In early November, as soon as we learned that circumstances beyond our control would provide childcare between Xmas and New Year’s for the twelve-year old grandson in our custody, we gleefully deliberated about where to go.  The choice was narrowed by Jan’s still limited mobility after her recent knee replacement surgery and by her growing aversion to the cold. Going abroad was too ambitious for me, and I was drawn by the prospect of  a long train trip to the South. New Orleans was praised by several people we knew, and I’ve wanted to return to Tucson with Jan ever since seeing an old college friend there five years ago. We decided to reserve hotel rooms for the six nights out of ten we’d be off the train, and after discovering how much lower prices were outside California, we selected the most appealing rather than the cheapest accommodations in the two cities.

December 22

Our journey begins with the 2pm departure of the Pacific Surfliner originating at the quaint San Luis Obispo Amtrak station, whose newly restored historic facilities draw railroad aficionados from far and wide, and where long-term parking is free.

We stow our suitcases and climb the staircase to the second story of the huge coach, and imperceptibly it eases into motion.  It slides alongside the railroad safety bicycle trail that forms the route connecting our daughter and grandson’s house with ours. I relish the organ music of the muted horn at the Orcutt Road crossing, where normally I wait impatiently in the car for the train to pass.

We roll through vistas available only to rail passengers: the Edna Valley Vineyards, the oilfields of Price Canyon, the seaside crop fields in the Arroyo Grande Creek Delta, the private hunting preserves of the freshwater lakes in the Nipomo-Guadalupe Dunes and the endless coastal scrub and missle launches of Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Turning the corner from southerly to easterly travel at Point Conception, we pass people and birds enjoying the sunset at secluded beaches while our juggernaut races along, often mere inches from the edge of the sand cliffs.

As the light drains from the horizon I’m hypnotized by the sensation of the train’s movement synchronized with the fixed line of the breaking surf.

At 5:30 we arrive on schedule at the platform of L.A.’s Union Station and pull our wheeled suitcases alongside the behemoths rolling in and out of the adjoining quays. An underground passage opens into the central waiting room buzzing with excited travelers–an immaculately restored art deco cathedral rather than the squalid homeless encampment that was feared.

Our sleeper car reservations entitle us to leave our baggage with a welcoming attendant in the Metropolitan Lounge while we wander across the plaza to Olveira Street where the holidays are being celebrated in front of the old Mexican church with a costumed parade.

We score a quick spicy dinner served by an ancient abuelita.

Back at the Lounge we’re ferried to the sold-out eastbound train by red caps on carts.  Marjorie, the car attendant, informs us that due to an error, we’ve been upgraded from a roomette to a full bedroom with ensuite toilet, sink and shower. Pumped with the excitement of a 9 p.m. departure, we plug in to power up our various devices, push back the seats and climb into our upper and lower berths to read novels and eventually be rocked to sleep swaying through the dark at 100 miles per hour.

I forgot to mention the head cold that gripped Jan the day before we left is getting worse and now I have it too.  It seems to be held at bay with Mucinex, Ipubprofen and Naproxen, but I’m resigned to the familiar syndrome of adventure under duress.

Monday December 23

It’s light when we wake up and the Google map on my iphone”never used for travel before, but immediately indispensable”informs me that we are in the desert between Phoenix and Tucson.  As the Joshua trees and mesas whiz by the dining car, we eat breakfast at a table with two college girls  on their way to the Galapagos with family, happy to accept their old Grandpa as patron and guide.

At lunch we sit with a large single man on his way to Chicago for a conference of government health care consultants.  His job is to figure out how Obamacare can be extended to indigents for whom it makes no provision.

Crossing the desert is a good occasion to read a lengthy new book entitled The Bible in Shakespeare that I was invited to review by Renaissance Quarterly.  It’s billed by the author as the first “full length critical study” of the subject, implicitly dismissing my book, Shakespeare and the Bible, also published by Oxford University Press thirteen years ago. The book is well written and exhibits a vast knowledge of 16^th century religious culture that I could never approach.  But its scope seems disappointingly limited to tracing thousands of  allusions without venturing into interpretations that could aid understanding and production of Shakespeare’s plays.  I find little in it about how Shakespeare responded to some of the Bible’s distinctive larger literary features, especially the framing of a narrative whose main character is also its author.

A hundred fifty pages or so into the desert, I glance up from the book and find myself face to face with a dense array of shacks tucked into some barren hills fronting the railroad tracks.

I’ve never seen a cityscape like this in the USA, but I flash on the communities of homemade houses we visited a year ago in Peru.  This must be Mexico. As the favela disappears behind a curve in the tracks, I see a white pickup labeled Border Patrol, and around the next curve, a parched river. It must be the Rio Grande.

The train pulls slowly into El Paso, a modern American metropolis on the left bank of the River, then lurches and stops.  A few minutes later on the platform, I hear the conductor with a Latino accent telling another passenger that two homeless men with dogs”Americans–crossed the track right in front of the train.  They also talk of how Juarez, the city on the Mexican side of the river, has experienced 70 murders in the last month, 1200 in the last year, and those are only the ones reported.

Though sadly empty on the inside, the El Paso Amtrak station is a beautifully restored early 20th century monument.

I imagine someday traveling around the country  to enjoy the classic routes, trains and stations.

We share dinner with a couple traveling to Pittsburgh to see one of their daughters”he a Pentecostal preacher, banker and bank janitor.  He’s had assignments in different parts of the country every three years.

Both of our colds are worse, but we’re helped to sleep the second night on the train by Benedryl and a little bit of Scotch.

Tuesday December 24

I’m awake for Christmas Eve sunrise above middle Texas. The desert has given way to oak savannah, an inviting landscape of rolling hills, grassland and sculpted trees.  Coming from the driest year in San Luis Obispo’s history, I envy its green fertility.

We have breakfast in the dining car with Katharine, a young writer of blogs for law offices. Her enthusiastic manner, pattern of speech and build remind us of our recently departed friend Patricia.  Katharine moved to New Orleans (NOLA) with her husband for the music and loves it there, part of the new generation’s influx since Katrina.  She writes us a list of restaurants we must try.

In Houston, I get off  and walk the platform, since the train station in this proud and prosperous city is little more than a shack.

Attached to our rear end, I find two private cars used for corporate parties that we’ve been towing since El Paso.

At the front, I admire the massive engine and wheels.

