LIFE BITS: Where Memory Skids Away (1971)

A Meditation on Two Old Photographs

Please note that this post may be difficult and upsetting to read for some people. Rest assured that I haven’t abandoned Local Walks, I am just expanding the purview of this blog.

It’s not Joni’s river that I was skating away on, it was

my own skid into oblivion, away from the day

that shattered sweet innocence.

It began with a casual conversation

in Tompkins Square Park,

heart of New York’s counter culture,

leafy and calm

on that mid-August afternoon in 1967.

The talk evolved. There was an invitation

she was too polite to refuse. Was she unwilling? Yes

but too polite to refuse, and

too innocent to know what might happen.

The brick wall – (“What should I do with my brick wall?” he asked,

“Won’t you come look?”) – if only there hadn’t been a brick wall

but there would have been another ruse so up she went

oblivious in her innocence, polite, curious, open.

Too open. On the kitchen counter

a row of knives, nothing else.

Many locks on the old wooden door

a radio, a mattress on the floor.

Perhaps a light?

I don’t remember. She didn’t register that.

He insisted that she dance with him

by the brick wall to forgotten music

on a cheap radio.

(Did you notice that she became I

and I became she? Pieces, that’s what was left

after that day in August).

The atmosphere changes abruptly –

he has her where he wants her and

now her memory is tearing away from itself

the dark clods of it shoved into a dark corner.

I do remember floating

above myself, watching him hurt her.

The split complete: me/her.

There are no bandaids

for that desperate, unconscious break

from the terror as one part is thinking

do whatever is required.

Get out alive.

I do remember pure, wordless fear

a torn dress, my bodymind in shock,

tightly frozen as I leave

because after he had what he wanted

he carefully controlled my exit, walked me down the stairs

and out onto the street. The terror

finally lowered by a hair

once I was far down the block

merging with people on the sidewalk

yet completely

utterly apart.

By then oblivion had taken hold,

seeping into the nooks and crannies

of my young brain eager to discover

a new life in the city, away from home,

without any concept of safety or how to say

“No

I won’t go to your apartment.”

“No!”

The words, the idea – not in my vocabulary.

And afterward language wasn’t enough

couldn’t encompass the event

couldn’t touch it.

My body still there on that floor

my mind

uneasy with itself

living a pretense that

none of it ever happened.

______

I see her baby face in photographs taken four years

after the Forgetting.

Pieces of her are squeezed into a dark, firmly closed box

so she’s a part of things, and

she’s apart from things.

They are all friends and lovers intermingling

and shining alone,

taboo-breakers, art-makers,

alive in a lucky moment of time

where freedom reigns

except for her the present

bears the unbearable weight of the past,

a past that as a poet has said* was

a living, breathing, hindering beast

a beast that unbeknownst to her

was cramming her life into destructive patterns

in random meetings with people kind and unkind.

Some very unkind.

But that’s another story. In this moment

her taboo-breaking,

art-making circle,

with their cigarettes and beer, their bodies

and inchoate dreams shared freely,

in this moment

she is actually safe.

***

* “I had in mind a sense of time in which the past is not past, but a living, breathing, hindering beast.“ Grace Yee: 5 Questions with Grace Yee; Liminal Magazine, 06/15/25.

***

So who are the people in the photos?

In the top picture Kitty’s on the left and my head is in her lap. She paints abstracts now. We were once lovers but it didn’t last long. We separated gently, easily. In the middle is Sybil, a serious thinker who was older than the rest of us. Her husband was a lawyer, a good man. He died of cancer and later she did, too. The last I heard about her, she was working with a Tibetan Buddhist teacher. And then there’s Terry, a larger-than-life man with a generous heart who died far too young from AIDS in 1985. In 1986 I received a postcard from him on Valentine’s Day. I was shocked. How could this be? It was impossible. I later learned that for his final artwork, he made paintings on postcards and gave his partner a list of people to mail them to. It was deeply moving.

In the bottom picture Kitty’s still on the left. Sibyl has her arms around Terry in the back. In the front is Andrius, the son of two Lithuanian immigrant doctors. He taught me how to count in Lithuanian. He and Kitty supposedly got married even though she was gay and he was rumored to be bisexual. They didn’t really get married but that’s a story for another time. Andrius made big paintings of outer space. We were lovers, too, for a while. Now he lives in a big, old house in the French countryside with his artist wife. Then there’s Carl. Sweet, funny, and slightly removed, he always seemed driven by an ineffable, existential quest. I think he’s living on a farm in New Jersey now.

Who’s behind the camera? David, a shy Midwesterner whose comfort behind a camera led him to a successful career photographing expensive jewelry for top New York City auction houses. One of his kids, his daughter Z, is an artist. David prefers making things by hand now, like paintings of scenes that express intense emotions. On 9/11 David’s downtown loft filled with the fine gray dust of thousands of pieces of paper and bodies. The family moved out until their home was clean and habitable again. Now they live in a bucolic house with a barn, two hours north of the city.

As you have probably guessed, this text recalls a rape that happened over 50 years ago. One consequence of that incident is that I’m very uncomfortable with that word; I don’t like to hear it, say it, or even type it. I was young, innocent, and virginal when I was tricked into going to that stranger’s apartment. There was no Women’s Movement and certainly no Me Too movement then. Sexual assault was understood to be the victim’s fault. For all those reasons and more, I didn’t tell my parents. I tried calling the NYPD (New York City Police) but that was useless – I didn’t have full name of the perpetrator and I didn’t know the address.

