The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--59. I Feel Solid When I See

Sunrise, Galveston Island State Park, Steve Brown 2025

One morning I watched the orange sun lift above the folded and polished waters of the Gulf of Mexico in a tangerine sky with blobs of tropical clouds hanging around.  The surf was constant, but not loud.  The air was moist and slightly chilly, but not cold.  Marci and I had driven up to the restrooms to shower at Galveston Island State Park on this last morning of our very rushed trip with Lloyd across Texas.  And then we had slowly strolled down to the beach.  I walked in the warm waters knowing I probably wouldn't return for a long time.  Our previous time in Galveston was in 2001.

Tonight, I had at least half a plan of what I would write here.  It had to do with the "Thou Mayest" section of East of Eden, Chapter 24.  But for some reason, I was drawn to that other coast so far away from Monterey, so far away from the Salinas Valley, and so far from the overall narrative journey of this book, not to mention whatever it was that I wanted to tap into in East of Eden to make a point I had on the tip of my tongue last weekend, but which right now, seems to have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.  I'm sure I can find it again, and probably will, when I reopen the novel sometime soon.

But right now, all I want is to stand on a beach in Galveston and listen to the waves.  Another day it will be Pismo Beach, or La Paz, Mexico.  And some days it's not a beach at all.

But it is always somewhere.   Including here.

I sometimes get lost, looking for meaning.  I want things to add up.  I want there to be something.  I want there to be love and kindness.  Not sometimes.  But always.  I want there to be peace.  I doubt the toad ever feels peace when the tarantula is devouring it, nor the fly battling pointlessly to get free of the spider's web.  Physically, nature frequently offers no peace.  Nature is mostly brutality with short, glorious moments of birth and love, like a doe licking the afterbirth off her wobbly newborn fawn.  If you see nature without jaws of death though, you are not really seeing nature at all.

Yet, spiritually, I only feel solid on a beach, a retreating wave sucking the sand out from underneath me.  Or about any other place where nature is big and I'm small.

Other than close family, I never feel comfortable around people unless there are enough of them to where I can be totally anonymous.  I guess there's something wrong with me, but it doesn't feel that way.

Silence astounds me.  Standing alone in the desert, I seem to expand in all directions, become everything.  How can I feel lonely?  How can that feel bad?

I watch people.  I can even enjoy watching people.  Occasionally, I can forget myself, lose myself in laughter or a string of ideas in the company of others.  I think it is a good thing to learn to let down my guard and do that more openly, more freely, and I am getting better at that.  But I know who I am.  I know who I'm meant to be.  I was born to stand on a beach and marvel at sunrises and sunsets.  

Perhaps I told God in the preexistence, "I just want to go down and observe crap.  Let everyone else strive to get something done.  They enjoy that.  Just let me look and put into words what I've seen."

I have lived a good life.  I wouldn't give any of it back.  But I could have lived much better life if I'd been more comfortable with who I am.  I still can be.  There's time.  I can play my part in a world I believe is make-believe as a sort of game and still be incredibly genuine underneath it all.  

It seems possible in the moment, but ten minutes from now, my ego could easily be trying to devour me. Once you identify your ego for what it is, you become more aware of the wolf and smile at him as you cautiously walk by through your inner landscape.  I'm just beginning to do that.

Writing about the sea reminds me who I am meant to be.  

God, help me remember it tomorrow.  Let me give others that space too, let them be who they want to be.  Don't let me get caught in webs of fear of my own making.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--58. Leaving the Sierra Nevada

Kaweah River, Steve Brown 2022

I love the rivers of California.  They are boulder-strewn and feathered with plumes of white water.  They drop quickly and are not quiet.  They must be astonishing during the high waters of spring.  I only know them from the summer when pools of deep green water are connected by winding ribbons of white.  Boulders islands sit high and sunbaked, ready for young kids to scamper up out of the brutally cold water to sun themselves before easing themselves back into that icy current.  My memories are filled with blue dragon flies and floating boats in the little coves along the shoreline, careful not to venture out too far, for even in the dead of summer, currents are swift.

It was April when we drove through Three Rivers, but with the extreme drought, it might as well have been August, and so, when I stopped to look at the Kaweah River, it was astonishingly like the rivers I knew from my youth--the American, Carson, Truckee, and Feather.

I didn't know what to think of the giant Sequoia.  They were clearly grand, but they were not the Coastal Redwoods I knew so well.  I couldn't take my eyes off them, but they also didn't feel part of me.  They were otherworldly, disconnected from the various Californias I knew from my childhood.  But the Kaweah River on this day, April 15, 2022, said to me, You know me, even though I'd actually never seen it before.  It felt good, and I hated to get back in the car and drive on.  