Houston is not far from the Gulf Coast, and after departure we cruise through bayou and rice fields alternating with scary chemical plant complexes.

At lunch with a single mother and her irrepressible seven-year old daughter, we are told cryptically that the refugees from New Orleans displaced by Katrina now in Houston have created a painful situation that no one wants to discuss..

After Merry Christmas wishes by phone from both our children, I feel a little displaced myself on this night, away from them and approaching a strange city in the dark. I use my miraculous new portable speaker to fill our compartment with the music of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio stored on my laptop, and the touch of forlornness disappears.

The lights of New Orleans appear in the distance during our traverse of the 25 mile Huey P. Long elevated viaduct.  Crossing the Mississippi, we’re greeted by fireworks.

Our hotel, Le Pavillon, feels like a square-block Christmas decoration from the ancien regime:  statues and pillars at the entrance, chandeliers in the lobby, every surface minutely decorated and fitting into pattern within baroque pattern, original paintings lining the hallways, exquisite room furnishings lovingly coordinated.

There’s also a swimming pool on the roof that I must try out despite my sinus congestion.

[picture source]

I’m tempted to wear only a swimsuit and the lush monogrammed bathrobe hanging in the closet, but I don’t dare appear like that in the hall. Yet waiting for the elevator on my floor on their way to the hot tub I see two young people in bathrobes making faces in the mirror. I swim a few short laps under stars and towering skyscrapers, then join them in the Jacuzzi. In New Orleans on holiday from Memphis, they don’t look or sound Tennessean. The only people I know who reside within 500 miles of this place are academic transplants–the family of an English Professor at a small college in Memphis who recently alerted me to the publication of the book I was reading on the train.  Yes K. and P. are close friends with them and he teaches Philosophy at the same college. Hearing about my recent commitment to regular swimming and lessons inspired by our grandson’s daily practices with the San Luis Obispo Seahawks, she enthusiastically recommends a new book called Swimming Studies which celebrates the sport and unique pools around the world.

Back in our room, I report the coincidence to Jan. She is opening a bottle of wine she’s brought along from San Luis Obispo.  The label pictures a famous palace and the appellation “Downton Abbey.”

For more and full-size pictures click here and here

Adapted from the story by W.W. Jacobs in preparation for telling around the campfire at the Cub Scout overnight on October 19-20 2013 at Camp French

This campfire reminds of my first campout with Cub Scouts across the river from where I lived in New York City 61 years ago.

It was a dark, windy night out in the woods, far away from any lights, a little before Halloween. We were sitting around the fire as we are tonight and someone said, “Does anyone know any scary stories?”  There was no answer. After a couple of minutes, one person spoke up. It was a new kid who’d just joined the Den named  Georgie Roberts.  He was quiet and pale and had dark circles under his eyes. “I can tell you a very scary story about what happened to me and my family down in the tropics.” I didn’t really want to hear it, but a most of the guys couldn’t resist and begged him to go on.

Georgie spoke in a shy voice:

“My Mom and Dad and I were living in Brazil for a year because my Dad was running a business there exporting tropical hardwood. At first, the three of us were having lots of good times, going to the carnival, exploring the old city of Manaos, taking boat rides up the Amazon River, where we’d eat lunch, see the birds and monkeys in the jungle and watch the crocodiles grabbing animals that came out of the forest to drink along the bank and pulling them into the water and mangling them.

On one of those rides we met an anthropologist/explorer from Germany named Anton who had spent a lot of time with some of the last few native tribes that still survived in the jungle and who’d participated in some of their religious rituals.  He always struck me as kind of strange, maybe because of that.

Anyway six months after we got there, my Dad’s business was not going well and we were going to have to leave Brazil. But my father had borrowed money and had a debt of $5000 he needed  to pay back on a bank loan. If he didnt, we’d lose our home in New York that we’d planned to return to.

A few days before we were supposed to leave, my parents invited Anton over for a good-bye dinner.  After we ate, we sat around the fire ring in the back yard remembering some of our trips together.  At one point Anton got up and pulled something weird and ugly-looking out of his pocket. It was a clawlike hand, with small nails, ragged fur and dried skin hanging off the end. ‘There’s something I want to share with you before you go,’ he said. ‘This is the Monky’s Paw.'”

Georgie stood up and his voice got lower and stronger.  It seemed to come from the huge figure of his flickering shadow cast by the firelight against the surrounding trees.

“Anton, said it was left to him by a friend who got it from an native medicine man who’d put a spell on it.  It had the mysterious power to grant three wishes to the family who possessed it. Anton shuddered and said his friend’s last wish was for death.  He was about to throw it into the fire, but my father grabbed his wrist and said, ˜Stop, I know this is ridiculous, but I’m in a situation where some magic wishes are all I have to save our family home.’

My Mom said,  ˜No, don’t mess with magic,’ but my Dad grabbed the paw from Anton, held it by the forearm bone, and made a wish: ˜Bring us $5000.’  The claw seemed to vibrate in his hand and glow slightly for a few seconds.  Anton cried, ‘O my Gosh,’ and ran from the backyard into the house, and we heard a slam of the front door. Nothing more happened and my Dad said, ˜He must be continuing the joke.’

Next day was Sunday and my Mom left the house to go on a last boat trip up the river with her friends. Dad and I stayed behind and packed our suitcases for the flight to New York.  When Mom didn’t return by evening we both got worried.  At 7:00 o’clock the doorbell rang and Dad answered it to find two people standing there, a policeman in uniform and a man in black derby hat.

The policeman said, ˜May we come in please.’  My Dad let them in and the policeman said, ˜There’s been a terrible accident Mr. Roberts. There was an explosion in the riverboat Mrs. Roberts was on today, and all the passengers were thrown into the water, where they were killed by crocodiles before they could be rescued.’

My Dad and I were both frozen with shock.  Before he could say anything, the man in the derby hat identified himself as representative of the company that ran the boat.  He said, ˜I’m so sorry to be bringing you this tragic news.  Even though it was not our fault, our company wants to provide you with some monetary compensation to express our regret.’ And he handed my Dad a check for $5000. Then the policeman asked my Dad if he could come with him down to the morgue to identify the remains of Mrs. Roberts”my Mom.

