Bohemian Housewarming Party

At my childhood friend Micaela's housewarming party in Berkeley, I ran into small segments of our past; it's such a shock to see Micaela and her brother Chris, mirrored in the faces of their children. Christopher has a 10-year-old boy named Chris who looks just like him; Chris must've been 10 when I first met him. I wasn’t prepared for this telescoping of time.

Chris is an equipment appraiser for Bank of America, a vice president in a roomful of vice presidents, living in suburbia, with the wife and two kids. I expected so much more from Chris, with his intellectual prowess, I expected him to go places. All the people that his parents knew were part of the avant-garde Bohemian world. Instead, the black corporate heart of America took him hostage. I wanted to say to him, Where is Chris and what have you done with him? 

The people we met through Micaela and Chris’ parents, and step-parents were unusual—in and of themselves. Bohemian artists for the most part. Arthur Boericke was friends with Jaimie de Angulo. I remember the stories about the drunken sweat lodge parties in Berkeley. Imagine building a full-on sweat lodge in a Berkeley backyard.

I think Arthur was a sociologist by trade. During the 1970s, he wrote Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher's Art, the first book of its kind. Then there was Patrick Wall who was Micaela and Chris's father, from the island of Jersey, his formidable intellect, his love of classical music, his coldness shaped us. His third wife, Betty the potter, once married to painter Wilfred Lang, was a worrywart and self-depricating in a delightful way that made up for Pat's distance.

Micaela and I went for a hike on Saturday and while comparing notes, we discovered that both Pat and my grandmother actively discouraged us from using the broad American Aaaaa sound they found so offensive to their ears. Their tirades against our using that nasal American A sound left us feeling a little like mini Eliza Doolittles. They didn’t want us to sound American. To this day I still say ofTen with a full T sound instead of offen.

Betty's first husband, Wilfred Lane, recently died; his paintings are valuable already, said Chris. Micaela mentions the name of the woman that kept Wilfred in suspense for years – Marsha. I remember meeting her with her Mexican tiered skirts and Wilfred with his gobs of tiered turquoise. They were all living in Santa Fe at the time.

Betty Wall gave me these when I was a young. I returned the pots, bowls & cups to Micaela

The New Mexico contingency included Betty and Wilfred and the children—Chris and Micaela's stepbrothers and sisters: Pete, Sonia, Stan, and Justina—the joke always was: What is your name? Tina. Tina? No, Justina. Just Tina? and so on. But they originally hailed from Sausalito. Circular file.

I suspected that Pete had a crush on Micaela, she was so beautiful, and but he went off to become a spy And she became a hippie. In the early 1970s I stayed with Pete and his wife Sara in Parksville, British Columbia. They moved to Florida where he built wooden boats, and later got divorced. She's now living in Hawaii and he's in Galveston Texas, said Chris. The others I didn't ask about. 

Stan was living in the Virgin Islands. I think Micaela was always a little in love with Stan who looked like bad boy James Dean. I was a little in love with Chris. I imagine Sonia and Tina are still living in New Mexico. Sonia was one of the first people to move to Morning Star Ranch in Occidental, and become part of Lou Gottlieb's commune. She was always out there on the periphery of way cool. Ironically I lived just down the road from Morning Star in the early 1980s.

Chris and Micaela's mother, Rosalind Sharpe Wall died about four years back; her book on Big Sur memories was on its third printing. Kudos, but sad that none of this happening during Rosalind's lifetime ironically. She grew up on a rancho in Bixby Canyon in Big Sur. Rosalind dabbled in paint too, which was handy as her then husband Patrick was an art dealer in Carmel. The first modern art dealer on the West Coast. 

One artist that was well represented in Patrick's house beside Wilfred Lang, was Carmel artist Ellwood Graham. Graham's paintings always fascinated me. (See more Pat Wall, Modern Art Dealer: Ellwood Graham).

Rosalind dabbled in the occult as well. She was an overbearing woman who always had some project going. She was a bit like Frida Kahlo, and Wilfred was a lot like Diego Rivera but they never hooked up. I couldn’t imagine that combo. Both of them larger than life. I don't think the fabric in the time-space continuum could've contained it.

The mysterious Marsha was more like Georgia O'Keeffe, the model. I've no idea what she did, other than to be haughty. Her full size portrait has a marionette at the bottom. Was it a portrait of the artist, Wilfred? who was pulling the strings?

Rosalind, and my mother were like two cats locked up in a room, too similar for words, each itching to defrock the other of her occult witches' vestments. Each calling the other a fraud, each designing their own tarot decks. Rosalind's rather simplistic deck design was at least published, in John Starr Cooke's The New Tarot: The Tarot for the Aquarian Age (Boxed Set with Cards)1970.

It turned out that Brite Bonnier, the painter with her jaunty beret and red sports car, was also a friend of John Cook's. Small world. She was at the party with her small dog. I was so glad to see her again, the last time I saw her, I was a child.

I arrived late to Micaela’s housewarming, having nearly been nearly clobbered by a bad driver who, as luck would have it, was also coming to the party as well. I wanted to clobber her in real time as well, but thought that would make a bad entrance. I had to go a block out of my way to keep from being hit, so when I finally parked, Micaela and Brite were on the front steps. 

And I was in a rage so I wasn't introduced to Brite ’til much later. That I even remembered her last name was a miracle. She mentioned her brother living in Sweden. I think he visited once. I never knew she was Swedish. She asked if I remembered the barge in Sausalito. I'm not sure, but I do remember the Charles Van Damme, Pero and Alice Wolfe's houseboat, and the others. 

I remember crashing parties when we were kids, Chris lighting off cherry bombs underwater. We were banned from the parties, but snuck in anyway. I was on the Charles Van Damme ferryboat at least two times when Varda lived there. His paintings were bolted to the walls of the skewed boat. I recognized the paintings by style, like the ones I had seen in Patrick's house in Sausalito, and later when he was our neighbor in Forest Knolls. Varda, Lang, Graham: a litany of Bohemian artists: West Coast names that changed the very face of art.