The day before, against my will, I longed for the trip to be over.  There comes a point in every road trip where you move from anxiously awaiting the next sight to just wishing you were home.  That point had come many miles and a couple days back at Eastman Lake, but this river now was pushing my love of travel back to the forefront.  All of the sudden I didn't want the trip to end.  I didn't want to face the unknowns of my kidney disease.  Home would mean facing reality, whatever that would be.  I just wanted to travel down this road with Marci forever.

I got back in the car, filled with a mild dread.  Soon we would be leaving the Sierra Nevada for who knows how long?  Why would anyone in their right mind ever do that?  Donnor Lake, Taho, Sand Pond, June Lake, Sierra Buttes, Mt. Rose, Yosemite.  Why, why would anyone ever leave that pine and granite paradise?

I didn't know the southern Sierra as well.  Still, there was clearly enough in common to tug at my heart and make me want to plant myself there forever.  

Yet, a journey has a timeline, and so you go.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--57. Thou Mayest

Thou Mayest, Steve Brown 2026

The worth of the individual isn't valued as much by mankind.  We see this in nation building; we see this in corporation building, and almost any other organization.  If we look closely, we can even see this in ourselves.  Families may wail unconsolably at the loss of their loved one sacrificed for the agendas of others.  Individuals may wail unconsolably for their very personal loss.  But nation-states, corporations, and most organizations only wail if that grief supports their agendas, which is always framed as growth or the greater good.  So, anything viewed as an attack from the outside produces much collective sorrow because it increases the feeling of unity and shared values.  Anyone viewed as a threat or a nuisance from the inside is eliminated.  Therefore, what is clearly valued is the reinforcement of the group's ego, not the individual.

The death of Charlie Kirk matters deeply to his friends and family regardless of whether their values align with his or not.  Adult children often wail deeply over the death of parents they certainly do not see eye to eye with.  We can have friends we feel are totally lost and love them anyway.  But beyond that, a human's worth is only what he or she contributes to the cause.  Charlie Kirk is a martyr because he was attacked from the outside.  However, had his ideology evolved over time and begun to run counter to the ideas of the conservative movement, he would have quickly become hated like Liz Cheney and discarded.  That doesn't say anything about conservatism because the same happens on the left.  However, it says volumes about humanity.  Sadly, some families are so dysfunctional that they do the same thing.

It is an important truth to recognize that outside our friends and family, as individuals, we humans are basically worthless.  This knowledge is useful for two reasons.  First, it provides a lot of freedom.  If I acknowledge that I really don't matter much to society, then I have a lot of space to grow into who I want to become without having to worry too much about what others think.  Why would I care too much about the opinions of people I know value me only when I support their egos?  I can still love and care about them, but why would I let their opinion stifle who I want to become when I know that I am only valuable as long as I reaffirm their world view?   Yet, we do that all the time, over the stupidest stuff.  We worry about what we wear because of what total strangers may think.  Absurd.  Once you realize that to the world you are insignificant, you can become whoever you want to be.  

Second, although knowing you're worthless outside your immediate family does provide an enormous amount of freedom, the divine soul within each of us, instinctively knows This should not be so.  God has put deep within us the knowledge we are intrinsically valuable beyond measure.  We are his stuff.  God matter.  This is where our sense of injustice comes from.   As destructive as the ego can be, this is the good part, the source.  We instinctively know we are divine and rant and rave and pout when we are not treated that way.  That comes from insecurity, from both knowing and not-knowing simultaneously.  We feel our divine nature enough to know when we've been treated unjustly, but most of us do not know our divine nature enough to know that that it is impossible for our divinity to be taken away if we fully recognize our worth.  You cannot strip or beat divinity out of someone who firmly feels it.  

When we know that ultimately, we are worthless to humanity and yet divine to God, we become humble and free enough to do good mischievously, under the radar.  We begin to value people simply because they are, and not because they support us.  We look for those most distanced from who they really are, and we want to reach out to them, not because they support our ego, not because we feel we can save them, but because we no longer see humanity in terms of alliances and enemies and no longer see people as something that can be sacrificed.  We become free from society and instead intensely immersed in everything living.  A person is no longer valued because he or she supports our worldview.  A person all of the sudden is valued because when you look inside their eyes you see life--that glorious reflection of heaven.  We stop thinking how can I help this person and start thinking how can I know this person.  

It's a huge shift; one I'm in the middle of making.  It's sloppy, very messy.  The ego does not die peacefully because it is rooted in a true notion: we are divine and we all deserve to be treated like kings.  But ego is a distorted version of that truth because it is built on one enormous, big fat lie:  that there isn't enough divinity to go around.  God-matter is infinite and includes everything, including snails.  You don't have to compete to be part of divinity. You are it.

