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Monday morning brought relief from the sore throat. Jan negotiated with the concierge to give us two more nights in Florence, to delay our arrival in Venice and to postpone our visit with Brenda. We found some lovely coffee and brioche and panini in the square and stood in line to pay admission to Santa Maria Novella, the cathedral 20 feet from our window.

Those who come to pray can enter a special chapel free of charge, said the sign, and photography is forbidden. The side entrance, only recently reopened after having been closed off for several centuries, led us into an immense, light airy space, illuminated by stained glass and circular clear windows, the walls painted white, ornamented with widely spaced paintings and sculptures.

Opposite the door, a Massaccio fresco seemed to make the space grow deeper with its pronounced perspectival rendering of God presenting the crucified Jesus to his wealthy patrons in front of a hugely receding nave. To the right was a twenty foot crucifixion in bright yellows oranges, reds and blacks, hanging from a rod 25 feet above the floor and 150 from the ceiling. I averted my eyes in order to save the full impact of what I recognized as Giotto’s work, dazzlingly restored, for later, and looked down the nave to the rainbow colors of the floor-to-ceiling frescoes surrounding the central altar. Like the city itself, this church offered more than we could absorb. With help of our Green guide, we focused first on a raised chapel with early frescoes of the Divine Comedy–one wall Inferno, the other Paradiso, gaining orientation by identifying places and people we recognized from our memory of the poem. Then we descended to the Sacristy whose doorway was a combination of classical architectural stability, melted into an organic flower-like entry. Inside were huge wooden cabinets with dozens of large drawers to hold vestments, more paintings and a della Robia relief, all in late Renaissance style.

After two hours we decided to take a break from the church and walk to the central market for lunch, and return in the late afternoon. The mercado is a two story temple of food, just closing as we got there. We bought beautiful muscat grapes, olives, bread and “gorgonzola dolce,” (a soft luscious cheese), and ate on the steps of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, bothered by pigeons who wanted our food and blew ash into when we sushed them off. Instead of going inside we decided to come back for the free concert advertised to start at 9: 00 that night, and took an adjoining doorway into the courtyard of the Laurentian library, whose arcade we circled entranced.

Then we walked back to Santa Maria Novella and spent another two hours feasting on the art. First a chapel decorated by Duccio, which was, Jan noted in the guidebook just for this church that we had bought, the location of the start of Boccaccio’s Decameron where a group of young aristocrats meet to plan their escape from the plague in Florence. What sort of portent?

Then Fillipino Lippi, and Ghirlandaio frescos, a Brunelleschi Crucifix and the Giotto Christ. The wealth of beauty and of history in this randomly adopted church of ours is unbelievable. It in itself merits a trip to Europe.

Back in our room at 5:00, I started feeling bad again and Jan offered me the Z pack antibiotic she had gotten from the doctor in case she got sick. It was clear we wouldn’t attend the nine oclock concert. We went for a quick pizza meal in the square, and I tried to get to sleep.

Tuesday morning, I awoke and realized I was really sick. My cough felt like a rattle in the lungs, and I had sweaty fever. Jan met Brenda and her friend Kiki and went to the Pharmacia and many other places while I slept most of the day.She brought the two visitors back to the room and I made pleasantries for a few minutes, but I was so sick I asked them to leave. I took the second Z pack pill, along with vitamin C and the herbal remedy Jan bought at the Pharmacia, slept all afternoon, and went out with her to the square for dinner and a short walk. I couldnt get to sleep because of the cough so have stayed up till 3:00 A.M. writing this entry.

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After 24 hours in transit we arrived at the Hotel Fiorentino Sunday afternoon. It was the lowest price place I could find on the internet. The guidebook said it was in a high crime neighborhood, the entrance looked seedy, the hotel clerk at first said he couldn’t find our reservation. But after we climbed three narrow flights of stairs and mastered the old lock and key, we gasped. The ceiling was fifteen feet and two corner windows gave out on the vast complex of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Novella and the railroad station. The stone balustraded balcony could have been where Mussolini harangued the crowds. It felt like standing on a rock in the middle of a fast flowing river of buses, cars, and pedestrians.