I remember late at night walking the plank at Pero and Alice's houseboat, and peeking into the windows to see the partygoers, the water was alive with biolytic luminescence under the full moon. Which place was Brite Bonnier's? She was friends with John Cook and I will have to interview her to find out more about it. 

I tell Brite the story of how I managed Western Star Press for Alice Kent. Alice was John's sister. Before John's death in the early 60s, Chris, Micaela and I used to steal trinkets from the Trade Faire, a ferryboat emporium. We were nine and ten years old and we mailed large turquoise rings to John Cook in Cuernavaca. He must've wondered about why we were sending him turquoise rings in the mail as we didn't have any money.

I remember John Cooke, a tall broad-shouldered bald silent man with a kindly face. At that age we knew nothing of the world. Betty called us her brats. And we ran wild through the shipways and alleys of Sausalito, and the hills of Forest Knolls. I didn't know I would want those memories back one day, but with the tag that explains their significance and relevance.

For it was those interesting people that help shape us and made us who we are. By their very presence, and not necessarily by design. The order of the Golden Dawn, Allister Crowley, Alan Watts, Jean Varda—these are all names out of my childhood. But I have no place to put them in the larger order of things. Just fleeting recollections of childhood.

Actor and dancer John Cooke was a kind of a mythical God. We instinctively knew he was special, but we didn't know why. Begin the Beguin was his favorite song, said Alice Kent. Did the Sufis really burn him with their hands on his shoulders at the airport because no one ever escaped their order – was it in Morocco? Tangiers? The imprint of the hand on the shoulder had the doctor shaking their heads, for it was to become the cancer that eventually killed him. 

John's Tarot for the New Aquarian age was decades ahead of its time. And we grew up on the arcane trivia from the Tibetan and the Egyptian books of the dead, we grew up on tarot, and astrology, you name it—long before there was a New Age. 

My mother's world, and Micaela and Chris' world, each parent was a satellite with an asteroid belt of followers—and small rivalries were of no concern to us. My mom was an actress and costume set designer at the Gate Playhouse Theatre in Sausalito. 

Patrick was a connoisseur of the arts, he was in the realm of the philosophical world. Rosalind Sharpe was into the occult, living in Sausalito during the early 60s as well—these people that helped shape my life. 

What I remember most are the visual images, the quality of light, the colors of the sky, the colors of the bay and the cypress trees, and the odor of nasturtiums and geraniums. Chris's paper route. The stinking bay. The dilapidated boats. Gate Five. Tiki Junction. And now all those adults who lived there are nearly all dead now, and their stories, buried. All I have left are these incomplete fragments that have little cohesiveness, or shape. 

What about Pero and Alice Wolfe? the story of Pero who once owned Anchor Steam Beer, crossing the bay in a boat dressed to the nines, to go to the opera, but they forgot to check the tide table. So they spent the night fighting the tides, the ferocious bay singing primal arias. Who will write their stories?

Micaela said her lover, musician Tim Boomer, with whom she had bought the house, hence the housewarming party, reminded her a bit of me, Chris, Rosalind, and Pat. All of us so strong-willed with lots of interesting things to say. 

Micaela elaborated how her mother was so overbearing, she snuffed her out like a candle. And I'm shocked by the inference. Did she feel of no importance as a child with nothing to say? Sure, I spin fantastic stories now, but back then I was rather mute, quiet and shy. My entire world was made of horses. Micaela went on to say that the best years of her childhood were spent with me running around the hills of Forest Knolls with me (when I thought I was a horse).

School was awful, a kind of death for her. Me too. She dropped out during her sophomore year. I'd always thought it was because of the drug scene. We grew apart by the time puberty had set in. And she was far more adventurous, the Summer of Love, pot, etc., while I was still verging on redneck, and more than a couple of years behind her socially, so to speak.

I remember a reconciliation of sorts at age 13 or 14. We spent a good week together making miniskirts out of old 50s corduroy pencil skirts, and castoff clothing, and then we gradually drew apart into our own respective fragmented worlds. 

We lost touch when she moved—or ran away. I didn't consciously drop her as a friend, she just moved on. Our values were no longer the same. I suspect sex had something to do with it. She was 14, I waited until I was 18. The invisible border between child and woman had been drawn out and there was no defrocking of the wall, pardon the pun on her last name, Wall.

Micaela reminded me of the time that Ken and Mary Howard were having a party and a movie on Arroyo Road and we were forbidden to attend. But Chris was allowed to go. So incensed, we snuck over to the Howard's place at sunset after they had all left, and under the cover of dusk, we crept into the darkened living room to watch The Wild Ones.

Brando lounged on his motorcycle. In the late 1940s, bikers took over Hollister. What are you rebelling against? ask someone. What've you got? quipped Brando. After the movie was over, we made our escape via the kitchen, only to be busted for tripping over the silverware box. The Bohemians we were surrounded by, busted us for watching The Wild Ones. Odd. What exactly were they sheltering us from?

We'd seen much more by way of errant or deviant behavior in real life. Jean Varda liked young women, lots of them, Alan Watts, and Jaunita Mousson all lived on the Charles van Damme. Not all at the same time. Maybe it was her party, I don't know. My neighbor George said that the Charles van Damme was falling apart even way back then and she was busted for something and then hauled out. 

Who moved in after Juanita? Brite Bonnier? But she had the barge I think. Perhaps it was Varda. Anyway, what was the big deal about seeing Brando anyway? Ken Howard was a Harvard man and Mary had East Coast leanings, and money too. Both are dead now, their daughters, Debbie who now goes by the name of Nina, and Sarah, were pretty whacked and scarred by that warring relationship. 

Ken and Pat were very much alike—both carpenters, both very intellectual, utterly charming and bitterly cold towards women, unless they wanted sex. They were unnecessarily cruel to their daughters, who didn't survive them emotionally. The boys fared better, Chris Wall, and Guy Howard, but they chose the American life over Bohemia. Perhaps to escape their parents. 