I went on with my life as if that day didn’t happen because there didn’t seem to be any other path forward. Like other victims of violent sexual assault, I was numb and confused and unable to make good choices in relationships. The hindering beast of dissociated memory didn’t disappear. But in spite of my emotional vulnerability, the friends in these photographs never took advantage of me. I felt safe with them and I thank them for that.

***

LOCAL WALKS: Gifts from the Woods

1. Spring greens color the ground under an old Seaside juniper on a chilly day in March.

What does it mean to lose yourself in the woods? For me it’s a gift that I receive every time I’m outdoors in nature. Outside, the atmosphere is alive in a way that’s never duplicated indoors. The weather may be uncomfortable – cold, windy, hot, rainy – but it still feels enlivening. Except on rare occasions when stillness feels oppressive, the air outdoors doesn’t feel dull or dead to me. Even when the weather doesn’t cooperate, the possibility of change is always there and keeps me going.

The woods where I lose myself may be filled with tall, dark, evergreens or it may be more open. It may not even be the woods, it could be a field, a seashore, a garden. In any case, I always find something that ignites a spark in my mind. Something draws me in, attracts me. A pattern, a shape, a play of light – it doesn’t matter, it’s bound to happen. Whether it’s sound, scent, touch, or sight, the senses are the locus of losing myself. The world calls me in, my senses engage, and my mulling, circling, self-preoccupied mind takes a back seat. That’s the precious loss of self.

I often celebrate that loss here on the screen. This time I have photographs to show you of trees and the ground around them. On two recent walks that I took in a local park, the trees, spring flowers, and even the humble grass all encouraged me to be free of self-absorption, at least for a little while. What a gift that is!

I’ll start with a favorite tree, the Seaside juniper:

The living ain’t easy on the edges of the park, where sun and salt and wind all bring challenges. But the rock-strewn bluffs on the south side of the park where the light is strong support a rugged group of green beings that rise to the test. The twists and turns of the Seaside junipers above speak of years of weathering. They thrive here despite a harsh environment; some of them are over three hundred years old. They’re native to a very circumscribed area. You won’t find them in Mississippi, you won’t find them in Maine and you won’t even find them in Oregon. They are restricted to the shores of the Salish Sea – just a small chunk of northwest Washington State and southwest British Columbia.

Another tree that pulls me close is the Pacific Madrone, which often shares space with Seaside junipers. Madrones’ deep green, glossy leaves stay on the tree all winter and contrast elegantly with its warm, multi-hued bark. If that’s not enough, the bark peels to reveal a revelation of color. The freshest bark, like a smooth skin on the tree’s trunk, is yellow-green and can actually photosynthesize. Older bark shreds off in late summer, a trait that helps the tree remain free of pests and diseases. Lucky madrone, its skin can absorb nourishment from the sun, a continuous process of renewal.

7. Rocks and madrones, friends for life and beyond.

8. Junipers and madrones are often companions for life, too. The juniper branch and madrone trunk on the left are truly bonded.

9. Fragments of charred bark cling to a madrone branch long after a fire raced through the park.

Let’s pause and look down. In the first photo, a rock is colonized by fist-sized cushions of moss and a slow-growing lichen. In the second, tiny Smallflower Blue-eyed Mary’s, one of the earliest spring ephemerals, vie for position with clover, moss, and Wallace’s selaginella, the spiky plant on the right. The third photo is a beetle’s eye view of a bed of moss and the fourth is another beetle’s eye view of the ground singing spring songs of sprouting leaves.

11. Here’s a close view of a favorite trail. When dry, these rocks provide an excellent grip but in rainy weather they’re terribly slippery. Without the rain, all the little growing things in different shades of green wouldn’t find homes in the crevices – and wouldn’t delight my eyes.

12. Beside a steep, short drop in the trail just ahead, junipers and madrones provide convenient handholds. This open, rocky bluff supports spring wildflowers. Different species grow up ahead in the dense patch of Douglas fir forest. The madrones and junipers here at the transitional edge are almost absent in the darker woods.

13. This impressionistic image was cropped from a larger photograph. One lone Pacific madrone stands out in a patch of forest that’s too dense for it to spread. It reaches up and up, looking for light.

14. Ducking under a Pacific madrone on the right and a Douglas fir on the left, we’re following the red rock road to a sloping bluff. Late winter is a good time to wander these trails. Moss and lichens are lush and plentiful, madrones provide more color, and you’ll probably have the trail to yourself. Yourself? Yes, that pesky but necessary self that’s likely to fade away in the presence of nature, especially when you’re alone.

***

Certain trails call me back in every season: quiet winters, spring wildflowers, the comforts of summer and autumn textures make even short walks worthwhile, as long as you really look. In no hurry, I drive into the park and turn off the narrow, one way road around the park at a pull-out where I’ll find a trail meandering through varied terrain. Water is always nearby but it isn’t the goal. I just like to wander down the wavering paths where old trees litter the ground and the sky might be graced by anything from a buzzing hummingbird to a soaring eagle. Thanks for coming with me.

***

A PAUSE

Because we all need it

Because the world impinges

Because we’re in pain

I think it’s time

to pause.

It’s difficult not to be upset, angry, and despairing about what’s happening in the world now. Taking time out when the news or personal concerns are too disturbing is essential. I’m sure you have ways to calm down or let off steam when you need to. This post is offered as another way to pause from the too-muchness of the world. Just a series of photographs to enjoy. Simple.

