Stephen went east for the holidays, and his brother, Andrew, who now lives in the east, came west. The times they are a constantly changin', and I find I really have no concept of time. As a child, the years were long. Neither summer nor school would ever end. Somewhere along the way, time began to move more quickly. College was too short. Moments with sick babies were too long, but their childhood flew by, and my children are adults. Now, time is. School years pass quickly, it is true, yet, in June I cannot say that it was just August, but only that another year has flown by, or flowed by, or climbed up and down the mountain by.
After family holiday gatherings, my partner, Doug, and I turned northwest. For a few days we would have only each other, time to be, to be together, a space between our children's and their partners' comings and goings, which we more witness than facilitate these days.
The first day was rainy, foggy, as we wove along 128 through forests dressed in moss for winter. We meandered up 1, stopping here and there to meander on foot. Leaving Ft. Bragg the next morning, we drove north to the beginning of the Lost Coast, where 1 turns inland, then turned back south. The Pacific was wild, the air pure, clear, cold. We picnicked facing the sun on a slope over a cove in which the waves crashed.
Somewhere between Gualala and Jenner, we noticed cars stopped in various turn-outs. Glancing west, we too stopped. We stood and held hands in silence as the sun settled into the ocean. We turn so quickly, I said to Doug, Why don't we fall off the earth?
The Bohemian Highway, eerie in the dark forest, took us to Occidental, where lights twinkled on the Old-West-meets-Victorian-style buildings of its one-block main street. We strolled down the hill for dinner at Negri's, by the Christmas tree, then back up the hill, in the chill night. We awoke to winter wonder, frost, and a day, if possible, clearer than the previous. It was Doug's turn to say farewell to his daughter as she left for Chile, while I remained in Bodega Bay for my son's return.
As I walked my mother's street, a loop, I noticed a man with a tripod set up on the cliff, waiting, as our sliver of the earth turned away from the sun. As I walked the loop again, people by their windows, on the cliff, on decks, sat and stood reverently. I could not run up the front steps, as my joints are not fond of that, so I walked up them as quickly as I could and opened the front door to call to Mom to watch the sunset. She, too, already stood by her glass door.
It seemed as we stood on the small front deck that the whole world had stopped as we had, connected in a moment of pure calm, awe, as we watched the sun, ocean, clouds' majestic performance, as the world demanded wonder, compelled peace.