My Dad called next door and asked the neighbor to look after me for a little while and  left with the two men.  An hour or so later he returned looking pale and shaken, thanked the neighbor and sent her away.  To me, he said, ˜I know that this is an awful thing that happened, but at least we’ll be able to have a place to go home to.’ I wasn’t yet able to absorb what was going on, but I asked him if there was a connection between his wish with the Monkey’s paw and the accident. He replied,   ˜No way, son, that’s just a crazy coincidence.’

After we were back in our old house in New York for a few days, his business started improving.  But I began to really feel the loss of my Mom, and I got sadder and sadder.  There was only one thing I could think of doing: ask my Dad to make another wish with the Monkey’s Paw to bring her back.  But he refused, saying ˜No, that’s ridiculous, that couldn’t possibly work, and anyway, I got rid of it.’

But I didn’t believe him, and when he was at work, I searched through his stuff and found it stashed at the back of his underwear drawer.  I pulled out the yucky thing and stuck it under my pillow.  That night, as my Dad was tucking me in to sleep, I sat up and pulled it out from its hiding place and held it up.  Before he could do anything, I said, ˜Bring back my Mom!’ It vibrated a little in my hand and gave off a slight glow.  My Dad’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

At that moment the front door bell rang. I sprang up thrilled and yelled ˜Momma, Momma’ and ran toward the door.  My Dad called ˜No, No, No.’ I turned on the porchlight, and through the window by the door saw something unspeakably horrible.  Then with a flash, it disappeared.  I turned around and there was my Dad, holding the Monkey’s Paw, vibrating and aglow.'”

More campout pictures

A talk to the White Heron Sangha, October 6, 2013

I was introduced to the writings of Jack Kerouac by a trumpet-player friend in high school who gave me a copy of On the Road just after it came out in 1957.  But though I’d already done some hitchhiking around New England and hung out in Greenwich Village on Friday nights, I was put off by the book’s frenetic style and its praise of aimless, restless travel.  Twelve years later, in 1969, I encountered The Dharma Bums, Kerouac’s second most popular book, while selecting works to place on the syllabus of a class at Columbia University I called “Pastoral and Utopia, Visionary Conceptions of the Good Life.” This book’s triumphant celebration of free love, wilderness adventures, bohemian companionship, and Buddhist meditation made a perfect fit.  Forty four years later, while looking for a topic for a Sangha talk to follow up on the one about Thoreau’s Buddhism I offered last Spring, I picked The Dharma Bums in order to consider how my perspective on the novel and its Buddhist themes might have changed in the meantime. Read the rest of this entry »

Mann und Weib
Und Weib und Mann
Reichen an
die Gottheit an.

(Wife and husband
husband wife
together reach
for godly life.)

July 16 2013

[click images for full-screen view]

Up at 5:00 for bath and sitting. I pack for the  trip on the Sunshine Coast Trail, including dry and wet dog food.  I deliberate about whether to take Tai’s harness because it might hang her up in the bush, but opt for doing so for a better connection to the leash and because it has all her tags in case she were to get lost and be found.  I think about adding the area code to the tag with Jan’s number but its presence on the animal services tag would be sufficient if the worst should happen.

We’ve reserved a ride on the water taxi since the trailhead is well beyond access by either of our vehicles.  We arrive at the dock at 8:15 as scheduled and find that it will only cost us each twenty dollars  because we’re joined by two younger couples also hiking the trail.  We make a dicey landing on the rocks at Sarah Point which requires me to jump with the dog in my arms.

Once onshore, she seems to love the trail, running out ahead, coming back between us, her little feet trotting along jauntily, her fur silky soft, her sides rock-hard muscle.  There’s no need for the light leash I carry in my pocket during the  40 minute  ascent to Desolation View, a clearing with vistas of the Sound and mountains beyond.

I sign the guest book hanging on a tree with an expression of thanks to Eagle and the trail-building and maintenance volunteers, stating that after 43 years of summertime stays in this area, it’s my first time on this magnificent section of the trail.

As we sit snacking on gorp, our fellow hikers come to the viewpoint and one of them comments on my hat, “I’ve been to San Gregorio.”  This is an opening I’ve looked forward to since first spotting the hat for sale last March while roaming through the store in the rain during a camping trip with Claire and the boys.  “Really,” I chirp.  “How’d you find it?” “We went to University in the Bay Area,” he says, “and loved that part of the coast.”  Turns out he and his wife are from Vancouver, met at Berkeley, and now are both professors of chemistry in St. Paul MI. The other couple are their friends since childhood and own an international coffee roasting business in North Vancouver called “Worldwide Bean.”

Another 40 minutes down the trail, we arrive at Feather Cove, a crescent beach facing Zephine Head across the mouth of Malaspina Strait.  I give the dog water from my Camelback and get into my bathing suit, but then our new friends arrive and the conversation continues.  Peter swims off the point and returns, and then I head into the water and swim for fifteen minutes and come out enthusiastic about the view of Mt. Denman visible from down the beach.

I half notice Tai’s absence and assume she’s exploring and will return soon.  The two couples head down the trail and now I realize the dog is missing.  As I lace up my boots I call and whistle hoping for her to pop up, then feel uneasy. Could she have chased a chipmunk and gotten her harness stuck? Could she have followed the folks further down the trail? What else could have motivated her to leave? The only thing I can think of doing is return to our starting point at Sarah Point, since she may have decided to go back to where the trip started.  Without a backpack, it should take about two hours round trip.  Peter says fine, he’ll wait and take a nap.

I hurry up the trail with a one-liter water bottle in my pocket feeling more anxious at every step. I whistle and call Tai’s name.  I know by now its most unlikely I’ll find her, but at least I have to make the effort.  I realize I wont be able to stop torturing myself.  I hear Jan’s voice repeating, “she’s not a bush dog, she’s a lap dog, don’t take her hiking.  You can leave her at a kennel in Powell River.”  I imagine the dog lost on the network of trails or getting stuck in the deadfalls, or worn out with exhaustion and lack of water and food or attacked by cougar or coyote.  I envision Jan’s horror and anger at the news. This is one of  the worst things I’ve ever done, comparable to leaving four year old Joe up in a tree house I was trying to repair and falling 20 feet to the ground 37 years ago. In that situation, disaster was averted only by good luck. But this time I will have to face tragedy and forever carry the weight of guilt for causing the dog to die miserably and Jan to grieve and this vacation to be spoiled for her, the kids and the grandkids.

