What the Thrush Said

                                                
           Frankie pushed his bicycle uphill, listening as the stream behind the hedge went laughing and gossiping its own way in the other direction.  He knew if he listened carefully he’d decode the ancient language of the water sprites.  The water babble was like a kaleidoscope which, if tumbled ever so carefully, would someday resolve its coloured shards into a stained glass window of magical beauty.  “Listen,” he thought, “someday you’ll understand.” Sunshine warmed Frankie’s face, taking the bite out of the early spring morning.  As the stream gambolled on, a small thrush joined in the conversation.  A short way further up the hill was an old stone church and graveyard.  Frankie’s Dad was there and it was time for them to have a talk.  Dad would understand.

          Arriving at the churchyard gate, Frankie leaned his bike against the wall and removed a pair on hand trimmers from the bag attached to his handlebars.  The grass in the cemetery was still wet and, going to the well-tended headstone, Frankie picked his way trying to keep from soaking his school shoes.

         "I’m here by myself today, Dad.  I’m ditching school and Ma would be angry.  I want talk to you about something that’s more important.” 

 

        As the morning warmed, Frankie worked carefully, weeding and trimming the grass around the stone monument.  He paused and listened, but could no longer hear the stream and thrush.  A breeze stirred, but almost silently, caressing Frankie’s face.

     “Tommy Kennedy brought a dead rat to school yesterday, Dad.  It was dry and stiff.  He took it out of his lunchbox and Mrs Quirk took it away and sent Tommy to detention.  Me too.  Tommy wanted to trade if for my jack-knife, but I wouldn’t.  You know, it’s boring in detention, but better than a spelling lesson.  Besides, I found the rat outside the classroom window.  I’m giving it back to Tommy.  It’s his rat, innit?”

        “Dad, you know that girl I was tellin’ you about, Lizzy Cooley, that girl with long braids and braces on her teeth? Well, she smiled at me as I was going off to detention.  She’s pretty an all, but I don’t understand.  What do girls want?  Do you know?  I’m going to look for her in a little while, when it’s lunchtime at school.  She usually goes home.  It’s not too far from here and I can catch up with her on her way back.  Should I tell her I’ve got Tommy’s rat? Maybe she’d like to see it. Anyhow wish me luck, Dad.  I’ll tell you all about it the next time I come here without Mom.”

          Frankie stood, crossed himself and walked slowly away, turning once as he reached the gate.  Again, a breeze touched his face. Unnoticed, Marie, Frankie’s mother, stood still and silent in the shadow of the arched doorway to the church.  She watched as her son closed the churchyard gate and swung up onto his bike. 

The lane home from the churchyard was downhill.  As he gained momentum, Frankie imagined his bicycle was a swooping dragon.  He and his dragon would incinerate the school! (But only at lunchtime when nobody was there.)  Then something happened.  The world went silent and, in that moment, Frankie again heard the stream prattling on, but he began to understand the water’s language.  It was saying something about Lizzy Cooley.  The thrush agreed.

 

Surfer Girl

          

One summer, when I was ten or eleven,   my pal Scotty and I left home at 3:30 in the morning to begin a 50 mile bike ride to Doheny Beach. When we left home it was pitch black outside except for the stars and our puny lights.   Dogs barked as we passed.  We shared city streets with milkmen, paperboys, and night janitors getting off work.     Outside town,   the road was empty; a river of inky darkness.   Scotty had his bedroll tied between ape hanger handle bars.  Mine was lashed to a pannier rack which weighed as much as a modern bicycle.   We pedalled across the San Gabriel Valley, over the Coast Mountains at La Habra Heights, and rolled down old Route 39 to what was then called “Tin Can Beach,” an unregulated strip of the coast now sanitized as Huntington Beach State Park.  In my imagination,   rogue Japanese submarines lurked just beyond the breakers, ready to lob shells at nearby oil fields.

        Highway 39 was mostly rural, truck farms and orange orchards punctuated by ramshackle hamburger stands and beer joints.  Franchised fast food hadn’t been invented.  Knott’s Berry Farm, now an amusement park, still sold homemade jams from a roadside stand.  Next door, the Hollywood Alligator Farm hid behind a high, gaudily painted, but impenetrable, wooden fence.   I imagined veteran Hollywood alligators in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses at poolside, sipping Bloody Marys and tanning in the morning sun.

The Korean War was history, but sailors and marines still haunted the ramshackle towns which peppered Highway 101, the north-south corridor along coastal California.   Scotty and I saw our first board surfers that day.  There weren’t many, only a hardy handful.  None wore wetsuits, these being things of the future.   Most of the surfers had fragile varnished balsawood boards.  Some old timers still rode gigantic redwood boards.  I watched a big surfer astride one of these boards gliding down a wind crested comber.  It was like seeing a Rolls Royce on Main Street.  This board, this surfer, were regal to me, royalty from a far different world and life.