These photographs were made in 2025 and 2026, on the hills and beaches of Fidalgo Island, where I live. The first photo is from last September. It was a morning when the fog held on for hours, chilling the air and veiling the landscape. On an outcrop to my left, Pacific Madrones reached for the sun. Long, uprooted stalks of Bull kelp floated freely on the water’s surface, their work done for the season. Next year fresh stalks, technically called stipes, will rise from their holdfasts on the rocky bottom and quickly grow tall enough for their wavy, ribbon-like blades to photosynthesize near the water’s surface. Diving birds, fish, seals, crabs and other creatures will hide and forage in the forest of kelp that grows here, as long as the water remains cool and clean.

The second photo is a closeup of a Pacific Madrone tree that survived a fire.

The third photo shows some broken reeds and a partly-buried feather I noticed on a winter beach walk last month.

Number 4 was not taken on Fidalgo. I was at a Whidbey Island beach just across the water. A bridge that connects the two islands is barely visible in the first photo. I like the designs evaporating water makes on rocks. It’s all about timing – I happened to be there when tide, wind and sun worked together to create patterns that disappeared almost as fast as I saw them.

Number 5 is a window sill at home. I don’t remember where I found those pieces of wood. There are times when I want to sweep away all the collections of things from every surface in the house. Maybe I could think better then, without all the clutter around. But I like seeing interesting and beautiful natural objects so I try to find a balance between spare minimalism (never going to happen!) and excess clutter.

Number 6, the dark photo, shows a tree slowly collapsing in the woods at Washington Park. No one will clean up this wild “garden” because our city doesn’t tidy up the woods. Trees are left where they fall unless they land on a road or trail, or are a hazard. Their decomposition nourishes the ecosystem, keeping it whole and healthy.

Number 7 is from last June, when meadow grasses were ripe with seeds.

In the eighth photo, Madrones are reflected in the still, shallow water of a wetland. Powerful storms and rising ocean levels are submerging the smaller Madrone. An older one that grows higher is safe for now but the small tree will probably die in the next 5 or 10 years. The first time I saw the destruction wrought from an intense winter storm at this location, I was upset. The next time, I was still upset, and sad. Then came the third and fourth times. Now I’m getting used to it. The landscape I fell in love with when I moved here was a moment in time and space, it was not static. Life is change.

Number 9 is from a few days ago. Spring is here!

Number 10 shows a cliff roughly opposite the wetland pictured in #8. It’s September and the leaves have turned orange and brown. The tips of some branches that hang down are furred with lichens, probably because they’re frequently exposed to mist on the bay and spray from wind blowing over the waves of incoming tides.

Number 11 is – you guessed it- another Madrone. It’s normal for the bark to peel, which results in endlessly interesting patterns.

Number 12 is from a September afternoon when I hiked up the second-highest hill on the island and stopped below the top to photograph this field. At over 1000 feet (305m), Sugarloaf has fine views of islands and mountains. It’s a favorite little walk of mine. I can park beside a road and follow a half mile long trail to the top with just enough elevation gain to give a sense of accomplishment. Wildflowers line the narrow trail from spring to summer and after the flowers are gone, the grassy meadow still pleases the eye.

Number 13 shows a Madrone above the wetland shown earlier. This tree seems to have carved out a little niche for itself on a hillside full of Douglas fir trees. The Madrone will keep leaning out to gather all the sun it can. Douglas firs grow fast and I think the Madrone is struggling to get out of their shade. The dead bottom branches fairly drip with lichens, creating another layer in the forest ecosystem.

The last photo is another fallen tree in the same park as the sixth photo. It was just after sunset, on New Year’s Eve, 2025.

***

LIFE BITS: A Story and An Amulet

For a long time I’ve wanted to construct a memoir. I say “construct” because I’ve always envisioned a text-and-image memoir, probably a book – but not necessarily. One idea I had is to use a selection of my photographs, drawings, including a few from childhood, and texts (excerpts from letters and journals, old lists, school reports, etc.). They would be hung at eye level on three or four walls around a bare room: a memoir to walk through. It’s an ambitious project, and not necessarily one that would interest many people so the idea rests quietly, in the back of my mind. Having been intimate with mortality for the past year or so, I think I should get started on a memoir of some kind before it’s too late. “Life Bits” will be an ongoing series of posts, each one about a particular event or important part of my life. They won’t appear in chronological order. I have several in the wings already but they’re not easy reading because they tackle disturbing events from the past. I believe those times are important to write about, but I don’t want to begin this series with that kind of material. What then? Something a little different. This first “Life Bit” is primarily the work of an old friend. He has a riveting story to tell, one that I connect with in an unusual way.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who does google searches for old friends and acquaintances. A few days ago something prompted me to search the name of my old friend Chris Loekle. Honestly, it was because I hadn’t heard from him in over a year and I had the terrible thought that something could have happened to him. Too impatient to wait for an answer to an email, I googled. The first result of the search was an article that he wrote for Maine Public Radio in 2017. The article, which I had never seen, recalls his experience in the Vietnam War. I met him a few years after he was discharged from the Army, when we were students at School of Visual Arts in New York. We quickly became close and moved into an apartment together around the time we graduated. It was the first long-term, serious relationship for both of us and it ended badly after four years (my fault). He moved to Maine but we salvaged the friendship and kept in touch through the years.

Chris in the kitchen of our third floor walk-up in Hoboken, circa 1973.