Children of Bohemians living a middle-class life, feeling like frauds, and feeling guilty for going against the quasi-Bohemian grain, fitting into neither world very well. I was the observer, raised by my grandmother from a previous generation, call it Victorian, or Edwardian, and a way of life destined to fail, for what could follow that? 

The Beatniks were not the physical inheritors of the Bohemians, for they escaped the middle-class, and sought refuge here, while we children of Bohemians were never middle class. More like ravaged by a social experiment. I later found out that one of the thinkers that influenced the Bohemian movement, Allister Crowley was an omni-sexual pervert, flaunting sexual mores and delving into magic. But we were sheltered from any deviant behaviour. 

I'm sure Brite Bonnier and John Cooke were both bisexual, and Crowley's teachings would've seemed like a blessing to them. Brite, being Swedish, only had quasi-American morals to overthrow. John Cooke came from a real missionary family, for they were the famous Cookes of Hawaii. They were the black sheep, Alice assured me, not the Castle-Cookes, not the Big Five.

The Beats would've been closer to my mother's age. And Patrick was from a previous generation; he was in his 40s when he had children. Our generation is doing much of the same thing, having children so late... or not at all, except by accident, not design. That failure to commit runs deep.

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• Pat Wall, Modern Art Dealer: Ellwood Graham (journ...
• Pat Wall, Modern Art Dealer: 2 Betty Wall (journal...
• Pat Wall, Modern Art Dealer: 3 Henry Miller and th...

Touring with Elemental Portraits

Last evening, after teaching, I met with Kirk Whipple and Marilyn Morales to pursue grants for touring with Elemental Portraits—for all of us. Kirk gave me carte blanche to pursue self interest. He said, You don't have to be responsible for the larger picture, but if we get a large touring grant it will benefit all of us.

I will also get paid for my time if I write grants is the is the oblique message. It's on me, they're taking care of themselves first, and the amount of dollars to be raised to nourish their dream is enormous. Half a million. My needs are considerably less, but my dreams should remain big, I shouldn't be afraid to manifest those dreams—why not?

The other day I was telling someone about working with Kirk and Mari developing the Elemental Portraits, and they were clearly impressed. It was not my intent to do so, I was merely explaining something I was working on. And they saw me in a new light. 

I saw myself in a new light too. I was out there galavanting around with important musicians, just like in centuries past—when artists collaborated. I don't think my poems are particularly avant garde, but Kirk considers himself to be a late late late romantic composer, so I guess it's okay to have some tangible, concrete imagery. 

I still think I need to work on the Elemental Portraits more. I've got the human portraits down, but are they in essence, elemental? My framework is the scaffolding is air, earth, fire, and water—with a dash of classical references, seasoned with quantum physics. 

Maybe I need to see the Elemental Portraits in a new light, as multimedia events. Yes, I realize that I will be riding on Kirk and Mari's fabulous coattails, but I also will have earned the right as well. I did earn a fellowship for them. When will I quit thinking of myself as a fraud and begin to take myself seriously?

WORD HUNTER

     Poetry is eagle of experience—Gary Snyder

The eagle within me soars,
a word hunter searching
for the perfect metaphor,
searching for the crumbs of words,
while incautious mice fuel my rage,
honing my experience,
until I breathe the fire of the stars.
I am at home beneath a relentless sun.
My job is done when I find the right words
to put the sun to sleep,
and when the darkness comes,
my dream-self glides into the minds
of those who no longer sleep.

10/19
Higham Family School

added 11/17

Inverness Fire

Yesterday I spent quite some time working on my obsessively long prose poem to my neighbor, Sonny Lowe, Obsession, after I returned from the Mendocino Woodlands. Like the Inverness fire, it's growing by leaps and bounds and shows no sign of ending.

I haven't had a chance to write in my journal since I came back from the Mendocino Woodlands. I came home to the big Inverness fire and to O.J. Simpson's acquittal. There was little news to be had in the deep woods, but on Tuesday we did get the news of O.J. Simpson. The woods couldn't filter that injustice out, it was so atrocious. 

Meanwhile 12,000 acres of Bishop Pine went up in smoke as the Pope gave mass in the pouring New Jersey rain, drenched believers filling the football field.

Last night I went to a party with Verona Seiter and Herman Berlandt at Zoravia Bettoil's flat in Pacific Heights, she is a Brazilian artist. Full moon over the San Francisco Bay took our breath away. A magical night.

We danced the samba, the lambada, with the Latin American ex-pats. Zoravia said I can move my hips like no other. I am flattered. I guess. She said that she thought that she could gyrate and flick her pelvis, until she saw me in action. She said every man's eyes were glued to my hips. I was wearing the ruffled tea dress from my 25th high school reunion, which helped. The Brazilian Consul wanted more than just a dance in the moonlight.

That complement coming from a Brazilian from São Paulo is a compliment indeed, but then I had reason to move like that. The more I hurt inside, the harder I danced, rejected by my neighbor Sonny and his latest skank, Pat. Because of them I am somewhat homeless, she is now living with him, invading my space with her negative energy. I can't be at my home anymore. This is why I danced so hard.

Herman and I snuck off to Bolinas on Sunday. And I tried to find out if my friends were burned out. At the American Red Cross in Point Reyes, I find Stephen Torre's name on the roster. The fire left his house standing, miraculously, since it stands atop Drakeview Estates Road, at the ridgeline. His neighbor, Van Morrison, lost everything. His place burned to the ground. Even the gold and platinum records. Bob Hamilton and I once almost bought the lot next to Van's place but there was no water.

Steve's house was listed as habitable but he did not show up for the Russian River Writers' Guild Monday night reading, nor did Kathy Evans. Oh well. I called her to see why she didn't show up for her reading, and she's having a hit histamine reaction to the world, and to the smoke. I give her the allergic saga, how works the immune system.

Meanwhile, Steve is in British Columbia thinking he has no home. I tell her it's still standing. Kathy can't believe it. Stress levels threaten to undo us all. No way to reach Steve.