We camped that night at Doheny State Beach, pitching our army surplus pup tent on the bluffs behind a thick hedge overlooking the ocean.   We dined haut cuisine, canned beans, cold franks, and chocolate crème biscuits.   Although we went to sleep at sundown, I woke later when a courting couple went laughing by our tent on the path to the sand dunes.  I smelled perfume and heard the familiar clink of long neck beer bottles.   A girl’s baby powder voice cooed,   “Bobby, honey, you didn’t forget the blanket?”   After they passed, I crawled out and stood hugging myself in tee shirt and boxer shorts, a skinny kid shivering in the moonlight.  I thought maybe I’d look where the couple went and,  if I were really lucky,  see a  girl naked. 

Looking down the bluff,   I saw instead huge waves building about three hundred yards off shore.   As each breaker crested, phosphorescent plankton flashed in rippling neon surges of blue-white light running down the wave’s spine for hundreds of yards in each direction.  The surf was alive with colour and light.  I smelled jasmine, bougainvillea, and the salt green Pacific Ocean.   In that lost summer night, that very moment, I knew what I really wanted in life - a surfboard and a girl whose voice sounded like cotton candy. 

 

Long Riders:

Long riders are children of the wind and sky, land-lost sailors who ramble alone or in pairs, strangers where they sleep.  Their bicycles often look like dusty camels borne on strange, ragged wheels.  Their faces are weathered, sunburned and worn.  Ratty road maps protrude from the well-worn pockets of blue jeans home modified to Knickerbocker length.  They grin and sometimes they hear voices in the air.

Seventieth Spring:

Springtime is when an old man’s fancy turns to cycling.   A few months ago I spent a sunny day servicing Ms. Raleigh and her stable mate, Sir Dexter, for the season.  You know my palfrey, Ms. Raleigh.  Sir Dex is an old Specialized cross-bike, built of sturdy chrome moly steel with wheels to withstand pot holes and ruts while fully loaded with groceries.   I should, perhaps, post his photo too.

I’m feeling grateful for this life.  My children, family, and friends are plenty to fill the emptiest cup, but mine holds more.  I am grateful for bicycles and books, kites and music, children, and, yes, for the love of the women who’ve had the grace to walk a few miles in my company.  I am profoundly grateful for a body healthy enough to ride a bicycle, climb a mountain, and paddle a kayak.  This undeserved bounty feels like the grace of God and I am filled with gratitude.  My heart soars and spirit sings.

 A Score for The 17

The Silver Feather Band:

Visualize a lonely, isolated band of forest dwellers living in some niche in pre-historic or post-historic time.  Their world, their very survival is precarious.  They hunt and gather, avoiding all contact with others who may also occupy the forest.  Contact with strangers is fraught with risk of attack, extermination.  They live quietly, without music and unnecessary speech.  Yet, the band is lonely and too small to propagate itself.  They must communicate with others and somehow, without a common language, transmit their peaceful intent. 

The Silver Feather Band has gathered in the mist and ferns along the banks of a pool in a clear running stream.  Water and forest sounds gently caress the velvet darkness of early night.  Insects thrum synchronically.  A few stars glitter in through the forest canopy.  As they wait and listen, they hear the faint sounds of another band approaching the other side of the pond.

The Red Feather Band:

They too are in the same situation.  They need, but fear with good cause, contact with another band.

 *  *  *  * 

A woman from the Silver Feather Band rises and sings a single note.  Her group joins her, fearful, but full of hope.

A man from the Red Feather Band rises and responds.  His group joins him.

The two groups exchange tonal message intending to communicate peace and goodwill, ultimately circling the pool and singing their notes together.  The full moon rises over the forest canopy, occasionally penetrating to the floor.  The singing fades to silence. The forest and water sounds continue.   The insect chorus resumes.

No one knows what will happen next. 

(With thanks to Jared Diamond and his recent The World Until Yesterday.)

 

 

 

Paris Weeps in November

Paris weeps in November.  The days are cold, wet, and short. Lovers huddle close neath lovers’ covers.  The old pray and remember in churches, synagogues, and cathedrals. And on lonely park benches. Paris weeps for love, loss, and remembrance. 

On Kristallnacht I walked through the Tuileries and up the Seine to the Ile de la Cite, to call on lost friends at Notre Dame and the Deportation Memorial.  In the cathedral, an organist improvised in a minor key accompanied by a light show of popping camera flashes.  I wondered what medieval worshipers would have made of the brilliant play of flashing light.  I prayed that every photon capture a moment of holiness to be released like butterflies in Los Angeles, Kyoto, Nottingham, or Sioux Falls.  The light show added random beauty and mystery, as if Mona Lisa subtly widened her smile at my glance. I offered my poor prayers to those of the countless others who’ve worshipped there in the last 800 years.  Time slipped, we prayed as one for peace and justice; absolution.  Time regained its traction and I was back in November 2011, just across the Seine from Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore, another place of meditation.