A factor that’s particularly relevant to this story is that we both felt alienated from the culture we’d grown up in; the prevailing American dream of having a family and a two-car garage left us cold. We each grew up comfortably, in loving households where our Dads worked hard to support their families and everyone went to church on Sundays. Chris and I knew we didn’t want that life, so like many of our peers, we were exploring alternate lifestyles and figuring it out as we went. You might say we were seekers but neither one of us had any interest in joining groups. One alternative to the Protestant ethic that interested both of us was Buddhism. Back in high school, an older friend had introduced me to Jack Kerouac. His books functioned as a gateway to Buddhism and the counterculture in the 1960s. I don’t know if Chris read Kerouac in high school. He didn’t need to – he had his own introduction to Buddhism and to a lifestyle quite different from anything he had experienced. It all came about because he was drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.

Click here and Chris will explain…

Over the years I’ve worn a “Buddhist charm” around my neck many times. It’s a primitive image of Guan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion. Chris gave it to me half a century ago, the same one he was wearing in the story. I’ve moved ten times since he gave me that necklace and I never lost it. I don’t know who made it but I know it originated far away, in space and time. And it’s imbued with a rich story. Now it hangs from a hook on a wooden rack, waiting for the next time I feel like carefully clasping it around my neck. Chris and I are in touch sporadically, but meaningfully. I haven’t seen him in decades but I know he’s there on his island in Maine, polishing his boots, playing his clarinet, hauling compost for his vegetable garden. Once in a while we share news, commiserate about politics (we went through the Watergate years together), and compare the weather on our respective coasts. And every now and then I learn a few things about him that I didn’t know before.

***

WATERMOON

Gibbous moon hides

behind a bare-branched tree

but I see her.

I know her ways –

ever present whether seen or not,

pulling or pushing

the hot earth’s vast tubs of water,

never at rest

in place or phase.

Round and around she is,

distant from the fray and beauty

of her sweet, damaged planet

whose floods and droughts fray

the nerves of human creatures

who too often forget

how to relish

the beauty

that is.

***

The Photos:

On New Year’s Eve the gibbous moon looks like it was made to fit a bare-limbed tree.
In the forest at dusk, a twig sheds water. The ground below will make good use of it.
Madrone leaves turn rust and deep purple as they decay on the ground. What a fine contrast they make to a lush mat of Oregon beaked moss. Picture-ready, right at my feet.
A moss and lichen community. The fine moss with twirling white hairs is Elongate rock moss (Racomitrium elongatum); the cups covered with bumps are probably Pebbled pixie cups (Cladonia pyxidata). About 2 inches (5cm) square, this busy piece of earth was teeming with life. The larger view was just as exciting – I was on a small island plunked down in the middle of the deep, swift waters of Deception Pass. Steep cliffs and rushing water surrounded me. In spite of two lanes of traffic crossing the bridge over the island, the air is fresh and clean, a requirement for these lichens. The Ai mode of a google search for Pass Island, WA, will tell you that the island’s role is to serve as a support for the Deception Pass Bridge. No, please. This tough old piece of rock supports all kinds of life. Isn’t that its real, abiding role?
Two Orcas swim west through Burrows Pass; the setting sun illuminates their breath. I’m high on a hill overlooking the channel, planning to check the trails to see what plants are emerging. Out of the corner of my eye I see two smoke bombs hovering over the water. Huh, smoke out there on the water? The mind moves quickly, the head turns, and within a second, I know I’m seeing Orcas. You could sit on this hill for a week straight and not see an Orca but on this day, at this precise moment, I’m very, very lucky. I watch entranced as their bodies part the water like silk, their breath lagging just behind, drifting on the dark water of the pass. I quick-click the shutter. The lens I have, which isn’t very long, will have to do. Each time I put the camera down, my pleasure increases ,as I watch these powerful marine mammals doing exactly what they were made to do. Across the channel, the all-but-uninhabited Burrows Island is dark as night. Off to my left, a small knot of people who came to see the sunset are holding their cell phones up. I know they’re thrilled, too.
A semi-abstract of sunlight reflecting on the roiling currents of Deception Pass, darkened for effect.
In the distance, a “smoke signal” of steam from an oil refinery seems foreboding or beautiful, depending on what you know and how you read it. Closer in, a flock of Buffleheads swims past, probably on the way to a quiet spot to rest overnight. They won’t have any trouble finding a good spot here at Kukutali Preserve. With a history that veers from one extreme to the other, this place was once a gathering spot for shellfish digging by a local tribe, then was private property, then was considered for the site of a nuclear power plant. Strong objections to the power plant led to its current, unusual status as a preserve co-managed by Washington State and the Swinomish Indian Tribe. Today, land that teetered on the brink of ruin is appreciated by walkers enjoying nature and tribal members who once again can exercise their treaty rights to harvest the waters.

***

FURTHER AFIELD: Mistakes and Redemption in SoCal

1. A strand of eelgrass caught in a piece of Giant kelp caught my eye at Dana Point.

It started back in November with a sale I couldn’t resist: 30% off flights on Alaska Airlines, a convenient airline for regional travel from Seattle. I knew I would be craving warmth in January, so I booked a flight to Los Angeles, reserved a rental car, and found a place to stay. I was used to sharing all the travel planning with Joe. I can’t do that anymore but I was confident that I had everything in place.