Anyway, to catch up on things, last Sunday afternoon, Herman and I hiked from RCA Beach to Palomarin Beach. There were very few people on the trail. We didn't realize we had hiked so far north. 

Behind the roped off area, was the fire zone. The park rangers were quite surprised to see us, saying we'd hike to a fair distance. The park is closed as the trees are still sizzling. And looters have invaded, making their mark. There are cops everywhere. The rangers rifle, a symbol for martial law.

We can't see the fire, but my voice begins to hurt by nightfall. We hiked up one creek to a waterfall. Herman, for all his 72 years, is surprisingly agile. He continues to remind me of my grandmother. How odd. How we used to go on long hikes and adventures without any real preplanning. They just happen. 

Herman too likes this spontaneous approach to dailiness, we are invincible. We spend Sunday night in his cabin on the Mesa. A nice dinner of salmon and couscous. I always take it upon myself to cook most meals, treating Herman. I suspect Verona does the same, but I like to cook for him. Maybe it's the female thing. He purchases most of the food and does the dishes, so it's a decent exchange. 

I've been managing to keep away from home because of Sonny. Which means my life is changing. I don't have my home anchor anymore. Sonny's son Nathan hardly ever visits anymore and wonders why I'm never home. I explain, it's not forever. Yesterday Nathan's mother, Cindy, came to get him, leaving Sonny and Pat alone, and I growl. 

I've taken to flipping him off whenever they drive by. Safe within the walls of my tiny cabin, I'm living between two places—my cabin, and my truck, my bags are always packed. Bolinas is my refuge, it's becoming my new home, and I am on fire, raging against betrayal, and the injustice of it all.

PRAYER FLAGS

PRAYER FLAGS

 

Once we lived along the coast, gypsies in vans, 

within spitting distance of the ocean. 

The pygmy forest was our bed, the ocean, our voice.

It's as if memory itself has turned to fiction. 

And I forgot about the sea caves lacing the bluffs. 

but I made an ink drawing, so I know I was there.

At the blowhole, the masculine sea punishes the earth. 

The sheer drop into tide pools, a mesmerizing vortex. 

Once we helped potter Sasha Makovkin unload his kiln, 

followed by a wild party of roast goat and lots of vodka,

we yelled nostrovya! beneath a full moon 

as we baptized new dinnerware fresh from the inferno. 

I once found a prophylactic wrapper wedged in the fence. 

Why not here? I envied those orgasms 

as if they still lingered in the salt air.

 

I rub shoulders with the inarticulate ghosts of memory,

and see the town through the translation of an old lens.

I pass the Mendocino Hotel, remembering long nights at the bar, 

where we gathered after readings and talked about poetry 

until closing. I want to slip back in time, 

have coffee at Café Beaujolais, but the old haunts, 

like the Loft, a water-tower bookstore—are all gone. 

Once we read poems lying down on that crazy tilted floor 

wondering if the coast winds might knock us all down.

Poets are already bent, so it mattered not. 

 

A litany of names tumbles from memory like rough beach stones: 

Bill Bradd, Leonard Cirino, Tom Robideaux, Steve Torre,

Jess River, Devreaux Baker,  Sharon Doubiago—

they were my true teachers. A reading at the McCallum House. 

Rainy Day Women: Karin Faulkner, Sharon Doubiago,

Robin Rule, Cindy Frank, Mary Norbert Körte, 

Judith Tannembaum, and Marnie Purple. Me.

Poets lending mellifluous voices to the storm.

Walking the headlands, a poem is stuck in my mouth,

so lonely, yet so lovely. But it’s a breech-birth. 

I find myself looking for Sharon's blue van, 

but it's the end of summer, she's already gone up the coast.

Burdened by the past, I can’t remember what was said,                                

But we knew all the For Sale sign was a death knell.                                    

None of us could afford the gifts in the shops,                                              

as poetry carried a vow of poverty, reverent                                                  

as prayer flags luffing in the wind. 

I learn the lesson anew: everything is lost in translation. 

Memory and poetry. Especially poetry.

 

Mendocino, 10/6/95, 

rev. 2024

Teaching Notes: Mendocino Woodlands Journal: translations, rainy day women

Mendocino Woodlands, October 6, 1995

Twenty years ago, my first boyfriend, Bob Hamilton turned me towards the bay window of Zachim's Gallery on Main Street, placed nasturtiums and yellow calendula beneath my chin, tilted my rainhat back, turned me towards my reflection in the window, and said, This is how you will look at 40 or 50. We will come back and remember this day.

I couldn't imagine my life without him, for I still believed in love. The gray sea reflected in the window, but his potters thumbs were already molding the clay of my belly. I stood in front of that bay window, and inhaled the punishing odor of nasturtiums in autumn. The sea practiced nuances of turquoise and jade beneath a cloudy sky.

Two decades later, I stand in front of that same bay window and remember what was said, and not said. In the bookstore, I take solace in fingering the book spines in the poetry section, just seeing the names of all my friends in print is comforting. I am homesick, but there is nothing much to return home to.

The other night I told Karin Faulkner I was homesick. I am teaching nearly 200 teenagers from Windsor poetry and silk painting at the Mendocino Woodlands.

Karin's presence, dinner and a beer helped to settle me. The bartender treated us at the pub. Karin and I go out to see Dangerous Minds in Fort Bragg and we are weeping, Do not go gentle. Karin said, We poets are always on the edge of tears.

I understand my students better after the movie, and regain some center by sleeping at her cabin. The last time I slept here in the pygmy forest, years ago, was with Oleg from the Ukraine.

I walk the Mendocino Headlands, no use walking the streets, I have no use for most of what fills the stores. I am not a tourist. I pass the Mendocino Hotel, and remember nights at the bar, where we all gathered after readings and talked about poetry until closing. Sharon Doubiago, Leonard Cirino, Bill Bradd, Jesse River, Devereau Baker, and Tom Robedeaux. Time was more gentle then.

I still want to sip coffee at the Café Beaujolais, but The Loft bookstore, an converted water tower, is now a bakery. Once, at The Loft, Leonard, Tom and I read poems on the crazily tilting floor. Poets are already a bit tilted, so it mattered not.

