starting out psychedelic

chicago, o'hare; 25 july 2008

i went home this weekend, to the tropical paradise where i grew up. i hadn't spent a day there in more than 20 years.

passing through this concourse friday was the time tunnel that sent me back home. I flew back 3000 miles and 30 years for my class reunion, back to the people and places of all our shared and distant histories. we could see how much some have changed. for most of us of the class of 1978 though, we could see clearly that the anima fortis of us, the things that were true about us as kids then, these things are still there, are still true. the connections we made in our full-blooming youth on that lush coast are roots that are still strong; deep and enduring. more than once, i sat by myself and looked around and barely held back tears, so precious and fleeting is life. i want to hold it in my hands for just a minute, and it is passing by so fast. it would take a long time to tell you just precisely how the four years that i spent at manatee high school had so much to do with the woman i became, and the woman i am now, but given long enough, i could. i could tell you about harvey gobin, and robert eliason, about camille sutherland in the office, about gene mazzone looking over his glasses from the auditorium's front row. i could tell you about my friends and the time we ... well, never mind that. all i can do is tell you that i love this one wild and precious life, and and i know how lucky i am to have had friends and teachers like these, in a place as beautiful as this paradise. this weekend, i think we all felt that way. my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this reunion happen, and to all of you who have touched my life so profoundly, then and now, here and gone.

above the bosporus

dawn on the bosporus strait


isaac in istanbul, today


the golden horn


isaac sent all these to me from his blackberry, from this ancient land, now the world's third largest city, istanbul.

weighted down

santa cruz mountains in february 2008


paperweight in blown-glass, mark made this in march 2008


from tiburon, looking at san francisco in the distance; and half in sunlight,
half in shadow. march 2008

those months in santa cruz did mark a lot of good; he left there strong and smart and happy, ready to take on challenges and looking forward to good times. now he just seems weighted down and hopeless and adrift and lost. i wish he would find his way back.


soundboard, petaluma, april 2008

i don't know what to do to help him find which switches and dials to adjust, i don't even know how to tell him that they are there and he is the artist who can make of his own life anything he wants. he's got creative genius. he could start thinking and dreaming about the beauty he can make of his life. he put his genius to work making a life that is satisfying and amazing. he could and he can. he needs only to begin. as it is for each one of us, so it is for this young man: his life is in his own hands, in the hands of creation, with all the gifts and talents he's been abundantly blessed with. none of us know where it is exactly where are going. the best we can do is head into each day with some direction; with the cognizance that we can do so much more than merely what's expected of us, we can search and discover what we can ask from ourselves, and in setting out to do that, be amazed at what we find and where that journey of discovery takes us. this is what the old folks told me when i was a young kid. this is what i got from grandmothers, from teachers, from watching little kids, birds, waves, beaches, rivers, roads. this is what i took from voltaire, and kerouac, from dylan, from marie cassat, from donizetti and the dead. it's always worked for me. look for inspiration and let yourself be taken by it. be your own role model. find kindness in helping others. sometimes you find your own way, sometimes the way finds you. wake up and look at your choices, and pick a direction. this is growing up. this is life, and art, and humanity. this is what i thought when i was seventeen, and this is what i know now is true.

new digs in old town

mark at home in old town, napa; early summer

we've moved to new digs. pear tree lane was okay, it was roomy, big on amenities, and beautiful views, but it was really generic, way too cookie-cutter for my taste. i had a feeling that when the time was right, something perfect for us would come along.

when i first moved to napa, i wanted to live in this neighborhood, it's known as old town. by the napa river, it's where the town first began in the mid-nineteenth century. there's beautiful victorians: small and quaint ones, big grand majestic ones; and streets graced by redwood, maple, laurel, elm and cedar, and named for revolutionaries: franklin, jefferson.

we found our spot near franklin. we have a compound! i've always wanted a compound. it's
just like hyannisport, except there's no view of nantucket sound , no sailboats, and no kennedys. other than that though... we've got a bungalow in front for me, and in back, a cottage for mark. besides a groovy kitchen with two built-in wine refrigerators (that's so napa; it would never do to have your cabernet living at the same temperature as your viognier) there's lots of raised bed garden space, a lush lawn, a wrap-around deck, and our own backyard giant- a spectacular specimen of sequoia sempervirens. that's something they don't have in hyannisport!

the way home

kentfield, marin; at sunset on july 9th 2008

we all are pilgrims, searching, walking alone on our own path, right?
may yours take you through a quiet garden,
may you walk in light and beauty on your path too, today.

"once in a while you can get shown the light,
in the strangest of places if you look at it right..."

the garden you see here belongs to deborah and her family,
she whose path traverses the space between the stars.

and we were right

patch adams and wavy gravy; noble clowns teaching timing,
balance,and a sense of humor to the kids at camp winnarainbow.
toward the fun, my friends, it's the manifesto: toward the fun.

today's 7/11, and on the farm in summertown tennessee,
my people are celebrating the28th anniversary of ragweed day.
early in the morning of july the 11th, 1980, we hippies were roused from our beds and our bunks in houses, schoolbuses, bread trucks, log cabins, tents and teepees. helicopters and cop cars, troopers with guns and dogs showed up at the gate of 156 drakes lane to come up the road into our community, sure they were going to have a big bust, sure that fallow watermelon field was full of head high marijuana plants. there was no marijuana, it was weed alright, but it was all ragweed. somewhere behind my home on schoolhouse ridge, there's a little guitar shaped roach clip i hurriedly buried on that morning when the operator of beatnik bell called all the houses and said the cops were headed up and down the roads to search the places where 1750 of us lived.

so happy 7/11 to those hippies on the farm, that storied farm in summertown.

on the occasion of another anniversary, abbie hoffman's 60th birthday on november 30th 2006, wavy gravy had these words to say:

"we are here to make a better world.
no amount of rationalization or blaming can pre-empt
the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation
here on this planet.
the lesson of the 60s is that people who care enough to do right
could change history.

we didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation.
we ended the idea
that you could send half a million soldiers around the world
to fight a war that people do not support.
we ended the idea that women are second class citizens.
we made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided.
the big battles that we won cannot be reversed.
we were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly,
headstrong and scared half to death.
and we were right."

opera alley

opera alley, where once stood the san francisco opera house.
on tuesday the 18th of april 1906, enrico caruso appeared there, singing
the role of don jose in bizet's carmen. the great quake hit the city
the next morning, and by mid-afternoon, the opera house had burned to the ground.
a small, easily overlooked plaque on the spot tells the story.


built in 1851, st patrick's church withstood the quake and the fires.
along opera alley today, the old brick of the catholic church is juxtaposed with
the blue steel of the contemporary jewish museum. (daniel libeskind, 2008.)


in the early 21st c., just as in the early 20th, you'll
still see ladies walk down opera alley in their finery.
tonight,they're on their way to their senior prom at the westin market st.

both sides of the street

built as a bank in the roaring twenties, the lobby of this grand hotel at the foot of nob hill is opulent: italian marble stairways, austrian crystal chandeliers. beautiful.


outside the luxury hotel, poverty. the cable car is about to ascend the california street hill, but this fellow is down and out, in front of san francisco's landmark carnelian tower, the bank of america headquarters.



"when shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because i am the friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government." (thomas paine)

everyone's saying that music is love

venezuelan dancers at yerba buena, mothers' day 2008 in beautiful san francisco.

help on the way

Patch Adams and Wavy Gravy
at Camp Winnarainbow, yesterday