As I approach the start of the trail, I indulge a slight hope the dog will be there waiting for me, but of course she’s not.  Now I must turn around and head back to Peter and the packs and figure out what to do next.  I rehearse my words to Jan: “the dog is lost¦it’s my fault¦I’ve searched for hours and given up hope¦I’m so sorry.” On the way uphill I start gasping, stopping every few steps to catch my wind as if I were at eleven thousand feet, and I feel a painful tightness in my chest.  I remember the German proverb I recently translated: “Disasters seldom come alone.”  Is this an incipient or progressing heart attack?  How long must I rest to get back my wind?  I’m out of breath even on the level and downhill. Dying out here will at least relieve my guilt for losing the dog.  Will it make Jan hate me less or more?

I get back to the beach exhausted and wake up Peter. As I describe my symptoms, my breath slowly returns along with alarm about the dog.   What about the miniscule chance that the dog is found by someone with a working cell phone and they call Jan with no information about us. That might disturb her even more than the loss of the dog. She would call Peter’s wife, so we must find a way to reach Margaret to let her know that we are all right. But here there’s neither cell nor shortwave reception. We need to go back up the trail to the viewpoint for that.

It’s another hour before we reach it, my third time there and four hours since the dog went missing. No longer breathless even with the pack during the climb, I talk out my sad thoughts with Peter–the need to deal with bad outcomes.  I’ve experienced that with my father’s terrible last days, but he was 89. Peter had to deal with his father’s worsening pain and death when he was a teenager. I accept the need to tell Jan the terrible truth rather than put it off with a contingency call to Margaret. Jan may decide not to come on the trip at all; she may come and be depressed and angry the whole time; or we may be able to grieve together.  I keep rehearsing the conversation as we hike.  At the vista point there is cell reception, but the battery is low.  I ask Peter to give me the phone and a minute to compose myself. I sit down, take deep breaths and dial Jan’s number.  After one ring she answers, and before I can say a word she shouts, ” You lost the dog.”

Instantly I know we are saved. My mind calculates that the probability of her intuiting the dog’s loss from this unexpected call is even tinier than the tiny probability that the dog was found by someone in the bush who called her number on the tag.  To confirm, I say, “I am calling to tell you that, how did you know?” With fury in her voice, she says she got a call from someone named Nancy, who found Tai and can be reached by cell. Peter stands by me and writes down the numbers as I dictate.  As I repeat each of the numbers after her, Jan shouts “stop talking and listen.” I feel blissful at being unfairly yelled at. She says, “I’m not sure I wrote the last four numbers correctly.  I’ll check in my phone and call you back if they need correcting.” I know I will treasure this moment for the rest of my life.

She calls back and corrects the number and tells me she’s just about to head into a closed session at City Hall and that she feared just this and that if I want a dog to go in the bush I should damn well get my own dog, and that Tai is a lap dog and belongs to her, and she is really angry at me and will have more to say later.  I’m flooded with shame, but still joyous, and the ferocity in her voice excites me. When she pauses I say, you’re right, I’m sorry that you’re being put through this, but I want you to know that no matter how sorry I feel, it’s nothing compared to the sorrow I felt for the last four hours assuming that the dog was gone.

She hangs up, and I call Nancy’s number and express my gratitude through a choppy connection. Nancy says she and her husband found the dog on the road between Bliss Landing and Sarah Point and  had a hard time catching her.  They’re now heading back to Lund but they can turn around and drive back toward Sarah Point and meet us within an hour.  Peter and I race toward the campsite at the Point, leave our packs, and then continue along the trail and then on the very rough road up a long steep hill that Peter is sure no vehicle can negotiate. I’m exhausted again but happy to press on. A new Jeep Rubicon appears at the top of the hill and heads toward us and stops.  In the passenger seat Nancy is smiling and cuddling Tai on her lap. I take the leash from my pocket and put it on her harness and then greet her.  She’s relieved to see me, but not ecstatic.

Nancy and her husband Don are our age and fun to talk to. They stopped at Sharp’s Bay and called the local SPCA as well as Jan before reaching us.  Peter determines that Don was at UC Berkeley during the sixties as a reporter on the FSM for the student newspaper. He’s a Physics Ph.D. at Hanford Nuclear Reseration in Washington State and she’s a contract officer.  They used to visit Lund in their sailboat and now come in a motor home.  They accept my invitation to come for dinner at Knoll House after Jan arrives.

We say goodbye and then walk back toward the campsite, looking for water along the way without success.  We’d planned to be at Wednesday Lake tonight, not here on the rock bluffs. We are down to a liter and a half, for a thirsty dog and two dehydrated men.  We’ll phone the water taxi and order a ride back for tomorrow morning but in the meantime we’ll be dry. At the tent platform I tie up Tai and give her all the food and water she wants.

Its 8:30 pm and I’m ready to sleep. But the wet ocean looks inviting.

I dive in and luxuriate in its buoyancy. I swim toward a boat fishing off shore and ask if they can spare a liter or two of drinking water.  They say yes but are suddenly preoccupied with a ten pound salmon on their line.  I swim back to shore and get dressed and then the boat speeds toward us.  Aboard are three bearded young men heading to Toba Inlet with mountain bikes.  They have water in liter bottles frozen for their cooler and can spare one, which they toss to me on shore and then take off into the sunset.

And what a sunset.  The water flattens, the horizontal rays gild the arbutus trees and nearby cliffs and distant islands.

To the south over the Ragged Islands a vertical column of rainbow color suddenly appears, extending from high in the sky down to just above the land and is reflected by the placid surface of the water.

Then the clouds surrounding it turn pink but the column of color doesn’t lose brilliance.

After 20 minutes it fades, replaced by a final display toward the north: rainbow colors radiating from all the sky and water.

As this light finally darkens, Peter sets up the tent, I blow up my mattress, grab the dog, climb inside, and drop off to sleep overwhelmed with gratitude, wonder and love.

A presentation to the White Heron Sangha June 23 2013

Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817 and died at 45 years of age on May 6, 1862. His name is a household word, especially among those of us who grew up during the 1960’s, when his two most famous works, Walden and “Civil Disobedience” offered compelling guides to non-conformity, self-reliance, appreciation of nature, reduction of one’s environmental footprint, opposition to war and injustice and spiritual quest.