Leonard Cirino is well represented in the bookstore. I heard Tom Robideaux and Devereaux Baker split up and she went to Texas. Tom, I don't know where he went.

The For Sale sign, another death knell to the past. None of us can afford most of what's's being sold in the shops. As if poetry automatically carried its silent vow of poverty like a prayer flag against the wind. Mendocino's become too rich for most blood. People support new Irish knit sweaters with no patina of age, no shiny cuffs.

Once we lived along this coast like gypsies, sleeping within speaking distance of the ocean. We were part of the migration of artisans that began in the 1960s. The pygmy forest became our bed. Once we came up to help Sasha Makovkin unload his kiln, followed by a wild party of roast goat and vodka toasts as we baptized the new dinnerware fresh from the inferno.

Did that all really happen to me? It's as if memory itself had become fiction. And I could have forgotten all about it, and the sea caves in the middle of the bluff. but I drew a picture of it so I know I was there.

The masculine sea is pounding punishing the earth's vulva. The sheer drop into the sea astounds me. A prophylactic package is wedged in a groove on the fence railing. Why not here? I am envious of someone else's orgasms as if it still lingered in the salt air.


Walking the headlands, a poem is stuck, so alone, so lonely, yet so lovely. A breechbirth. I find myself looking for Sharon Doubiago's blue van, but it's no longer summer, she's headed up the coast.

Already I am rubbing shoulders with memory, the ghost haunting me. My eyes are doing funny things, I can only see the town as it was nearly a quarter of a century ago. The gallery where we once read poetry.

Sharon Doubiago's hair, like golden wings engulfing her face. And how her son, Danny stood there in front of their small cabin, just out of high school about to go off and play football for the Dallas Cowboys that bronze golden-haired manchild, and his slender sister, Shawn standing shyly behind him, deerlike, a carbon copy clone of her mother.

Memory is tricky for it tends to want to tell a story other than its own, and we are left with disembodied images. Ghosts.

And I am remembering the ones who stayed lost, how my childhood friend came here to lick her wounds, and raise a child. She was a friend from when horses came before boys, but later, the drugs took the reins. That all happened before the summer of love. She followed the bands who shaped the substance of a decade.

Karin's voice still seeps in from some of the old readings we gave at the McCallum House. We were the rainy day women: Karin Faulkner, Sharon Doubiago, Robin Rule, Cindy Frank, Mary Norbert Körte, Judith Tannembaum, and Marnie Purple. We were the poets lending our mellifluous voices to the wind.

Hunger gnaws at me but I deny myself food. The full moon is pulling on my blood, ambivalence choking my will. This place of uneasiness unleashes a savage, untamed and wordless poetry. 

Overburdened by memory, I am unable to capture what was said, what was remembered. Everything is always in translation. Even poetry.

Teaching Notes: Mendocino Woodlands Journal: slip of the tongue

Mendocino Woodlands, October 6, 1995

At Mendocino Woodlands, the stoner kids want to know if I've dropped acid. And I say, But of course, before I realize what I have done. Oops! I am the adult here. I say, Look at the decades I grew up in. It was different times. Jerry Garcia lived right down the road for me as did Carlos Santana.

I backpedal and preach: Now as an artist, it find it's important to have all of my brain online. He's pleased that an adult is being straightforward with him, so maybe it's not all a mistake after all.

I coax poetry and art from my students. We cover the buildings with silk paintings, self-portraits. Will I look back upon this moment 20 years from now? The ghosts of the past are whispering urgent lines, waiting for lips by which to speak. (Ironically it is true 20 years later I am looking back as I type up this note.)

I switch from Spanish to English with my students. In a polyglot of tellings, we find approximations to shape our thoughts into transmittable format. Imperfect as it is, it's all that we have to go by.

Teaching Notes: Mendocino Woodlands Journal: Learning to let go

Mendocino Woodlands, October 5, 1995

At the Mendocino Woodlands Jeff is not teaching, he is learning to let go, as we gather 200 ninth graders and staff, to bond, and to create a community. We are a disembodied, homeless high school lost in the woods.

Without a home, we come to the redwoods, a place where Jeff once lived, and worked, and we come here to do work, to build a community, a tribe, while he tries to forget what connects him to that hospital bed in the burn ward where his stepbrother pays the price for a drink, with his life. The nurses warned Jeff that the 10th day is always the worst, that's when the infection sets in. He counts the days with minute precision.

Jeff chooses his students, plays frisbee, does bunk patrol, he emcees, he runs the camp with the benevolent hand, never revealing the anguish he must face. He had said to me earlier, I might as well go where I am most useful, with the kids. I hate all that waiting. What good is it? He waits for the final phone call from the hospital to bring him the news.

We talk about our past, our families, our ancestors and we paint self-portraits. I cover the side of the lodge with portraits. The wall is becoming the focal point for each student, who brings a friend over to see the latest developments.

We cover the outside of the entire massive south wall with silk. The great silk wall of student faces glistens luminous in the early morning light, we are bonding. Students tell me of their secrets and write them down. One student from South Africa learns to compare the good life, supported by dark hands, whether black or Mexican. Another writes about the addicted father. The issues of abandonment arises again and and again.

They talk about all the houses they've lived in, the house we call home, and the ones we still dream of as home. I learned of the story of the boy whose father kidnapped him, took him to Yugoslavia, until the war force them home. He wears a Stetson hat, writes of secrets, he compares it to government. Always we deal with what passes for truth, and what we know not to be true. Subtext and context.

All of humanity's atrocities are manifest in this small tribal gathering in the deep woods. We share the stories, we bond together, while Jeff is learning to let go.

Teaching Notes: Mendocino Woodlands Journal, 3 Oct. OJ Simpson

Mendocino Woodlands, October 5, 1995

During class, despite the fact that we're nearly completely cut off from the world, we learned that O.J. Simpson was acquitted. The shock wave goes through the group. Nicole, my name is Nicole… said a student. He ought to be behind bars. Someone else said Nicole's parents have custody of the children. Imagine believing that O.J. Simpson murdered your daughter and now he wants the children back? 