The Deportation Memorial, behind Notre Dame, is a place of remembrance for the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, handicapped, resistance fighters, and others deported and murdered by the Nazis and collaborationist French government.  An old man docent searched my bag for explosives on entry. Nobody took flash photos. The place was empty in the rain.  I prayed alone.  Paris wept in shame and sorrow for her murdered children.

Shakespeare & Co. displayed the new biography of Hadley, Hemmingway’s first wife; the “Paris wife” Hemmingway betrayed, degraded, threw away, and never stopped loving. Paris is love, loss, and remembrance.  Already overweight and over budget I considered bringing the 40 Euro book home anyway, but realized that the story is too poignant to read. I’ll stick with Hadley’s own epitaph for their marriage, “I got the best of him.  We got the best of each other!”  She had that one right; but she had the worst of Hemmingway too.

Weary, I boarded the Batobus to pass time on the river watching Paris drift by in warmth and comfort. All the wonder of the city arises from the Seine. The Musee D’Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais, and Les Invalides paraded by in antique splendor.  My destination was the Jardin des Plantes, one of Paris’ many vast island sanctuaries for plants and animals.  Parisians understand the importance of supporting the ecosystem within their city.  Birds, dogs, and children roamed the great garden notwithstanding the soft rain.  Diminutive cowboys and Indians darted among the lanes; young parents joined their children on the carousel.  Spirits of deported, lost children drifted in the fog among the living.

Throughout my ramble, I admired many fine street bikes darting like swallows along the avenues.  When Ms. Raleigh and I lived in Paris she was a configured as a bare naked bicycle; no derailleur, no luggage, just bones, brakes, and a saddle:

Two wheels

                                                            One cog
                                                            One speed
                                                            One God

I wished Mr. Raleigh had been able to join me in Paris.  We had some rare old times in the Bois de Boulogne, a city cyclist’s paradise.  It was time to ramble home to the green pastures and rugged coast of West Cork. 

So long, Paris.  Howdy Clonakilty.

Late August in West Cork

Sketching an Adventure:

I dreamt last night that I was in heaven, rolling along celestial byways with Ms. Raleigh.  At first we were among glowing pastel clouds, but as they dissipated I could see that Paradise was West Cork and we were cycling gently along her coastal boreens, going toward Drombeg Circle on our way to Glandore.  St. Murph, Clonakilty’s venerable bike mechanic, remained floating on a nearby cloud surrounded by a clutter of tools, bicycles, and paraphernalia. He was speaking in tongues to an ardent group of followers.  All the roads in Paradise are gently downhill.

Time passes and summer seems to be slipping away.  I have a plan to cycle the new bike path from Westport to Achill, called The Great Western Greenway if you want to give it a Google.  In the meantime, I’m still cycling around West Cork which remains as lovely and mysterious as she did a year ago.  Maybe I am in Paradise and just haven’t yet clicked to it.  If so, it’s an act of grace.  I don’t deserve this beauty and wonder.

Meet Lady Jayne:

I christened my new, sleek Folbot Cooper Kayak a few days ago, naming her Jayne and paddling out into the cove at Dunnycove.  The day was warm, the sea calm and Jayne fairly flew over the water.  We poked around the kelp beds and inspected sea caves accessible only by water.   To my delight Jayne paddles with ease backward and forward, cutting a clean line in either direction.  Then, I saw a plastic beverage bottle bobbing near me and, obsessed as always by tidying, I leaned over to grab it and, doing so, discovered that Jayne can roll.  Jayne christened me as I slipped from her cockpit into the chilly Celtic Sea.  In the drink, I swam along with Jayne’s painter in my hand until a thoughtful father and daughter in a rowboat gave me a hand in the final 100 meters of my cold swim.  I kept the bottle as a souvenir of our first paddle and reminder of my mortality.

Another Day:

Today I cycled over to Rosscarbery and along the way stopped at Red Strand.  It was about 11:30 and the beach was empty except for a single family.  Dad was waist deep in the shore break teaching two of the five children to surf.  He’d push them along as a wave came and both, a boy and girl, were making the right connections.  On the sand, Mom, three other kids, and three dogs were romping around with beach toys.  I said a prayer for the lot of them; a lovely family.

The fuchsias are blooming and I’m happy to report that the honey bee population of Dunnycove prospers.  When I step outside my door I can hear them working. Blackberries again line the lanes.  I must find the time to pick some for freezing.  I will, of course, eat them first.  Why take chances on tomorrow?