Although not widely appreciated during his life, since the late 19^th century Thoreau’s works have become classics, admired by later writers, assigned in schools, and the subject of a burgeoning scholarly industry. He produced more than 20 volumes in a dense and quirky literary style, at times pompous and bombastic, at others intimate and funny. Read the rest of this entry »

[Updated June 30 2013]

Soon after their move to San Luis Obispo in 1989, my parents, Lise and Henry Marx, presented Jan and me with a gift they’d been working on for several years: a collection of German proverbs they had learned from their parents and grandparents.

I remember continually hearing these sayings from my earliest childhood until their final days. Each time one was uttered there was a moment of satisfaction”the speaker pleased to have found a way to make familiar sense out of some new experience and the hearer gratified to grasp the connection.  Growing up as a first generation American, I reacted to these old-world pieties with boredom and embarrassment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Introductory Note:  This essay was completed in March 2011.  The interpretation of Genesis it proposes first occurred to me in 1996 in the course of writing a book commissioned by Oxford University Press,  Shakespeare and the Bible.  I first learned about Evolutionary Psychology and the field of Darwinian Literary Criticism in 2006.

Introduction

“The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art,” proclaimed William Blake in one of the captions of his etching, “Laocoon” (755). In The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, Northrop Frye replicated part of that proclamation and elaborated some of its implied claims. If indeed the Bible can be said to encode a substantial portion of Western culture’s imaginative, historical and legal heritage, then its first book, Genesis, can be regarded as the Code for the Great Code, since so much of what appears in the subsequent 65 books seems to grow out of it. Genesis’ title is amplified in the names of some of its recurrent themes and images: generation, generations, genealogy, gender, genitalia. The common root of all these words suggests yet another code: that which is carried by genes.[1]

Frye observed that Genesis’ “primary concern is expressed in the Biblical phrase “life more abundant,” and J.P. Fokkelman showed coherence in the book’s motley mosaic of stories with the discovery that its “overriding concern [is] life-survival-offspring-fertility-continuity,” (41) but neither critic associated these concerns with the evolutionary perspective they suggest. Until recently it’s been left to contemporary novelists versed in biology and literature to explore some of the rich meanings that flow from the convergence of Genesis and evolutionary principles, for instance Ruth Ozeki in All Over Creation and Barbara Kingsolver in Prodigal Summer.[2]

Genesis rewards literary analysis because of its complex structure and plot, its concentrated characterization, its vibrant language and its rich but submerged themes, accompanied by what Robert Alter calls “the high fun of the act of literary communication¦ the lively inventiveness …[which] repeatedly exceeds the needs of the message, though it often also deepens and complicates the message”(40-45).  Such analysis can be enriched by combining the relatively rigorous scientific methods of evolutionary psychology with some of the inventive and fanciful tactics of traditional Midrashic interpretation to make sense of the book.[3] That combination seems appropriate to a work which is itself a product of literary evolution–the outcome of a thousand-year history of competition among oral traditions, written documents, individual and group authors and editors assembled in the palimpsest of the received text (Friedman).

Genesis prompts Darwinian analysis because it traces human history back to its beginnings, where it locates the origin of what came later. It chronicles a period of prehistory that figuratively parallels the one and a half million year Pleistocene period that Darwinists refer to as the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA), the span of time long enough to allow most human traits to evolve (Cosmides 1997).

Darwinian interpretation explores the operation of the principle of evolution in literary works, depicting what Jonathan Gottschall calls

the fascinating multiplicity of ways characters react to and manipulate their environment (the setting and the other characters) to accomplish the prime directive of all life: to live long enough to reproduce and, in species where parental care is necessary (like ours), rear young to reproduce again.¦” (260)

Genesis personifies that principle in its characterization of the Creator. Its God designs both animal and human life during their common emergence on days five and six by pronouncing the two parts of evolution’s “prime directive”: “I have given you every seed bearing plant ¦for food¦and to all which has the breath of life within it.” (1.29) “¦be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth¦”(1.28)[4]

Genesis’ God repeatedly affirms evolution’s positive outcome of reproductive success as the reward of those whom He has chosen and trained–from Adam at the beginning of the book to the sons of Israel at the end: “I will greatly bless you and will greatly multiply your seed, as the stars in the heavens and as the sand on the shore of the sea, and your seed shall take hold of its enemies’gate.”(22:17)

Genesis’ word for “seed” –zera in the original Hebrew”has several meanings that converge with those of “gene” (Alter 1996 xiii-xiv). It signifies the originating kernels as well as the foodstuff of fruit and grain–the source of sustenance for animals and humans. It signifies semen, half of the material agency of reproduction. It signifies individual progenitors and progeny connected by inheritance–the generations of genetic relatives who extend personal existence beyond the bounds of individual mortality. It signifies lineage, the mark of kinship drawing individuals together into a survival unit, a community, and eventually, a nation.[5]

Joseph, the culminating hero of Genesis, epitomizes all of these meanings of “seed.”  He distributes seed during famine; he preserves enough grain to feed the world; he procreates two sons, one of whom is named Ephraim, meaning “he has made me fruitful”; at his death, he joins his father and mother in their tomb; and he paves the way for his wise descendant Solomon “whose people, Judah and Israel, were as many as the sands of the sea.”[6]

Genesis establishes literary coherence among narrative units with genealogies that catalogue the succession of seed through numerous generations, binding its many discrete stories into the history of a single genetic strain. Later uses of the text call attention to the importance of this genetic continuity. The first edition of the King James Bible begins with thirty-four folio pages of genealogical charts tracing lineage from Adam to Christ, while the succession of deaths and births of relatives is still recorded on pages inserted in family Bibles.

The operation of the principle of evolution is determined by the “algorithm” of Natural Selection formulated by Darwin in Origin of Species:

Through the preservation of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurrent Struggle for Existence, we see the most powerful and ever-acting means of selection. The struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of increase which is common to all organic beings. ¦

These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms (406).

Genesis begins at “Growth with Reproduction; inheritance” and proceeds to the more complex and turbulent aspects of natural selection: “the struggle for Life,” “Variability,”  “Extinction of less improved forms,” and consequent adaptation.

Natural selection arises from three conditions: 1) individuals compete for the resources to stay alive and procreate, 2) they compete for reproductive success through sexual selection–finding mates and raising offspring that preserve and proliferate their genes, and 3) over long periods of time, species adapt, that is, they change in ways that increase their likelihood of survival and reproduction. Such adaptive changes are carried out through improved design of the physical organism and through the adoption of adaptive behaviors.