It would be my first trip alone in 10 or 15 years. I used to love exploring on my own and going wherever I wanted to, on my own timetable. At the same time, traveling was one of the focus points of my relationship with Joe and I knew I would miss sharing the experience with him. I wondered how I would cope with driving and navigating on ten-lane highways in and around Los Angeles. For weeks before my departure I swung back and forth between anxiety and eagerness. I knew that a year ago, Joe and I took a similar trip that we thoroughly enjoyed. How would this compare? More to the point, how could I keep from comparing it to the past?

The first mistake didn’t hit me until just before I left: I would be traveling on a 3-day holiday weekend. No! I do NOT like crowded beaches or crowded anything (except New York City streets). It was too late to change the reservations. I would have to live with it.

The departure date arrived and Colby drove me to the airport (thank you!). The flight went smoothly. Off to a good start! The rental car was ready and waiting: a shiny, white 2025 Jetta GLI. There was only one problem: I couldn’t turn it on. I found a patient agent who turned it on easily. It was then that I realized my foot wasn’t on the brake when I pushed the button. Humiliating. My own car is 20 years old and starts with a plain old key. With the Airbnb address put into my phone and the volume turned up on the maps app, I launched myself onto the freeway. Arriving at the Airbnb, I quickly saw…

The second mistake. It a was strange place! I should have seen how weird and uncomfortable the place was from the photos. I also should have noticed that it was in the middle of a vast, soulless, suburban sprawl that stretches for miles around L.A. Nothing but perfect-looking houses and big box stores, as far as the eye could see.

I fell asleep hoping things would look better the next day, but it was not to be. Heading to the beach that morning, I was confronted with a jam-packed parking lot, thanks to warm weather and the holiday weekend. Disappointed, I walked a short distance, turned around, and left. My fantasy of a quiet, meditative walk on the beach wasn’t going to happen. The beaches were packed, the weather was hot, I didn’t like the neighborhood, the house was uncomfortable. I tried, but couldn’t even find a quiet park to walk in.

And there was no one to share the frustration with. Suddenly, I felt lost, bereft. I would have to figure out how to redeem this situation by myself. I knew the holiday was only one more day, and maybe I could find a different place to stay? No, that would be costly and difficult. On top of feeling stupid for making mistakes with my reservations, my mind kept drifting back to one year ago, when Joe and I were ensconced in a comfortable hotel fifty miles down the coast. That turned out to be our last vacation. No wonder I felt miserable.

Just as I was racking my brain about what to do, a message popped up in my inbox: the airline was offering $115 to anyone willing to switch flights from the date I was flying home to a day or two earlier. They must have overbooked. It was tempting but first, I had to see about canceling two days of the Airbnb and rental car. I went to work. I texted, made calls, and calculated price differences for well over an hour. By the time I confirmed I wouldn’t forfeit too much money by cutting the trip short, the offer had disappeared! Unbelievable.

It was time to pivot – again. Throw a few obstacles at me and I will get very determined. Working through all the scenarios, I figured I could still cut two days off the trip and come out ahead. I would pay a little more for the flight change but I would get two days of the cost of the Airbnb back. Once all the changes were in place, I began to breathe easier.

I had two and a half days left. I would devote one to Los Angeles and the other one to the beach, now that the holiday was over. On the last morning there would be time for a morning hike before my flight home.

With only one day in the city, I wanted to make the time count. There were so many things I wanted to do – visit a museum, eat at a Jewish deli, walk around an interesting neighborhood, go to art galleries. But I couldn’t do it all in one day. I would be navigating while driving and trying to find places to park, no easy task. So no Jewish deli, no neighborhood walk, and no galleries. I would go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and be overwhelmed by the art – in a good way, like eating too much sugar. That’s what I wanted to do most of all. And I would relax my nervous system after the drive into L.A. by visiting a botanical garden.

It was a good plan. A small garden, the Mildred Matthias UCLA Botanical Garden, was not far from the museum. I could get take out at a good lunch spot I knew and eat in the garden. As it turned out, I was underwhelmed by the plant collections but meandering through the garden, set in an arroyo with a creek running through it, was pleasant enough.

4. Instead of flowers, cut bamboo stems and leaf detritus caught my eye.

5. Calligraphy detail, Realms of the Dharma exhibition; Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

On to LACMA, the largest art museum in the West. Scanning the “What’s On” list, I had no trouble zeroing in on what I must see and what I would check out afterward, if I still had the energy.

First I made a beeline for the Modern Art collection, where I saw favorites like Mondrian, Rothko, Joan Mitchell, and others. It felt good to be in an environment that feels like home to me. Not LACMA specifically, but any good art museum or gallery, especially one that focuses on 20th century art, has felt like home ever since I studied art in New York, decades ago. Peering closely at the Rothko (below), I noticed how beautifully he handled the paint where red fades to white. The staples where he attached the canvas to the stretcher bars, were perfectly aligned. I had just finished a book about him and seeing that painting was poignant. A complex man, he lived life intensely, to say the least.

I walked through Realms of the Dharma, a broad survey of Asian Buddhist art. Being among various renditions of monks, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas felt comfortable and familiar. Asian art has always interested me and living in a Zen monastery for five years solidified the affinity. A too-quick look at a fascinating survey of woodblock printing across cultures left me wishing I could bring the whole exhibition home with me. I also enjoyed “Grounded”, an exhibition of work by artists from the Americas and Pacific region, whose practice involves the land. Several artists I had never heard of have beautiful, intriguing work in that show. Another artist I admire, Ana Mendieta, is represented by six photographs documenting a work from 1979 in which she made a silhouette of her body from gunpowder on a volcano-shaped bed of earth and set it on fire.