Despite jetlag and fatigue we were driven by hunger and curiosity to go out. We bought some bad sandwiches for a picnic in the adjoining square in front of the 14th century cathedral façade where a small band played in the warm and surprisingly quiet late afternoon, and then we started wandering toward the center. The city was full of people”mostly goodlooking and stylish Italians”but didn’t feel overcrowded. Some divine gelato made up for the sandwiches, and soon we were in front of the Duomo. We sauntered from piazza to piazza”each of which could be the center of a great city– admired the clothing on sale in shops and stalls, bought a new guide book, and came back to our little palazzo to shower and rest. Then we set out for dinner at the square near the central mercado, mixing with pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, and people pushing their market stalls through the winding streets. We came out on a large square between the market and the dome of San Lorenzo full of lights, music and buzzing outdoor restaurants on platforms roofed with tents. It was 8:00 p.m.”time to celebrate dinner! The salad of urugula, fresh corn tomatos cucumbers and carrots and mozzarella, with bottles of vinegar and oil on the table was a fine overture. During the two hour meal, we drank a liter of wine, joked with the amiable waiter, and had an animated conversation with two young people from London at the adjoining table. We seemed to have the city in our pocket.

6:00 A.M. Monday September 26.

Still dark out but the noise of streetcleaners is deafening. I got up at 5:00 after an uncomfortable night of sore throat and insomnia. Once I rose from horizontal, took some vitamin C and started processing pictures, I felt better, but still apprehensive about the coming day: will I get sicker? Will we connect with our old friend Brenda who’s invited us to stay at her place outside the city for the next two nights or will we be forced to find a different hotel here in town? Will my digestion return? Such perils provide spice to the pleasures of travel.

Saturday September 24. Sitting on the floor in LAX international terminal next to the only electric outlet on a mile of concourse. Many wall receptacles have been removed and the holes spackled over. There’s no wireless internet connection here, so I will try to simulate the Blogger interface in Microsoft Word.

Here’s Jan in a chair across the carpet as this area fills with passengers waiting for a JAL jumbojet. I took her picture, downloaded it to the laptop, put it in here. With a camera phone I could have snapped and sent it directly to the blogger server. Once again I’m technically behind. A good consumer of technology, I find the new tools inspire creative play. How does this mesh with a primitivist preference of the simple and natural”in gardening, eating, economic exchange, and child rearing? How can I teach Ecoliterature as a web based class in which we exchange journal entries and photos about wilderness experience online?

Last night was insomniac again”I got up at 1:20 and at 4:00 and wrote emails. There was plenty of time to load up and lock down the house this morning before we left, but once we got to the airport I realized I’d forgotten the computer power supply chord. Between flights, we took a short cab ride to Fry’s, a huge L.A. electronics supply house near the airport where we found a replacement that would work with my Mac. Without it I’d have been unable to keep this journal.

Fossils in rock
Footprints in sand
Paths in a chamber of cloud.

To mark the beginning of early retirement, I’ve spent the summer clearing out shelves and file cabinets at home and in my office at the university. On a table in the hallway I left dozens of books bequeathed to me by my retiring predecessor in 1989–hardcover volumes of Shakespeare criticism he longed to have someone take off his hands, only one of which I ever read. This morning I said goodbye to a multivolume German gothic print history of European art packed into their lift van by my parents when they fled Berlin in 1937 and a 75 pound 1955 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica that I asked for as a Bar Mitzvah present. Our second hand bookstore proprietor had no use for them and told me that unlike junkmail, you cant recycle books, they have to go to the landfill.

I’ve written three books. When the first one–Youth against Age–went out of print, the publisher sold me the last 40 copies for five dollars each. Thirty five are still in the closet. Yesterday I went to the local Borders to try to get them to carry the two books that are still in print. The young store manager looked at me mockingly and told me to get in touch with his assistant, who would need to see hard copies before making the decision whether or not to order one of each.