Adaptive behaviors are patterns of response to recurrent environmental challenges. The brain circuits, or programs that enable adaptive behaviors, become “incorporated into a species’ neural design.”[7] Assemblages of such software circuits evolved as “cognitive domains,” just as the eye and ear, for example, evolved as hardware. Their blueprints were replicated and transmitted by genes in “the seed,” just as were the blueprints for organs.[8]

Adaptive behaviors produced by natural selection include tool use, kinship selection, status competition, territoriality, coalition building, reciprocity, indirect reciprocity and in-group/outgroup discrimination. These adaptations are observed in primates as well as in remnants of hunter-gatherer societies. This essay argues that evolutionary psychology’s account of the development of cognitive and behavioral adaptations offers a key to decode many of Genesis’ particular incidents as well as its overall design.

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President’s Day Weekend was the date chosen for the big demonstration in Washington D.C. planned by the Sierra Club and 350.org. to urge Obama to block the construction of the XL Pipeline. It was the first massive public action on Climate Change, and I wanted to join it, but no group transportation arrangements were available from California and I didn’t have enough miles on my frequent flyer account to make it feasible to go.

Nevertheless, after the satisfactions of the Peru trip and the recent hike to Sykes Hotsprings, the urge to travel again outweighed both inertia and the motivation to work on other projects. “Seize the Day” was accumulating authority as a watchword for my seventies and full retirement.

Reading Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot strengthened my desire to return to the trail.  Ian’s five-day Winter recess from Grade 4 was coming up and he was excited by the slideshow about backpacking presented at his last Cub Scout meeting, so I decided to return to Big Sur with him on an overnight camping trip.  I’d been up the Salmon Creek Trail a few years ago with a former student and remembered a remote campsite by the creek only two miles in but requiring a thousand foot ascent.

We sat at the computer together and ordered a packsack for him, a butane stove, and a water purification bottle from Amazon, which were delivered within two days. The weather forecast was mild and the Ranger said no fee or fire permit was required till May.

We departed at 10 AM and stopped at Spencer’s Market in Morro Bay for baguettes and Hershey Bars to complete the food selection plucked from the cupboards at home.

As we drove north on Highway 1 along the open Pacific, the radio reported that a 300 foot wide asteroid was about to pass within 17,000 miles of the earth”only two diameters away”and that a large meteorite just landed with the blast of 25 Hiroshima atom bombs somewhere in Russia.  This was the first I heard about either of these apocalyptic cosmic invasions, and the news only confirmed my motto.  I couldn’t think of a better place to meet the end.

We shared a Hearst Ranch hamburger at Sebastian’s in San Simeon and parked near the trailhead at noon.  Ian’s pack weighed about 20 pounds, mine about 35.  The first section of the well-traveled path was a trudge, relieved by dramatic views of the ocean below and the steep canyon above.

The ecology of this valley was  similar to that of the Big Sur River I’d I’d traveled through two weeks earlier, but also different.  A hundred miles to the south, here there were no Redwoods, but occasional large Douglas Firs and a full canopy of California Bay Laurel, whose new winter leaves glowed fluorescent light green.  Lush Fremont Iris bloomed in the shade,

and the sunny patches of exposed Serpentine soil where no trees grew sported rich displays of Poppies, Paintbrush and Shooting Stars. Ian distracted both of us from muscle pain and fatigue by recounting the plot of Shadowmage, the novel he’d recently  finished reading on his Kindle for a book report.

It took us an hour and a half to reach the high point almost directly above the road and our tiny Prius, Reddy. There the trail headed inland on a level contour cut into the mountainside, zigzagging toward and away from tributary creeks grooving the main canyon. After the shakedown climb, the last mile and a half of the hike went fast and smooth.  At the first trail junction we descended toward the main creek, whose rush and roar we’d heard the whole way, down to the dark and somewhat dismal campsite I remembered.  But further exploration led to a crossing of  Spruce Creek just above its convergence with Salmon Creek and a promontory bathed in Winter afternoon sun.

We pitched the old tent, gathered firewood and relaxed a little while.

Then it was time to enjoy the pleasure garden: the play of light and water over rocks,

the bloom of  pollen-spilling alder catkins,

the extremes of color and shadow on leaf, moss, stone, and liquid,

the thrill of hopping, climbing and jumping,

the satisfaction of building dams and taking pictures.

After the sun passed below the canyon’s wall and our little island of light was engulfed in shadow, Ian built a layered pyramid around a sheet of crumpled newspaper–tinder first, then pencil sized twigs, then thicker sticks”and lit the fire with a single match.  He nursed it with bellows breath and fed it with fuel wood until the sparks crackled and the bed of coals was hot enough to ignite the thick wet logs we’d dragged from a distance out of the forest.

He cooked a box of mac and cheese in the coffeepot on the camp stove, drained it and gobbled it down as I munched bread, cheese and salami.

Afterwards we toasted marshmallows and made s’mores, stashed all the food in a bag, and hung it with a cord from a thin branch above the stream to keep it away from the bear.

Snug in sleeping bags by 7:00, we saw the moon rise above the canyon walls through the branches overhanging the tent. By 7:30 we’d stopped talking.  Though I woke up every hour or so, feeling my leaky thermarest mattress gradually deflating and listening to the rich music of the creek, I slept eleven hours and awakened refreshed.  Ian slept another hour while I cooked cowboy coffee and restarted the fire.  He got up and made another pot of mac and cheese for his breakfast.

We set off through the creek in search of a large waterfall about a mile upstream, him leading the way over big rocks, across logs, and up steep banks, as the going got rougher and more spectacular.

We turned back before finding the waterfall, hoping to avoid exposure to poison oak stems that hadn’t yet leafed out and therefore remained hard to recognize

We sighted budding triliums and boulders of jasper

and posed together for a self-timed photo before drenching our feet and boots in an awkward stream crossing.

Back in camp we packed our gear, doused the fire, and at noon, as planned, hit the trail back.  The return hike was less arduous than the way in.

Just before reaching the car, we followed a spur leading to an impressive waterfall  that compensated for the failure to reach the one upstream. It was topped by a loose boulder that looked like a teetering meteorite.

It was no great challenge for us seasoned backpackers to clamber over the rockfall that hid the pool  and cavern at its base.