Springtime in West Cork

It’s spring in West Cork and an old man’s fancy returns to cycling and other first loves. Daffodils bloom in door yards and early Daisies grace the lanes.  Wildflowers of every color reappear in the forest paths at Castle Freke and will soon find themselves among the tendrils of young girls’ hair.

Have you ever thought about the Christian notion of “grace” ?  What did our old ones mean when they said things like “There but for the grace of God go I”?  I’ve struggled with this from time to time and come up with “undeserved love.” Maybe “grace” is a loving act done without quid pro quo, price tag, or expectation of return; some stranger rescues your drowning dog and walks away unidentified.  Is that act grace?  I’m not sure.  Grace seems more ongoing and durable to me than a single selfless moment.  Grace endures. And somehow this thought leads me on to women.

Every man should contemplate grace because some are loved by a woman. No man deserves this love, this grace. A woman just decides one day that this guy’s the one for her and, against all reason and accountability[1], she takes him to her heart and that’s that!  If you’re one of those fellas, go to church today and light a candle.  That woman brings you the grace of God.

When blackberries lined the lane

You brushed my hand and

Hold it yet as winter’s tide

Tops the reef at Red Strand.

Black stained lips still

Kiss mine with urgency

From time to time

Echoing that first embrace.

Will I love you less for wayward

Gray I sometimes find

Or lines which sun paints

At the corners of your eyes?

I who by your grace

Find beauty in every breath

And yet thrill to your smile.

---

[1]  In the Jack Nicholson movie, “As Good As It Gets,” a nubile receptionist gushes up to the curmudgeonly romance fiction writer played by Nicholson and asks him how he can write so truthfully about women.  To this Nicholson growls, “It’s easy.  I just think of a man and take away all reason and accountability.”  The line is good for a laugh, but the script writer was onto something. 

Goodbye Elfreda

Are you familiar with the Zen concept of a koan, a question which cannot be answered within the confines of ordinary logic? For instance, "Why is Pi?" (My personal favorite) or "What is the difference between a duck?" (A Zen joke, suggested response: “Both legs are the same.”)  I'll open this chapter with the thought that friendship is a koan. Since everything we create, including friendships, is pregnant with its own dissolution, why do we “friend?”

I cycled to Rosscarbery last Saturday morning taking the route along the beaches in a roughly northerly direction. Puddles from Friday night’s rain had become icy patches in spots the sun had not yet reached.   The tide was out and there was a clean reef break at Red Strand; an even 6 foot surf at Long Strand.  I day dreamt of my beach rat boyhood.  That reef break, a couple hundred meters off shore, captured me.  The morning sun illuminated the spume flying off each wave's crest.  They seemed somehow too perfect to be "real," another koan.

As a child I was very open about fantasy, so much so that my parents became concerned at my "lying" about the events of my day.  My mother read me the Dr. Seuss book "To Think That It Happened on Mulberry Street," a story about a boy who makes up fantastic events.  After that reading, mother would ask me "Frankie, did that happen on Mulberry Street?" when she thought I was fabulating.  I had no problem acknowledging Mulberry Street. I knew adults too believed in Mulberry Street. Jesus walking on water and Mary's ascension into heaven, for example, clearly happened on Mulberry Street.  I kept this knowledge to myself, however, already guarded in my interactions with grown-ups and their “real world.”

As an adult, I accept that dreams, waking and sleeping, are as real as the "real world" which we Westerners think so important. Why do we so prize the world of pollution, robotic weapons, terrorism, and perennial armed conflict; the world where children starve and friends die young? I prefer Mulberry Street where life is gentler, people are kind to one another, dogs speak, and pigs can fly.  Mary, Jesus, Krishna, and Siddhartha are my dearest friends and teachers on Mulberry Street.  Given the choice, who dares say I'm mistaken?

Coming home from my Saturday adventure, I went through Castle Freke and Rathberry, a hamlet a klick or two inland from Long Strand.  A light rain was falling and the setting sun created a rainbow over the castle.  Horses grazed on the castle lawn and I wandered off down Mulberry Street.  Cycling takes me there.  While I was out I stopped for a chat with my Airedale pal, May.  She gave me a kiss and I gave her a biscuit. 

   

My dear friend Elfreda, who called me “Dad,” died unexpectedly last night.  That rainbow over Castle Freke was her angel path.  Elfreda’s lottery dream was to open a home for Down’s Syndrome children.   She didn’t want a Lamborghini or a yacht, just a loving place for discarded children. I shall miss gentle child Elfreda and wonder if I can sing “The Parting Glass" ever again without a tear for her.

The sun is shining on the Celtic Sea; life and friendship are insolvable koans. Today I embrace them in all their beauty,  mystery, and wonder.