I would have liked to visit the museum three times to take it all in. I had to skip the Jean Arp/Paul Klee exhibit – but I know when enough is enough. Walking back outside, I felt blissfully happy. Dusk was falling over the city, infusing it with that inimitable Southern California light. How can I describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it? Particularly at dusk on a clear day, the light seems to be everywhere, at once around your body and yet infinitely expanding. Neither vague nor harsh, the light carries colors brilliantly, from deep blues to golden hues and beyond. I laid down on my back on a low concrete wall by the museum plaza and stared up at the sky, taking it all in.

6. Clockwise from left: Mark Rothko; White Center, 1957; Pablo Albarenga; Nantu, 2018-2020. A documentary photographer, Albarenga is based in South America. In this photograph, Nantu, a member of the Achuar Nation in Ecuador, is seen next to the pristine rainforest he is working to protect by running a solar-powered boat collective. Xu Bing; Life Pond, part of his Five Series of Repetition, 1987. A contemporary Chinese conceptual artist, Xu Bing explored the idea of print as multiple in this series. He first printed an uncut woodblock, then gradually carved and printed until the final print was almost entirely carved out. The image above is from halfway through that exercise.

7. Clockwise from left: Part of a scroll. This grass or cursive style of calligraphy is a style I’m very drawn to. Unfortunately, I didn’t record the name of the artist. Next, Jizo Bosatsu; Unknown artist, Japan, c. 1070-1120. The full statue, made of wood, is life size. Finally, Bodhidharma; ink and pigment. I didn’t note information about the ink drawing. Bodhidharma, a popular Buddhist subject, is said to have transmitted the dharma, or the teachings of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, to China in the 5th or 6th century. Depictions of him typically have the big eyes and nose and intense expression seen here.

Wednesday was cool and overcast, the kind of weather that doesn’t draw beach crowds. Perfect. I drove to the beach where Joe and I took one last, long walk, one that turned out to be our last walk together. I knew revisiting that beach might be depressing. It seemed that each time I revisited the past, things went badly. Looking forward was proving to be more beneficial. Even so, I went back to Salt Creek Beach and it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Life doesn’t unfold in black and white or either/or. I stayed in the present that day but there was an important bit of dwelling in the past I needed to do. Tucked into my suitcase were two small bags of soil – Joe’s soil. Literally. His wish was to be transformed into soil after his death. Most of his soil went to a forest restoration project in the Olympic Mountains, the rest was shipped to me. I wanted to place the soil where it felt right. This beach felt exactly right. With no one nearby, it was easy to empty one small bag of soil into a curved channel of water flowing down the beach and into the ocean. Easy physically – but emotionally? Not so easy. I watched small, brown clumps of soil trace the curves of the channel and disappear into the ocean’s foamy fringe. I lingered, I cried, and then I walked on, slowly.

9. Salt Creek Beach, Dana Point, California

10.

Rain was threatening the morning I hiked at Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. Set in a densely populated county of cities and suburbs, the 4,000 acre wilderness reserve protects imperiled species of plants and animals and is a welcome respite for people.

The sky was dull that day. At first, birdsong excited me more than the landscape. Slipping my phone out of my back pocket, I turned on the Merlin app to identify birds I didn’t know, like Nutall’s woodpecker, a denizen of California’s oak woodlands with a loud, rattling call. Oh, I thought, that same call surprised us last year in another Southern California woodland. The dense brush hid most of the birds, but the app said a Wrentit, an Oak titmouse, and a California thrasher were busy nearby. I recognized the Blue-gray gnatcatcher, an old friend from spring vacations on the Georgia coast, over 2,000 miles from where I stood.

Slowly, the subdued beauty of the landscape sunk in. Clumps of willows lined the path. A myriad of understory shrubs and forbs I couldn’t identify stretched back to a hidden ravine, where I heard water gurgling. The view opened up to rolling hills layered on top of one another, each one paler and softer, the last hill a quiet purple-gray under a faintly blue-gray sky. Around a bend, the rounded silhouettes of Coast live oaks stood out on slopes of tall green grass.

The light dimmed. I felt the first drops of rain. As long as it didn’t pour, I’d be OK – it wasn’t cold and my camera is weather-resistant. I stopped where the trail crossed over the creek to watch raindrops splatter the water’s surface. Nothing stood out – the soft rain suffused the land with grayed pastels and muffled sounds. A sweet calm descended. I didn’t know if the best part was the mesmerizing quality of the misty landscape or the pungent scent beginning to rise from the scrub – yes, there it was – the distinctive desert aroma of wet sage. There’s nothing like it.

13.

***

15. There’s always another wave and another lesson to learn.

***

LOCAL WALKS: Ordinary Beauty

Writing about ordinary beauty is nothing new, but a reminder never hurts.

Finding beauty, we recognize it

thanks to the beauty

within us. Beauty recognizes beauty.

Even in the shattered places

of the world and ourselves,

this beauty,

This.

It’s not an isolated phenomenon

separate from ourselves,

other than ourselves –

no – isolation is delusion.

Everything is in relationship,

like the intimate beauty

of walking feet,

here and there,

there

and here.

Nearby,

beauty.

***

2. I clambered down into a hollow carved by the tides that day and steadied my feet on the slick, round rocks. Curtains of mist rolled through Deception Pass. The fog vapor appealed to me, but the jagged intractability of the old anvil of rock did, too. Mist and rock in relationship. With each other, with the trees, the grass, the seaweed, the atmosphere, with me, and now in relationship with you, too.