The way back down required crossing the creek along a twisted steel pipe while hanging on to a stretchy  mountaineering rope”a nice adrenaline rush to conclude our short, satisfying adventure.

Slideshow of full-sized pictures

During a late fall afternoon hike up Dairy Creek, Craig said that he’d like me to join him sometime on an excursion in his airplane.  Twelve years ago he’d flown me and Sky over Cal Poly to take aerial photos for the Cal Poly Land Field Guide, but I’d never been up since.  I relished the possibility of using my limited freedom for a Winter weekend adventure, and when he said he’d never been to the Grand Canyon, a mere three hours by air from San Luis Obispo, I promised to figure out an intinerary and try to reserve a campsite for late January.  I was eager to return there after my still vivid experience three years ago.

The midwinter weather would be unpredictable, but not too hot, and there were vacancies at the Bright Angel Campsite, which at most times required reservations a year in advance.  It would be three weeks after our return from Peru, two weeks after Peter’s visit from Canada, a little extravagant in terms of doing what I felt like, but a healthy assertion of retirement independence, and an opportunity for a real workout that my daily half-mile swimming routine made me crave.  I’d been suffering enough lower back pain since returning from Peru to drive me to the chiropracter, who told me it likely resulted from too much sitting–in buses, airliners, and at my computer. I carried a pack full of water up Poly Mountain to see if I’d be capable of the hike, only to find that it made my back feel better.

The one obstacle would be weather conditions during our planned four day weekend that could make flying a small plane over the Tehachapis and landing and taking off at the 7000 foot altitude of the South Rim risky.  For two weeks we watched the forecast get less promising, even as excitement built at our meetings to plan provisions and equipment. We considered alternate locations–Zion Park, Anza Borrego Desert, Point Reyes–but in the days before departure we settled on leaving the plane on the ground and driving the two hours to Big Sur for some nearby camping.  A quick Google search turned up Sykes Hot Springs–ten miles into the Ventana Wilderness, accessible only by trail, something of a challenge, but according to many reports a most rewarding route and destination.

The sky was emerald blue and the Big Sur Highway was empty on the spectacular drive up coast.  We stopped for an overpriced lunch at Nepenthe and got to the Trailhead at Pfeiffer State Park around 1 pm.  The original plan was to hike in the full ten miles the first day and camp for two days at the destination, perhaps adding another ten miles of day hike to a peak further along, but it soon became evident that we’d be doing well if we reached the halfway point  before dark.  The first couple of miles made a  steep ascent.  My huffing and puffing induced Craig to time my pulse in concern about a heart attack, and I left about 12 pounds of unnecessary food and equipment hanging in a bag from a tree limb for retrieval on the way back.  Soon afterwards the way leveled out some and fatigue was replaced by exhilaration.

The trail wound eastward following the course of the Big Sur River  700 feet below, the sound of its tumbling water a steady serenade complemented by occasional glimpses of rapids through the near vertical wall of the canyon.

The low winter sun  illuminated its opposite wall and the mountains behind it, but we remained  in deep shade produced by the north facing ridge we traversed and the canopy of redwoods, which towered high above us though rooted hundreds of feet below.

Rather than red, the immense, deeply ridged trunks were coal black,  scorched by the fire that had incinerated the chaparral ground cover and killed the smaller trees of the forest just a few years ago.

In places where the fire was hottest, most of the big trees perished, but wounded survivors regenerated in distinctive shapes.

I wondered whether this was the same fire that had ravaged the area around Tassajara, the Zen monastery that Jan and I had visited in June two years earlier.  With the vigor of the new tree growth, the freshness of trailside grasses and shrubs, and all the creeks and springs flowing, it was hard to imagine the arid combustible atmosphere of this landscape during the summer months.  The ruggedness remained in the raw terrain upthrust by subduction of the Pacific Plate and grooved by watercourses bearing off rainfall from the sea. The Forest Service’s  well-maintained trail showed evidence of this continual geological activity, often rerouted around recent rockfalls. Without the well worn path, the steepness and irregularity would have rendered passage through this country impossible.

Invigorated by bodily exertion and the excitement of escape, Craig and I kept up a steady stream of conversation informed by common experiences and contrasting perspectives. Seventy year old professional colleagues with little more to prove, blessed with happy marriages, children and grandchildren, at least partially earned financial security and good health, we share an eagerness for adventures during the few upcoming years they’ll still be possible. We talked with admiration of Obama’s Second Inaugural Speech’s and its elevated rhetorical ancestry, of Jerry Brown’s down to earth State of the State speech concluding with the Little Engine that Could, of Spielberg’s Lincoln, Charles Mann’s 1491, my Peru trip, City politics, his engagement in Episcopal Church activities especially caring for the homeless, and my withdrawal from activism. He spoke of his search for models of wisdom and grace among the aged, I spoke of my growing admiration of youth, which was highlighted by every encounter with young hikers along the trail, especially the scantily clothed girls who passed us toting heavy packs.

The trail traversed to a ridgeline and made a tight turn southward, following the upstream direction of the river  and affording a last view of the majestic summit that topped a major tributary.

As the shade deepened, the trail descended quickly to a stream flowing through a grove of huge redwoods that escaped the inferno.  Only a distant one of several tent sites distributed between the cheerfully burbling water and the great trunks  was already occupied.

Here in Central California, no fees or reservations, no fire rings or tables, no rangers or regulations, just the wilderness opening itself to our embrace.  We rejoiced to lay down our packs and explore the surroundings: a carpet of springy duff, ancient fire hollows big enough to fit a bear or a couple of people at the base of several of the trees, delicate leaves and flowers of sorrel catching patches of sunlight at the bottom of the walls, everything cleaned and freshened by the previous day’s heavy rains.

The intense use of this campsite became evident when I was unable to find a shred of dry tinder to ignite a fire and the little magnesium fire starter I’d bought at Big 5 didnt work. While Craig set up the tent and pumped water through his purifier, I cooked up a quick dinner of Couscous, Indian Lentils and Eggplant Curry from Trader Joe on his little butane stove and set some dried fruit soaking for compote in the morning.

As the rising moon painted white blotches on the tree trunks, we sipped Irish whiskey and nibbled dark chocolate before turning in, each of us equipped with a pee bottle inside our sleeping bags to supplement limited-capacity bladders.