Tonight my voice begins to fail me; in the business of teaching, it's an occupational hazards. To lose one's voice. A metaphor for the poet attempting to restore authentic voice to her students. I need to protect my throat more. Only two more classes left. It's been an intense week.

The great silk wall nears completion, it is stunning to see so many self-portraits on silk, each one so individualistic. Most of the poetry that the students wrote, was worthless but what to expect with only one session in ninth grade? Developing the poetic voice takes time. I had to let go of my expectations. 

I'm having to fight with kids in order to get them to work, but I also need to realize that I don't have a teacher backup, and I'm holding their attention for three hours on and on my own. It's different than teaching at the Luther Burbank Center because kids want to be there. We are all reeling under the verdict. Something has murdered trust. These children I teach, we are one tribe. The poetry of rage over injustice is on their lips.

West Marin journal

After working all afternoon and into the night on the Nicasio house, we call it quits at midnight and head down to the Papermill Creek Saloon. No other way to stop this working except to physically remove ourselves from the house. There's that much work to be done.

We cleared the living room and nearly all the boxes sorting and discarding the night. The dining room was filled with Sinead, David and Bill's staff. Upstairs is a disaster but the kitchen's coming together and the living room looks tolerant tolerably cluttered. We cleared off the porch. That trash heap growth by leaps and bounds. I unpacked and washed a lot of dishes I even have dishpan hands.

Just as I'm getting the urge to call Sonny this morning as I have to babysit Nathan later, the phone rings, it's his his voice that floods my ears and asks what we've accomplished. Slowly he learns about me and my family. Says, You're never at a loss for things to do from what we've I've noticed about you. And I say. I hate to be bored. There's enough to do here to keep us occupied for years. 

Then there's Forest Knolls, another disaster. We chitchat about cars etc. The place that is so distinct in my mind, is a continuous blur in his. I identify places solely by my relationships with them. And I tell him he needs to come down here sometime and visit.

It's funny how I've always felt like an outsider in Nicasio, like I don't belong, but our families have had ties here to this place for more than 50 years. Make that 100 years, if you count Forest Knolls. I have two uncles by marriage who grew up here. As we clean this old farm house, more memories flood me, insignificant ones. What I am missing is the history, the thread that ties it all together. 

On the bookshelf I find a pamphlet on the church—St. Mary's. But why didn't I remember the name? Surely it was called something else? I find out that the name was changed in 1977 back to its original name from our Lady of Loretro. Ha ha. I haven't lost my marbles.

A photo of Father John Connery has me in tears for I'm missing my grandmother so much. 

Last night as we sat around the bar, we realized we were the third-generation to get toasted at the Papermill Creek Saloon. Or, rather, the Forest Knolls Lodge, as it was called in those days.

We talked of the other family watering hole. Spec McAuliffe's bar, aka the Lagunitas Lodge. Frank McAuliffe was a larger than life character. I explain to my cousins the interior floor plan of a bar that I haven't set foot in in 20+ years—before I was even legally able to drink. Now all that remains is a charred parking lot. A major piece of history, gone forever. 

I keep wondering are there any books on Marin history? As I teach Elderhostel, I'm struck by the fact that I have so little information on West Marin, especially on the Indians. There is a need.

MEASURING THE DAYS

As I wend my way along backroads

to my cousin Sinead's house in Nicasio, 

I feel lines surge through me, and I let them go. 

Something about the measuring of days 

that brings me closer to poetry. 

23 Sept 1995

Babysitting on the Equinox

To my surprise, I spent the night at Sonny's—I went out with Marsha Connell, and when I got home I called Nathan to check in on him, who was being babysat by a friend of Sonny's. But a half hour later, Nathan called me to pick him up, and bring him home. We snuggled on the couch talking about random stuff and then we fell asleep.

Sunny came home from a gig after 3 AM, and muttered something about us sleeping with the light on, douses the light and crawls into Nathan's bed. Almost like old times. 

I haven't been in Sonny's cabin since mid July, and I said I wouldn't visit, unless things improved. Not that they have. But the heart is ever hopeful. I drew my line in the sand. And stood behind it. Nearly 2 months now I've managed to keep my distance. 

Sonny fixes me coffee in the morning, talks about how he ran into another of Cindy's strange friends. He says she systematically burns them all one by one until they kick her out. soon she'll have no place to go to. He told her she couldn't stay in his house anymore. 

He said, If I thought it could do some good to improve her situation I would wouldn't mind, but it doesn't. 

Poor Nathan witnessing this: his mother's degradation, her falling apart. His story is so much like mine. Addictive parents. My heart aches for him. No wonder we cling to each other like burrs. I know our deep connection makes Sonny jealous. I'm his father, he says. As if that could take the place of mother complex. 

Equinox 23 September

Mother Substitute

Nathan asked me asks me to babysit him tonight, I'm startled, and mumbled yes, of course. But then I remembered I had to emcee at Barnes & Noble, so he joins me.

Sonny goes off to practice at 6 PM p.m. and we snuggle in. It's been weeks since we've spooned. Sweet little boy kisses me on the cheek. Nathan tells me Sonny and Pat aren't seeing each other anymore. This part I had already figured out.

I wanted to ask Nathan, did they fight before or after our talk, but I didn't. it seems like their fight came after our big blow-up. He describes a huge phone fight. So I'm still a wrench in the works, good. But I'm not going to ask Nathan any questions. Too inappropriate for words. Nathan should not be a part of this messy adult affair.

Nathan is ever hopeful. Against all odds, he is busy orchestrating his own parent trap, as it were. The heart wants what it wants. A boy wanting a mother substitute. I get that. Story of my life too.

9/21/1995

David Bromige Reading, Barnes & Noble, photo

Tonight I emceed a reading at Barnes & Noble for David Bromige who opened his set with a dyslexic prose piece. Lines he'd snagged from his dyslexic friends. Being dyslexic, I'm fixing all his typos automatically in my head.