Whatever shitheads we are right now, recognizing divinity is unlimited and free to all, from kings and popes and prophets to pugs and snails absolutely guarantees we will eventually be shitheads no more.  You cannot begin to recognize the nature of God and not want to emulate it.  I now patiently wait to leave my shithead-self behind.  It's coming.  I can feel it approach slowly, day by day by day, and now, just slightly more removed from my ego then yesterday, I can sometimes actually relax and lean back and watch the show.

Once you recognize you are both worthless to society and of infinite worth to God, the ego dissolves, and you are totally free.  No longer needing escape, and no longer needing approval, thou mayest do as you please.  But at the point of freedom--the only point you can truly be free--you will always choose to do good.  It will be impossible to do otherwise.  Demolishing the ego is not only the only path to real freedom; it also the only path to full alignment with God.

But knowing that is not becoming that.  Experience, not knowledge, fuels change.  We have to will ourselves closer and closer to that state of being through our thoughts, actions, and revisions.  What can I learn from this now to approach my next now more open, more fully, with less fear and more love?  How can I better see God matter in absolutely everyone and everything?

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--56. Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks

 

Parking Lot, General Grant Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, Steve Brown 2022

The giant trees.  That can mean two different species in California in two very different climates--the coastal redwoods, which is what I knew well as a child, and the giant sequoia, which until 2022, I'd never really seen before.  I wish I remembered the latter better.  Perhaps, as I write, I will.

What I recall most about that day, which isn't much, is how shocked I was at the up and down of the highway through Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.  I'm used to high passes.  Going over Donnor Pass was a frequent occurrence during my childhood as well as Tioga Pass to the south, and I have been over many passes in the Rockies.  But there was something wonderfully wild about driving the Generals Highway.  It's narrow, curvy, goes up and down, up and down, and is surrounded by a tangle of thick, snow-beaten conifers, and yet the drop-offs are so steep that even with the thick growth, these spectacular views still open up.  It is one of the most untamed-feeling highways I've driven.  And yet, for some reason, right now, I don't remember it that well.  Perhaps we were just too tired to absorb what we were seeing.  What doesn't really seep into the ground water doesn't bubble up well later.  

I do remember being in the actual big trees was at first a bit disappointing to me.  Like the coastal redwoods, I thought they'd be surrounded by a thick carpet of ferns and moss, everything bright green and dripping with moisture.  At least in April, they were not.  The forest floor was a typical Sierra forest floor littered with small twigs, needles, and very random, isolated grasses.  I felt like I could have been around Truckee except the trees were much, much bigger.  Marci didn't have the same experience though and was clearly impressed, and so vicariously, through her excitement, I slowly entered the moment and began to feel wonderfully small amongst giants.

We only stopped at one grove, the Grant Grove, located in Kings Canyon National Park. As I slowly let go of my expectations, the steely gray day and almost complete silence seeped into me.  Birds were few.  Visitors were few.  There was plenty of space to just enjoy the sound of the trail beneath our feet.  

Perhaps my favorite part of the hike was when the trail went lengthwise The Fallen Monarch, a downed Sequoia.  I was amazed that there was a ten-foot-high ceiling above us and no doubt plenty of wood beyond that.  It was like being in a cave, the wood sides polished like stone by people passing by and rubbing them time and time again.  I half expected stalactites to hang down from above us so much was the log like a cave. 

We had intended to stop at more groves, but the pass between the groves in Kings Canyon and the ones in Sequoia was high, wild, and curvy, and the already dark day deepened, broken by short moments of glorious gold as the sun neared the horizon while the clouds were slowly breaking up.   We decided we would continue onto camp so that we wouldn't have to set up our tent in the dark.  "We'll just drive back up in the morning," I said, fully meaning to.

After we dropped into the other groves, and drove on without stopping, we dropped and dropped some more, the road turning this way and then that way.  And still we dropped.

That was good, for it was getting cold.  

At dusk, we reached the turn-off for Buckeye Flat Campground.

Recollection for me is like this: recent memories flow mostly unbroken like film footage.  Sure, they may break and have to be taped back together and rethreaded through the projector as I write, a glitch here and there, but they flow, mostly unified.  But with time, the film breaks into smaller and smaller bits, and it gets harder and harder to stitch them back together.  But the fragments are still intense.  Sometimes it seems more honest and natural to just leave them that way--short, intense bits of a day that once was, now not connected to whatever came before or after because in my mind that connection is mostly gone anyway.

Buckey Flat Campground now feels isolated from the upper elevations of King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks--almost as if it were a separate memory.  

This film ends with the headlights picking up the camp sign in the dusk, tall trees towering all around, Mountain slopes behind, and a narrow gravel road off to the left.   

The last flick of film flashes before the screen, slides off crooked, so one can see the individual frames and the holes to the side.  This happens in less than a second.  And then all is white.