A friend died of lung cancer a few years ago. He was my digital mentor. I was delegated to clean out his office to make room for a replacement. I filled a dumpster with stuff, and saved what I could on a website called Legacies When another friend was stricken with mesothelioma and given about a year to live, I said in his situation I would spend part of the time assembling an electronic archive of my life. Six months after he died, the college secretary gave me a CD which contained his memoir, easily uploaded. I expect to maintain this site until I become part of it.

Though disposing of the past has become a preoccupation since I turned 60, passing into a new stage of the life cycle excites me about the future and prods me to produce more. I take alot of pictures, especially of my grandsons. Not having a captive audience of students for six months of the year makes me look for other listeners. Prosperity and health send me on new adventures. And the end is always nearer.

In four days my wife and I will embark on a trip we have planned for a year–our Italienreise to Florence, Venice and Siena. At first I thought I’d leave my laptop home, save photos in a portable hard drive, and write in a journal. But instead I’m trying something different.

Jan suggested a hike this Sunday morning, since she no longer has to go to church with her mother. We agreed to catch the sunrise on San Luis Mountain. There were already three cars in the parking lot when we got there and started up the hill in the chill wind. The sun crested the southern horizon as we passed below a great boulder surmounted by two large coast live oaks and slowly lit up the red, yellow and purple rock. Behind it you could see the sky turn from gray to lapis lazuli blue. As we descended from the summit after enjoying the view of the city surrounded by agricultural fields mountains and ocean and drinking coffee from a thermos, I said that the older I get the more I think its unlikely we’ll move away from this place. On the way home we stopped at Home Depot for a new pickaxe. The one I’d been using broke off at the tip after hitting one too many rocks.

Now I sit at the top of the hill in the backyard on the “60th Anniversary Bench” we gave to my parents, inscribed with the old proverb about love. Its the only spot at our place that gets sun this time of year and the warm rays feel good in the chilly air. The light at midday is better than early morning or late afternoon at this time of year–both low and strong, intensifying shadows and highlights.

I’m reminded of November on our old homestead in British Columbia in the ’70’s. Only on the bank above the driveway, high on the south facing slope could you get out of the shadow of the cliffs and tall trees surrounding the pasture. Here the goats and the cat would lounge all afternoon whenever it was clear. I’ve been scanning and restoring old pictures of that time from mouldering photo albums.

Its been a long Thanksgiving holiday whose approaching end is marked by the sound of students’ cars returning to campus. On Tuesday morning Ian and I packed provisions and headed for Montana de Oro. We found a site near the trailhead at the end of the campground. As we were setting up the tent, a midsized healthy looking coyote sauntered by and stood scratching itself and watching us as we watched it, for about ten minutes. I was too enthralled to take out my camera. At first I thought it was a dog belonging to another camper.

At the Spooner’s Cove beach we climbed a tilted sandstone outcrop and came to spot on top where the waves roared through a crack below us. I foraged eucalyptus branches for firewood and as we returned to the camp, Jan drove up after seeing her afternoon clients. The three of us took a hike up the Islay creek trail and watched fingers of fog creeping down into the canyon over Reservoir Flats. On the way back to camp Jan told the story of the three little pigs in great detail to keep Ian from thinking about being tired and we watched the sun dip into the marine layer as we came back to the camp. As the sky turned flourescent pink, then purple then black, we grilled dinner with only three candle stubs sheltered by the apple juice container for light.

Inside the little backpacking tent we hung a small flashlight from the ceiling and played Chutes and Ladders till Ian threw the spinner away in rage and then immediately fell asleep. When Jan went out to pee in the middle of the night she heard cellophane crackling and in the morning we discovered that the cookies we had forgotten to put away were missing.

Claire drove up in a big truck in time to join us for breakfast and more games. After Jan left to go back to work, Ian Claire and I struck camp and hiked the bluff trail along the ocean, sighting quail, sparrows, herons, cormorants, herons, and male and female brown pelicans which Ian identified with the bird book. We also spotted an otter relaxing in the surf between protruding outcrops.