We dyslexics always mishear things, and are endlessly entertained.

Once, 15 years ago, when I was a new student, I blurted out to David Bromige, Would you trust a poet in your mouth? I no longer remember what I was trying to say, I was so mortified, only that David said aha! A poem! And so it was. But I wanted to crawl under the desk.

After the reading tonight David signs bookmarks, broadsides, and his books. I hand him a bookmark. The pen barely works. He signs the books, complaining. I hand him another pen, and  misunderstood, thinking he'd called me a mensch, when he said, Don't mention it. So he signs the bookmark, From a real mensch.

I hand back the book he'd handed to me earlier, as he had signed that one To Maureen, as well, except it's not my book. I ask, Are you giving it to me? He says, No, I can't even afford to offer that. We are coming to a solution. Let's see, he says. It costs $12. Tell you what, I'll give you my copy. 

But when David flips the book open, he discovers it's not his book, but Barnes & Noble's copy. He goes, Oh God, now what do I do?

Adds just kidding, after my name, and signs it for Greg Sabourin who works as the community relations coordinator at Barnes & Noble. Only now the book says For Greg, with love, replete with little swirly loops. He hands the autographed book to Greg who looks very puzzled, and asks Whose book is it anyway? I'm not buying it, am I?

David slaps his forehead. Greg says he'll get Barnes & Noble to remainder it. I ask, Can I have it anyway? But, he says, it has my name on it. Oh God, this is getting complicated. Celia, David's wife says, it is worth more now than it then it was first signed. 

Meanwhile, David's writing a long disclaimer as to what happened to the title page and why it has lost all its value. Greg, who merely wanted David to autograph it for the bookstore, meanwhile has remaindered the book, and then he hands it over to me, and I say, A real mensch. 

The name of the book that I didn't even want to begin with: Men, Women and Vehicles. Now I have two copies and I can’t give either one away. Driving me crazy. 

Ironically, earlier I wanted Greg to hold it for me, as I wanted another title, a Black Sparrow book, but it was very expensive. So I got David's book for free. Oh well, Greg, or Barnes & Noble owes me $60 for emceeing for May and June, apparently I am being paid in books signed to other people.

I figure the books are perk. Yesterday I had bought David's Tiny Courts, used at Copperfield's. I just wanted David to sign his bloody book, and also the copy of Manaña in Paradise. After that fiasco, he scribbled something unintelligible, and I can't read it. Speaking of dyslexia.

As a closure for the reading, I had asked David to read from Mañana in Paradise. One of my favorite Bromige books, I like the poem about the cars resting on cinderblocks in a driveway.

Greg reassures me that I'll get paid for May & June—mañana.

September 21, 1995

After Hearing Gary Snyder Read on the Autumn Equinox, photos

September 20: After teaching Sonoma County History at Elderhostel at Silverpenny Farms, I went into Copperfield's Books to get more material on California Indians—Miwok, and Pomo. There were posters of Gary Snyder all over the store, people purchasing tickets for tonight's benefit event sponsored by the Sonoma County Land Trust.

I look over at a bookshelf, Gary Snyder's in the house. What's funny, is that everybody's importantly confiding to their neighbors—You know I heard Snyder read at... blah blah blah. And no one even knows it's him—practically standing right in front of them. It's as if he were a ghost. I can see him just fine. But apparently no one else can. They carry on. We smirk.

Gary's aged quite a bit since I last saw him. He's more washed out. I went up introduced myself again, hating to have to use those tags. I said by way of introduction, "I was the one who took the photo of you and Will Staple at the Maui Zendo....

Gary, says Oh yes! And reminisces about Aitken Roshi, trying to pinpoint this date. I say, It was the Deep Ecology Conference. He says, you look about the same. How are you? (A non-sequitor.) It's been ten years or more since Maui.

I asked Gary about the event last Saturday evening at San Geronimo Valley Art Center. When I drove by, there were hundreds of cars parked along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It was a zoo. I asked, So, was it a benefit? He said, No it was an event in honor of Kenneth Rexroth. We hiked up to his cabin where he used to write at, and me dictate.…

I interrupted Gary because he'd already slipped into his teacher mode. I said, I grew up there. But Gary's on a roll, he's teaching me about the park, etc. I blurt, My grandfather knew Kenneth Rexroth, but Snyder drones on… And Samuel P. Taylor Park, he says, There's a place called Devil's Gulch… I say, Yes, I know it well, my grandfather used to hike over Mt. Barnabe to visit him…

By the third interruption, I'm frustrated, and Gary finally begins to listen, realizing that I already knew all that information. A regular case of coals to Newcastle. I don't tell him the reason why I became a writer was because when he had read a poem about my ridges, from Manzanita, at Olney Hall, College of Marin, and got the directions all wrong, that was when I began to write. I said, I can do that. And so I did.

I wanted the new stuff— like the how and the why…what it was like to be back in Devil's Gulch after so many years. The cabin is long gone. I wanted a real conversation, not tapes on autopilot.

Perhaps I'm a bit put off by Gary because he continually is cold to those he doesn't know well, especially the women. I remember being hurt by his curtness a few years back, and I told Will Staple about it, who immediately turned around and reacquainted me with Snyder. Snyder suddenly was all very warm and receptive—especially since Philip Whalen, whom I'd known for years, was there, warmly greeting me with enthusiasm.

I guess it all boils down to the company you keep. I hate the fact that I even have to attach myself to men poets in order to get remembered. Where are the women on the Bearshit Trail, indeed? Snyder is a cold fish but we manage a few more civilities. He said he was just browsing around, checking out this book, and turns back to the bookstacks. I step out into sunlight, crispness in the air. First day of Fall.

After the poetry reading, Gary was available for book signing. I'd already bought Axe Handles to be signed, but I couldn't find my other books, some were first editions. We chitchatted a bit, and that was that. Awkward. I'm tired of trying to connect with Gary Snyder.