3. I watched a downy feather snagged on a stick as it disappeared under the pier where I stood and waited for it to emerge on the other side, a playful game that never grows old. As the reed and feather floated above the leaves of underwater plants, I pressed the shutter. Then I watched the feather and stick drift out of sight, glad for the gift of slowness.

4. Wind enlivens the world, pushes things around and makes new relationships. Makes beauty in unexpected places, too.

5. Is it my own too-curvy spine that responds with affection to the curves of the old, half-dead juniper? We exist together, our bones roughened by the weather of time, here in this unsteady world.

6. Where the trail hugs the shoreline of Big Beaver Pond, I watched a pond lily leaf arcing downward toward its demise. I imagined water embracing leaf, softening it, and tenderly working it through the transition from life to death.

7. As summer’s vigor was subsiding, another pond lily leaf broke the surface just enough to interrupt the dark, gracefully drawn shadow of a stem of sedge. Leaf and stem in relationship, such beauty.

8. A tangle of branches filtered the colors of dusk: blue-gray-greens, purples, and stray bits of sunny orange. Ordinary ground and branches on an ordinary day. Beautiful.

***

As “The Marine Detective” said recently, “Stand for truth. Put good into the world. Know the good and beauty around you. And protect the good in yourself, and others.“

***

STATES OF BEING: In Turmoil but Still Here

It’s been a year of turmoil, difficulty, disruption, and I hope, growth. I could run through the photo files and look for pictures that illustrate turmoil but I really don’t feel like looking at disorderly images. Instead, this is a chronology of my year, through images and minimal text. I’m not going to review the year by picking images from previous posts – these are photos I haven’t published before. (You can enlarge small images by clicking on them).

In spite of the illness and death of my dear partner Joe, there is optimism and pleasure to be found here. There’s darkness, too, and confusion. But quaint as the idea may be in 2025, beauty inspires me to push the shutter, more often than not.

***

1. January 5th. A walk at dusk. The ferns sprouting from mossy rocks on the right are Licorice ferns. They go dormant in summer, revive in fall, and stay green all winter. Because of them and the many evergreen plants and trees we have, winters are practically verdant.

2. January 27th. Cardiff State Beach, California. We planned a winter trip to Southern California that, looking back, was a brilliant idea. Day after day, we wandered up and down wide, delightful beaches. We watched sandpipers, found marvelous patterns in the sand, and enjoyed sunsets over the ocean. I didn’t know then that it would be our last vacation, a precious hiatus.

3. Our vacation extended into early February, with a walk at the Blue Sky Ecological Reserve near San Diego, Whimbrel-watching on the beach at Dana Point, and up-close looks at Brandt’s cormorants nesting in La Jolla.

4. In March and April I focused on wildflowers, as I always do – but it was different this year. At home, Joe was trying to figure out how to live as normally as possible while tied to an oxygen supply, day and night. His breathing had worsened, resulting in a hospital visit in March. Now I was tiptoeing around long plastic tubing at home. My mind was split between being thrilled by Spring’s fresh beauty and being scared and anxious for the future. Joe was stoic, a fighter.

5. May, my favorite month. No matter what worries dominate our lives, we can count on the sun to rise, flowers to open, and ferns to unfold.

6. On June 1st, Colby, Jeni, Hudson and William came up to Anacortes to join me on a whale-watching tour. It did me good to spend time with them and we had a wonderful time out on the water. The high point was when an Orca rose out of the water and slammed back down with an ear-shattering splash.

Joe was in the hospital most of the month, first in the intensive care unit at our local hospital, then in a larger hospital 45 minutes away. In early July he was sent home – there was nothing medicine could do at that point. It was time for Hospice. Joe said he never, ever wanted to go to a hospital again. He insisted on having control over his own death. As it turned out, he was home for only four days and took his last breath on July 6th.

7. I made these photos in the weeks following Joe’s death, on July 13th and 15th.

8. Through the summer and fall, friends circled around me, Colby called frequently, and people I spoke to as I handled the affairs that inevitably follow a death, were kind. In August, all things considered, I was doing pretty well.

9. September was impossibly busy. I took fewer walks and labored at home over a strangely timed house renovation and the planning of a Celebration of Life gathering for October. I didn’t get out much, but even a short walk can yield a nice image of Madrone bark. Seeing it now, I think of a ruptured, torn life. A walk up Sugarloaf Mountain exercised my lungs and legs, a good feeling. And one day I took pleasure in photographing the billowing tarps that covered part of a ship under repair at Pier 1 in town.

10. Friends and family arrived from as far away as New York for the Celebration of Life in honor of Joe on October 12th, his birthday. It warmed my heart to see people from different parts of my life and his all together in the same room, and to listen to what they had to say. At home I burned incense. Outdoors, light seeping into dark places drew my attention.

11. In November I struggled to get out – the weather wasn’t cooperating, I was busy, I was uninspired. But perseverance furthers, as the Chinese saying (from the I Ching?) says. A tiny mushroom on a branch transfixed me – such delicacy! A single False lily of the valley leaf stood out near a wetland. Their boldly veined, heart-shaped leaves please me even when I’m glum. Sometimes I swung the camera because I simply did not know what else to do. As far as photography goes, I felt lost. As far as my life goes, I had put the hardest things behind me and I was feeling more confident and hopeful.