The sun hid in the mist and then appeared briefly intensifying colors and shapes. We stayed for two hours in Corallitos Cove, throwing rocks, chasing waves, poking anemones, investigating crabs and observing the comings and goings of the pelicans. In the late afternoon we drove to Los Osos for ice cream cones.

October 5, 8:50 p.m.

Moon a bit more than half-full followed by Mars as if in tow. Bright still but no longer red or fat. Temperature dropping since I arrived around 7:00, just as it was getting dark. The creek is silent, though there’s still a little standing water in the pools.

Broken trees blocked the trail”sycamore and oak”the cattle making new trails in the red weathered basalt soil to get around them. Two red-tailed hawks in the dead branches of an oak at the entrance to the glen. One took off with a skreer and I just heard another. A doe and fawn walked along the ridge line above Poly Canyon.

Fragrance of tarweed: sweet and astringent”and barn smell of old hay, still golden not yet gray. The sycamore trunk behind me glows white in the moonlight when the gauzy clouds drift away. Little light pollution from the city, but I hear invisible traffic on the grade.

Sounds of the cicadas came up louder as the light drained out around 7:15. The sky lost opacity, allowing stars to slowly emerge. When I first arrived here, after the exertion of riding my bike up the canyon wearing a pack, I lay down on the air mattress and napped”immobile and comfortable”like I imagine my mother feeling in her nursing home bed.

The moon seems to be racing across the sky from southeast to southwest. At this rate it will set in a couple of hours. ¦

October 6 7:00 a.m.

Kestrel at ridgeline near the bedrock mortars, red tail overhead. Morning clear, mild and still, but looking toward Brizzolara Creek, I see thick plumes of white fog rushing up the valley, keeping low to the ground. Then gone. Then returning. Quick breezes brush by me, one warm, one chill.

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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

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore…
The carpet now is moving under you
And its all over now Baby Blue.

Twelve people sat on the floor around a rectangular Oriental rug. The supper of brown rice and steamed vegetables was finished, and they were passing wooden bowls, chopsticks and teacups to the corner nearest the kitchen. The host, Peter Klein, straightened his back, crossed his legs, and took charge: “I’ve been reading about carpet designs. They’re all symbolic. The harder you look, the more meaning you find.” He felt warmed by the regard of his guests, mostly ex-students.

“For instance?” asked Ginnie, a thin young girl wearing a homemade beaded vest and strong wire rim glasses.

“See that outer border that looks like a row of crooked fingers?” said Peter. Those are waves. The sea surrounds everything. Now look at the next border with those jagged things alternating with those Y-shaped dealies. What do you see there?” As he used to in class, he waited out the silence.

“They look like pine cones and katchina dolls to me,” said Beth in a low, cultivated voice. Her mouth retained the suggestion of a slight smile, and she kept her eyes on Peter as if there were no one else in the room.

“Interesting idea,” he replied, but I think they’re actually heads of wheat and goblets, signifying harvest. Food and drink, the bread and the wine, communion.”

“I thought this was an Oriental carpet,” said Ramon, the art student whom Ariel had introduced for the first time tonight. There was a touch of irony in his voice.

Peter replied, “The rug is a Sumac. It comes from the Caucasus, on the border of Europe and Asia, where ancient trade routes and Christian, Moslem and Eastern cultures intersect. See these large cruciform shapes? They’re like the floor plan of a cathedral. And these feathery flames inside the crosses? They represent the Phoenix, the Arabian bird that dies every thousand years in a burst of flame and then is resurrected, like Christ.”

Peter stopped lecturing as he felt attention shifting toward the phallus-shaped pipe being lit by one of the guests. As the sweet fragrance filled the room, he centered himself between two diagonal axes of the Sumac pattern and waited his turn. The carpet was left to him by Tante Clara, his mother’s aunt. His wife Leona and he had recently agreed that apart from the bed, it was the only furniture they really needed. To simplify their lives and prepare for their eventual departure, they had sold or given away the rest, making most of their rent-controlled university apartment into a storage facility and crash pad. (more…)