at the same time, it tells of depths fully comprehensible only to God, stories as old as time that somehow radiate out in all those thousands and thousands of glints of light.

3.  There.  

I am there.  I have just fixed a tire after we drove through an intense downpour that brought down thousands of sharp rocks from the hillside, one of which must have caught my tire just right and split it open grandly.  Had such an event occurred six months ago, I would have sworn and fretted and cursed my God, and Marci would have sat in the car terrified by how unhinged I am.  But today is different.  My kidney disease, not yet fully diagnosed as to what particular type yet, has made it clear I might possibly have a limited time left on earth.  Now everything matters.  Even how well I keep my temper under control.  In my mind, this very well could be the last trip Marci and I ever take together.  With that knowledge, I am able to do what I've never been able to do before--sit in an unpleasant moment and see the glory in it.  I work on changing the tire fully satisfied to just be alive.  I listen to the swoosh of wet tires going by.  

And when I'm done, I cross the highway to where a bunch of rusted, colorful mailboxes stand before the glittering sea, and for now, that is all I need.

Then, 780 Miles and Two Years Away.

And now, 4:42, a.m., August 8, 2024.

Here.

Sometimes it's difficult to sit in a moment and be real.  The way we feel crushed by unrealized dreams or distracted by endless to-do lists.   Yet, the moments worth living are always the moments grounded in now, even if now is just doing dishes.  

I forget it, and yet I know it so well.  We are meant to exist fully in this moment--open, aware, not holding back from the simple awe of existence.

When I remember that, I am steady, and life is good.  When I don't, I quickly slide towards a deep ocean of fears and regrets, could-have's and should-have's--things that I have absolutely no control over now, and even if I did, I would simply have a different list of could-have's and should-have's because dissatisfaction has absolutely nothing to do with what you have or haven't accomplished over your life and everything to do with how removed you are from living now.

Dissatisfaction occurs when you're not fully there with your spouse watching TV, when you're not fully there with your kid playing Legos, when you're not fully there paying those monthly bills, when you're not fully there writing that book that you know needs to be written, and instead there you sit watching beach volleyball on the Olympics because you fear you can't get back to California Highway 1 the way you need to, and your deepest fear at this moment is that you've spent years working on a book that's going absolutely nowhere.

As if that mattered.  And it doesn't.  But that's how the mind keeps us from doing the hard work of living now.  Everything becomes important except this sacred movement where I'm totally free to choose my focus for the eternities.

I choose sunshine and spiderwebs.  Rainstorms and water dancing off the lake surface.  Waffles smothered in blueberries and whip cream.  When prompted by my God, I choose stopping for the hitchhiker to ease someone else's sucky day, knowing full well there is risk in that.  But also knowing the risk to the soul is even greater by ignoring the call to the soul now.