After a lengthy sleep interrupted only by the headlamps and murmurs of late arrivals looking for tent sites, I awakened to birdsong, less achy than in bed at home. We drank several pots of cowboy coffee, ate scrambled eggs and salami, packed up our gear and got back on the trail.

Winding around the shoulders of narrow ridges, it generally maintained altitude as it veered away from the river below and then abruptly dropped to another fast flowing tributary too extensive to cross by stepping stones.

A large redwood log that had accidentally fallen across the stream at an interesting angle facilitated the crossing, but we let more some more nimble hikers precede us before tackling the challenge.

As the morning wore on, we were passed by numerous young folk heading for the Springs, some of whom had hiked in the dark, others who went at the speed we had originally anticipated maintaining ourselves.  One couple carrying only day packs, were accompanied by an energetic black lab loaded with heavy-looking saddle bags.

After rounding one more ridgeline, the trail returned to following the course of the Big Sur River below, and by 1:30 in the afternoon, we descended to its rocky banks.

The smooth fast water was crystal clear and the trees’ reflection rendered the bottom in shades of turquoise and taupe.

But where were the promised warm pools that would heal those now aching hip, knee and ankle joints and put me in contact with earth’s chthonic forces?  Craig shouted questions to some long haired boys on the opposite bank and got no clear answer.  Other young couples approaching this trail’s end from the opposite direction told us they could be found downstream beyond a steep rocky bank, hard to miss because they were full of unclothed bodies. This seemed to dampen Craig’s interest–he said he was looking for solitude and peace not naked partiers–but it piqued mine. We clambered over the cliff face and found a large campsite on a flat spot ten feet above a hairpin turn in the river, like the previous night’s  graced with ancient redwoods but blighted around its edges by hiker-abandoned trash–old socks and underwear, a ragged tent, empty wine bottles.

Craig said he’d stay there and set up camp.  I left my pack and walked around the point along the river whose opposite bank was dotted with tents and campfires.  Both apprehensive and enticed, I followed an informal trail  over an outcrop carved by another twist in the river and found myself suddenly in sunshine, on a terrace beside a glittering pool created by a wall of bagged stones which dammed the flow of  warm water coursing down a multicolored rockface canopied by the rootball of a fallen tree.

photo credit: brianwiese.com

photo credit: brianwiese.com

Submerged in the pool sat the curly headed young man who had passed us with the dog, smiling and holding a joint.  He offered me a toke, and I was transported back 46 years to another Big Sur camping trip with a girl I had recently met at the time.  We’d hidden my motor scooter along the highway and clambered down to an idyllic spot by the Little Sur River, which soon filled up with young people from all over the country eager to share food, drink, stories and music. As I inhaled the slight odor of sulfur and piled my boots and clothes next to the pool, he said, “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” and when I told him, he answered, not “I dont believe it,” but a little disappointingly, “I hope I can be in your shape at that age.”

The hundred degree water felt extraordinarily pleasant seeping into my limbs.  The floor of the pool, part clean sand, part knobbly rock, sharpened the massaging sensation on my sore sacrum. On the river bank, 50 feet below, I heard yelps of delight and glimpsed flashes of sun-drenched flesh.

photo credit: brianwiese.com

I lay back silently savoring the moment.  After those glorious nine days in Peru with Jan, after that marvelous four day visit with Peter, after the great time on the trail with Craig, how could fate continue to regale me with more pleasures?

Suddenly there was a bustle of activity on the approach to the pool and four laughing twenty-somethings clambered over the log, one of them insisting that they needed to start the ten mile trek back to civilization very soon.  Another asked if it was alright if they joined us in the pool, there seemed to be room.  There was no objection as the two women, one a pale redhead, the other a dark brunette, disrobed and lowered themselves into the water. They were followed by their boyfriends, a wiry bearded longhair and a thoughtful babyfaced fellow. We all introduced ourselves by first names and they passed around a couple of cans of beer cooled in the stream–a refreshing way to hydrate in the hot spring.  After an interval of oohs and aahs, conversation picked up–tales of visiting other hot springs, bears in campsites, alien invasion fantasies, local geological and botanical lore.  The curly haired man was a master’s candidate in geology, the brunette a recent Santa Cruz graduate in Environmental Science and Art History who was interested to hear that I had taught English and Environmental Studies, the longhair a builder of cob houses and other unconventional structures, the redhead and her mate still in school.

We circulated locations in the pool so that everyone could experience the variety of pleasures in different positions: regarding faces and upper bodies reclined against the multicolored cascade or leaning against the mossy flow of the spring, feeling the  shower of warm drops from the canopy softly wetting one’s hair while gazing at the radiant tree branches across the canyon. The red haired girl with elaborate tatoos covering one shoulder lifted her snow white hands out of the water and moved her slender fingers in slow graceful gestures.  I felt at ease enough to blurt out what crossed my mind: “you look like a Hindu goddess in a grotto doing a  mudra dance.”  She laughed and replied, “I was just trying to stop my hands from wrinkling like prunes.”

Around 4:00 p.m., as the shadows crawled up the opposite bank, the two couples finally agreed that they must get on the trail for the hike back to their cars. They were looking forward to doing most of it by the light of the full moon.  It was time for me to let Craig know where I was and get a fire going with wet wood.  As we all pulled on our clothes, a new crop of people came over the log and entered the water, most with swimsuits, but one lone young woman in the buff.

When I returned to the campsite, Craig was pumping water at the river.

He had gathered wood and pitched the tent.  It took almost an hour, a huge amount of breath and several handfuls of toilet paper to make a steady blaze. We cooked quinoa, sundried tomatoes and mushrooms with hotsauce, emptied the half-pint flask, and went to sleep. I woke up at my usual 5:30 a.m., rekindled the still warm ashes in the dark and made more coffee.  We were packed and on the trail back just as it got light enough to put away our headlamps.

The way back, twice as long as each day’s outward hike, though lacking in suspense, allowed for more appreciation of features of the landscape–the alignment of the river and tributaries, the arrangement of the big trees in side canyons, the movement of the sun.

The conversations got lengthier and more thoughtful, detailing on both sides stories of early mistakes, lucky rescues, unresolved regrets.  And though the lightened packs and accumulated conditioning made us feel stronger than on the way out, the afternoon sight of the sea just beyond the start of the trail was a welcome invitation to our return home.