Thursday August 20

After a multiple year absence from Lund induced by a wish to travel to new places abroad and also to the  need to distance ourselves since having sold Knoll House, in early summer we decided to return to there, though only for a brief visit.

The lengthy journey began at the SLO airport where we learned that its first leg, to San Francisco, was indefinitely delayed. We were rerouted to LA, where the flight to Vancouver was also delayed, threatening a missed connection to the last leg from Vancouver to Powell River.  Despite the spectacular views from the small Pacific Coastal plane, rather than eager, I was apprehensive about how I would feel and  we’d be received at our destination. I decided to elevate my mood with microdoses of a gummy for the rest of the trip. Upon arrival we connected amiably with the car rental agent who knows Tai and Theo. Things warmed up further during a delicious meal at the Indian restaurant across from the Mill, including a can of Zunga beer brewed down the street.

We couldnt meet Sandy, the editor of the Barnacle as planned because she was just recovering from a bad fall which left her hospitalized and recuperating far south of town.

The AirBandB rental cabin perched on a cliff above Lund delivered its promise of elegance, privacy, a hot tub, magnificent views and a 138 step staircase down to the water.

Friday August 21 (more…)

September 19, 2024 4:00 p.m. South Terminal Vancouver Airport

The entry Lund Retreat/Transitions 2021 is pertinent reading here waiting for the flight to Powell River. I wrote it during my stay at Knoll House hiding from the exposure I felt after the tributes marking my retirement from leadership at City Farm.

The entry concluded with an expression of confidence that continuing ownership of Knoll House would fill the gap created by that second retirement and our upcoming move from 35-year residence on Albert Drive.

But since then, real-world changes reversed that 2021 prediction.

One was taking up two new projects in SLO which filled the gap—initiating the Prefumo Creek Restoration and Enhancement Project and serving as a Director of our new residence’s Homeowner’s Association.

Other changes bore directly on Knoll House. After 28 years, the responsibilities of absentee ownership were growing beyond what we could handle at our age. We’d hoped to pass those on to our son by gifting him the property at present rather than as inheritance, but he declined the offer. That meant a major reason to keep the place—our annual summer stay there with his family—was no longer guaranteed.

After Jan and I spent our 2023 summer vacation traveling in Europe rather than in Lund, we both felt ready to sell Knoll House.  The most difficult consequence of that decision was having to ask our ten-year tenants to move elsewhere. But fortunately they found a way to buy it through a tenants-in-common agreement with their next door neighbor.

So after our first summer absences from Lund since we moved away 44 years ago, I planned to make this the last trip, in order to establish closure and say goodbye.

September 20 8:00 p.m. Knoll House

Today this all changed again, due to new real world causes.  First was the effect of waking up here this morning.

Another is recorded in an email exchange that took place after my hitchhike up the highway from lunch at Nancy’s bakery:

On Sep 20, 2024, at 3:36 PM, Frank…wrote

Steve, something bigger than me intervened today.
What an amazing event!
I’m glad you were hitching a ride.
Amy, my wife and I would love to get together when you are in Lund next.
All my best, Frank

———

Hi Frank

I’m grateful for your lift and our conversation, but even more for your amplification of it here.  I thought this trip to Lund was going to be a good-bye to the place, but it turns out, unexpectedly, that it’s a return… to the place where the past is present.

Two hours later, Jan phoned and relayed Joe’s surprise invitation to his home in Ketchum for this Thanksgiving. I called to thank him and Amy, and then the conversation led to our continuing connection with Lund, even after the sale of the property. It ended with discussion of their idea for a multigenerational vacation next summer on Savary Island or at an airBnB on the mainland.

Drink the air
Clear spring water

Float on silence
Forest bathing

The “Atmospheric river” is still flowing.  The drum solo of rain on the roof hasn’t stopped since arrival here yesterday morning.

Before departure from the South Terminal, the agent announced that unless the pilot found a hole in the clouds to allow visibility the flight would go back without landing.  But the young captain with delicate wrists and blond hair flowing over her epaulets brought us in smoothly to the cinder block shack of an airport that hasn’t been improved at least since our arrival here in 1970.

I haven’t yet stopped loving this weather.  The compensation for drought in SLO, the heightened coziness of the wood fire, friendly cats and house’s silence, the 14 hour night and half-light of day inviting intermittent sleep, the absence of stimulation and obligation permit words to flow from thoughts and thoughts to flow from words.

This trip has been intended as a retreat to allow processing of recent events that are taking on the appearance of a life transition. “Retreat” has several associations with this place: its mythic remoteness at the end of the road and the time and expense it takes to get here, the initial retreat from war and society that brought us here from New York in 1970, the  summers of 1996 and 1997 holed up to start and finish my book, “Shakespeare and the Bible,”and the writing and meditation retreat on Cortez Island I attended in 2010.

Meditating hasn’t yet happened here, but this journaling may better serve my purposes.

Life transitions are times when the future seems undetermined, subject to the vagaries of chance and choice, when the present holds promise and danger, when the past reopens.  This one was brought on my long-anticipated retirement from the position of Executive Director of City Farm SLO.  The result of the successful accomplishments of our two young staff members, Kayla and Shane, whose salaries were financed by generous new supporters, it became clear that finally the organization could survive and thrive without me.

At the advice of a canny professional fund-raiser, a campaign was planned to mark the changeover in leadership with a public celebration targeting people of means and influence.  The admission price was $50 along with discreet requests for additional donations. Using a well-tried method for non-profits to generate support and money, the theme was to be a tribute to my past dedication. Kayla focused publicity on her photo of me tending our sheep that recalled the literary archetype of the old shepherd I’d explored 40 years ago in my doctoral dissertation. I sent personalized invitations to all the friends and relatives for whom Jan and I had addresses. (more…)

Gently wafting Knoll House breeze
Stirs the firs and arbutus trees
That frame the watery passage I see
Between the mainland and Savary
From the deck six hundred feet up
Where a fritillary flits by my coffee cup.

Speedboats enter from each side
Gash parallel lines before they hide
Behind green curtains lost from view
Their white paths fading back to blue.
Horizon clouds disperse to show
The glacial glare off Forbidden Plateau.

A loud leaf scrapes the greying shakes
Above soft sounds that birdsong makes.
The sun radiates my soles with heat
And puffs of wind aircool my feet.
Whiffs of fragrance richly vary
Shalal, peat, and huckleberry.

Writing makes my observation
Slow motion, line’s permutation.
Dancing fingers lead the pen
Across the empty pages, then
Leave a snail-paced slimey trail
Wormy castings endless tale.

Broken off by–of all things–
Yellow belly-throat, black wings
Crimson crown–an Oriole
Visiting this blessed Knoll.

August 1998