12. In December, I still feel like my mind resembles this photo I made using intentional camera movement. A lot is going on but it’s not organized at all. Everything is in flux. Stability has not yet returned, but that’s OK. As I’ve said to my friends, I’ve reinvented myself before and I can do it again.

13. At dusk, five months to the day after Joe died, I stood on rocky Rosario Beach and watched the waves swell and retreat. I have much to be thankful for.

And that includes you.

***

LOCAL WALKS: Toward the Winter Solstice

The stalwart old tree trunk pictured above and below belongs to a picturesque Seaside juniper (Juniperus maritima) in Washington Park, on Fidalgo Island. Notable for its geology and plants, the park spreads across 200 acres on a square-shaped peninsula on Fidalgo’s northwestern corner. Though it’s surrounded on three sides by salt water and whales sometimes glide by its shoreline, the park’s location in Puget Sound is 93 miles as the crow flies from the Pacific coastline.

Weather, salt water, and geology have created favorable conditions for some unusual species in the park. The Seaside juniper is the rarest but no one realized that until recently, when a scientific paper published in 2007 reclassified the species. Ever since Europeans rowed ashore, the gray-barked trees with scale-like foliage were called Rocky Mountain junipers (Juniperus scopulorum), the same as a juniper that grows to the east, at much higher elevations. The trees do look similar but genetic analysis revealed the two species to be distinct. Unlike Rocky Mountain junipers, Seaside junipers favor exposures near the sea, growing only in a small area from Southwestern British Columbia to the Puget Sound trough, in Washington. In Washington Park they’re scattered across open, south-facing slopes by the water, but walk a few steps away from the shoreline and junipers disappear, replaced by the region’s ubiquitous Douglas firs.

Pacific madrones (Arbutus menziesii) also grow well on open, south-facing slopes near the water, and the two species can be seen together at the park. They make interesting companions aesthetically – the juniper with its rough, gray, striated bark contrasting with the madrone’s smooth, orange, wavy branches. You can see them behaving like conjoined twins in the small photo below, from a few years ago. When Seaside junipers reach a venerable age, they usually have attractive moss and lichen “accessories” adorning their nooks and crannies. Their furrowed branches can bulge like oversized arthritic knuckles, and dead branches stick out every which way. Even branches that drop to the ground have a way of settling into the grass and looking perfectly at home, especially when the grass has gone pale in the cold months of the year.

On a November outing with friends, the golden leaves of a Pacific willow (Salix lucida ssp. lasiandra) growing by a lake at Deception Pass State park drew us in for a closer look. Yellow leaves are a tonic for the eyes on gray days. Backing away, I saw the repeating shapes of slender, oval leaves and wiry stems as a flat plane of color and line. That was my thought when I photographed the willow.

A wetland on the other end of the lake had an interesting mix of shrubs. The yellow leaves probably belonged to more willows. Small trees were shrouded in fuzzy, light green lichens, and many stick-like reeds crowded the bigger plants. The subtle autumn tapestry of color was attractive, but it wasn’t easy to translate into a photograph. The colors were repeated in more sombre hues on the caps of a cozy group of mushrooms I found in a dense, quiet forest two weeks later. As the solstice neared and the days shortened, the botanical palette was losing vibrancy but gaining subtlety.

A madrone branch closeup (below) from early December revealed an especially subtle array of hues. This photograph, taken on a darkly overcast day when raindrops clung to twig tips, shows the cooler side of madrones – but the tree’s typical warm hues still peak through. I used a prime lens that I’ve found to be good in low light, moving close enough to zero in on some indentations in the bark that echoed a gentle wave of the edge of the branch.

The soft curve of a dead branch (right, below) is something I had noticed ten minutes earlier. Maybe curves were on my mind – they often are. In the photo on the left, soft curves mark the water-worn roots of a large driftwood log. That huge, heavy log has been in place for years, long enough for lichens to take hold. You may know that the yellow-green streaks on the wood are lichens, but the white patches are actually lichens, too. Driftwood rim-lichen (Lecanora xylophila) is a crustose lichen, which just means it forms a crust, in this case on driftwood. A fungal layer attaches the lichen to the wood, an algal layer is above it, and a cortex is on top. If you look closely or use a hand lens, you can see many attractive, chestnut-brown, roughly round discs dotting the white cortex of the lichen. The discs are apothecia, spore-bearing reproductive structures that allow the fungus to reproduce by dispersing tiny spores via wind or water. I included a photo from several years ago that shows the apothecia.

A grand sweep of shapes is interesting, the subtleties of different hues are beautiful, and the tiniest details can be fascinating. All we need to do is look and appreciate it all.

Here at 48° 44′ N, the winter months are full of cloudy days. The same can be said for late fall and early spring so we have to find ways to bear it. Perhaps even embrace it. The photo below, of a forest reflected in a lake, was taken in early November at 4:19pm. The two photos under it were taken a month later around the same time, back at Washington Park. The murky, shadowy, in-between nature of that almost-dusk time of day can bring up sadness, but look how beautiful it can be.

***

Maybe it’s all just a field of sensations, I thought. Always sensations. We are bundles of sensations: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting – even thinking is so often sensation-based. We exist as sensing beings among other sensing beings in a world of motion, from invisible, constantly vibrating particles to perpetually turning planets and expanding galaxies. Shimmering sensations enter our consciousness and create entire worlds, one after the other, after the other. This is our personal world, our field of being. Sometimes it’s delicious, sometimes it’s terrible. Sensations are where we begin. And end.

***