What happens if the truth is never told.

This picture is a lie. Not exactly a lie when I told it; but it is a lie nevertheless. Tomatoes and citrus do not grow on my deck, regularly.

They did for a brief time, on a warm summer day.

The truth of this picture is its in-exactitude, its temporal status. A truth like this exacts all kinds of conclusions, leaves the watcher with a taste for a forever insistence. Here, on this spot, in this micro-climate, citrus and tomatoes have a tough time surviving, an impossible time fruiting, an adverse time leaving seeds and future happenings.

Here, they come to take their last breath.

I wonder how every four years we come to see pictures of a future painted for us with such certainty that we swallow hard, and make these pictures our whole truth. Yes, our whole truth. We forget to ask questions, to examine the rest of the evidence that is not laid out neatly in front of us.

If you lived anywhere on this latitude, with the wind factor similar, precipitation similar, you'd be skeptical about my picture. Your comments would ask for more details, more particulars.

We do keep the whole truth from our children because we want to spare them the harshness of life. We  tell them just enough to help them cope with what's in front of them, with the circumstances they can understand.  School experiences, job experiences, and life experiences will be teaching them plenty, we hope.

I wonder why we love fiction so much!
I wonder what it says about us.

Saving gas?

This cart pulled by two dogs was sighted on Beach Loop Drive in Bandon on a Sunday drive recently, right in front of Lord Bennett's Restaurant.  I was admiring the beach when this caught my eye.

Usually, this road has bikers, skaters, walkers and cars. When dogs are present, they pull their owners, but not in this contraption.

They were coming down the road at a good clip, as  though they did this every day!

I still can't believe what I just photographed.

Golfing as a barometer of the times.

If there is one sport that goes contrary to trends is golf. Oh, it probably doesn't! But, what do I know? I don't play golf. I just watch from a distance, admiring the stance, the duds, the concentration, and the price tag of such a sport.

Yet, I'm amazed at how well our local golf resorts have done during the past years, when the Union was in recession. Our local golf resorts have shown more profits, more golfers, more expansion than anticipated.

People with disposable income who play golf have not had to tighten their belts.

Have you noticed that a a golf course is always green even when there is a drought?
That there are no discounts on golf courses?
That golfers play as though they are praying?

Just an observation on the state of the union, here in the West, among the well-to-do.
I'm happy to report that we breathe the same air, and eat the same vegetables from Abby's Greens.

What doesn't get talked about.

We live inside our skins, inside our homes, our family rituals, our cultural norms. We live according to rules set in stone somewhere, sometime ago. Only poetry, art and politics seem to break into our psyche, shake us out of our routines now and then, and ask the questions nobody wants to explore.

I'm talking about contraceptives, family planning,  sexual behavior. Yesterday, artists were painting nudes, fat ones, with added bulges, to comment on our perception, our baggage, our human condition. Think of this discussion as a major art exhibition where  canvases of all sizes show paintings of different bodies, in various amount of nudity, various poses, various moods.

We will interpret these bodies based on many factors: our facility with the language of imagery, light and shadow, color and perspective; our facility with nudity as well.

Speech is the reflection of a singular perception, tied to time, space, cultural norms. The same person will say different things, will have a different perception each time he/she moves his body in space and time, encounters people not like him.

So, what was never talked about when I was a youngster, has now become fodder in political circles. Birth control, abortion, family planning, they are all part of the bigger conversation we are now having and it now involves not just free speech.

Now, the conversation about birth control involves religion, personal rights, rights of government, rights of each partner.  Whose life are we talking about? The one of the Yet-Unborn, or the life of the mother, the father. the family unit?

I know that I'm not my mother. She and I would not be having this conversation if she were still alive. I would not be having this same conversation with anyone else forty-five years ago.

I also know that my religious views have changed since I was a child. Yet, deep in me there is a compass. Deep in every religious person there is a need for an absolute truth that should be applied to all humanity. Yet, each religion has its own set of holy books, its own rules of worship, its own commandments.

In a democratic community, unlike a religious community, all of us determine what is best for the rest of us. Not one segment, not just judeo-christian rules!
We must have these conversations!
Or, we'll end up becoming the very thing we hate in theocracies.

Bright faces.

This is a tenacious hellebore, too shy to ever show up in sunny California.
In this woodland spot, covered by fallen leaves and intimidating blackberry vines, the hellebore shines its bright smile on cool and cloudy days.

There is plenty of grass, moss, and other shoots for this deer family.
Here, they stop just enough to see what I'm about this morning.
I'm shooting a short video this morning. I want to remember why I fell in love with this place!
If you are interested in seeing/hearing that video, I just posted it on my other blog: http://sixtyfivewhatnow.blogspot.com

Last Dance.

I am and You are

tired.

This was a very long day
a very long  year:
our bodies, fragile
our feet, shod with wrong shoes
 the pavement,  unstable.


The music-
the same song we first heard on a jukebox
at the corner five- and- dime
where we sat
close to each other
hoping someone would ask the other to dance.

They are performing our song, I say, and stand up
in encouragement
swaying back and forth
threatening to dance by myself
if I have to.


The young  performers
pretend not to notice
the hunger in my eyes, the annoyance in my step.
To them
all
old people
are already dead.

Water play.

 Just a trickle

can move mountains

and crush rocks.

Tree Lover

I was not his first love, he confessed,
on our honeymoon in Yosemite,
eyes dewy and soft, hugging  tall trees all around us
stripping down to swim in icy lakes
and run in weedy meadows.


 Montana
he whispered one night in his sleep
smiling, murmuring something and something
as though he was back with an old lover.

L.A. and  smog

Santa Ana's and traffic

five -to- seven work days
confused his senses
after a while.

He no longer called anybody's name
on windy nights.
Long cigarette's puffs managed to
silence old desires.

But he built tree houses for his children,
in a mini forest he planted in the backyard
complete with a small creek,
and a pond for turtles and frogs
and bunnies and salamanders
all the while
recreating his childhood in Montana.