21st of September: Last night, some 300 to 400 people must've turned up to hear Gary Snyder read at Analy High School. I got there at 6:30 and already it was filling fast. They delayed the reading to get everyone seated, even in the balcony. I forgot my journal and resorted to writing on scraps, notes to the unconscious.

Gary read from No Nature: New and Selected Poems. It incorporates almost all his early work. Awesome collection. He opened with a poem I'd never heard before, Song of the Taste. Very erotic. I like to the anecdotal stories prefacing each of the poems, I like the context. Hay for the Horses, an old favorite, Manzanita, and Riprap. He reads from Cold Mountain. Li Po is invoked. Axe Handles—Fenceposts. Word Basket Woman, a poem I use in the classroom when I teach poetry to kids.

A clear, attentive mind
has no meaning but that
which sees is truly seen.
—from Piute Creek

He said the impetus of For/From Lou came from a dream. The circumstances of Lew's death are as follows: Lou Welch disappeared back in 1973 in the Sierra Nevadas. He was he was camping on my land. He didn't come to dinner that night. We went searching for him and found the suicide note in his van. We searched but found nothing, never a word, never a bone. He had told us that he was going to do it.

Now, 12-year-old boys are still searching for Lew's a skull. He's become the friendly ghost poet. For Lew Welch in a Snowfall, also came from a dream, said Snyder.

He talked about writing prose, how it's hard work. With prose, you have to flagellate yourself. He says, It's a call to arms. He says, Don't let right-wingers steal the word, or ethics from us.

He tells us creation stories about Turtle Island, the enduring name, not USA, not America, he talks about the longview. He told a wonderful story about friends of the LA River. A bunch of poets and musicians thought that the river was lonely, all culverted up, so one night they all went down to the river to read it some poems, They played it music to cheer it up.

Word got out, folks began joining them for the readings, and they found themselves organizing into action committee. When the Sacramento folks heard about it, they came calling too. Now local neighborhoods are turning their houses around, and turning everything around to face the river. 

(See my four pages of notes)

After the reading Gary was available for book signing. I brought Axe Handles again but I couldn't find my other books, they were first editions too. Snyder was very warm to me on the second meeting. he drew me a picture of a man on the title page, and on No Nature, he wrote: To Maureen – fellow poet… closure.

Lee, who's a rare book dealer, says that signature is worth something because it's to me, and it refers to me as a poet. I also had Gary sign Atomic Ghost, he had two poems. 

I told him I put on a reading for the anthology and that I was in it too. I gave Gary copies of Mother Earth Journal, as he has a poem in it called Word Basket Woman, and I suspect that he sent it to us before it was published. I also gave him the complete Mother Earth collection. He bowed and thanked me.

I asked if he still wanted a collection of my kid poetry books too and he said: I do, I do. He has several of my anthologies already. He says when he gets a big stack of children's poetry, he wants to do an essay on it. I tell him it's sorely needed. 

Earlier, Lee Perron told me how he had given Snyder a book of his, only to find it in a used bookstore with his inscription on it, weeks later. We discussed how Snyder can be so cold just like that! Turns out his mother lived in Petaluma he used to come visit her on his motorcycle. It sounds like she might've been a bit crazy. Anyway, the relationship wasn't good.

I asked Gary if he'd like me to sign my books too, he says, Please do. I write: To Gary, may the poems of the children continue to teach us. Should I put his last name? Oh well. Lee has some books too. I introduce them, saying Lee started California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County and that he was my mentor teacher. Their conversation opens up as they talk about CPITS. Good

However the autograph line is long, all the way down the hall—and I had taken cuts with Lee who was near the front. Upon leaving I ask, Gary: Are you still at Kitkitdizze? Gary replies, Yes. I say, If there are any worthwhile photos I'll send you some. We make our goodbyes, the people in line are angry with us, but Gary kept us talking.

It was a complete turnaround from the coldness of this afternoon, I remarked to Lee. He says: I believe Gary was genuinely quite touched by tonight's reception, and the fact that you had his poems marked in Atomic Ghost, end that you had read them at the book party… Somehow I had touched the man behind behind the coldness. 

We agreed that the public setting probably had something to do with it, and he was also on his best behavior. I said, I hated having to continually reintroduce myself as the photographer… That I wasn't into hero worship, I wanted to meet him on equal footing. Keeping in mind how many thousands of people he meets in a year—and I only see him once every 3 to 5 years. 

When talking with Lee, Gary began dropping my name as if he knew me, I was no longer the stranger. Earlier, I pointed out my name on the book, This Body is to Ask, for spelling purposes only. He said: That's the only way I know how to spell it. There are few Maureens that come through the autograph lines, I daresay.

9/20-21/1995
transcribed & edited 11/6/2015

THE LAND OF STANDING STONES

I come from the land of standing stones
I come from the land of blue people

who tends to beneath the moon.
The last days of winter are drawing to a close,
what did they dream up?
What dreams dwelled within their hearts?
I am my grandmother's last hope, 

living in a cabin in the woods, 

an artist, and the rain coming down.
She always said It's a soft Irish day.

She, who bore eight children 

and a husband who who hid behind history 

compressed between the lines of the book.
And the whiskey soothed his troubled heart.
She wanted solitude more than anything else.

My mother chose the artist's path, 

but the jealous birds
called her unseasonably home. 

Tomorrow is the equinox,

the last days of winter,
the first days of spring.
My mother, not yet dead six months.
I am still searching for the appropriate path
to mourn her loss but the tangled web
of deceit and neglect is still too great.

I was a premature baby 

born at eight months.
They said I was a love child. 

As a euphemism for
she, who came too soon. 
Was I wanted? or a surprise?
My mother said I was wanted, I was loved.
Then she left me on the doorstep.

I carry my mother's name. 

I am the small one of the sea,
She always signed her letters, Jen 

instead of love, taken from the Chinese, 

it meant love, but more than love.
She was seeking answers 

other than what the family provided.
And left me behind, with my grandmother,
as she searched the city streets.

Once I was the Pictish dancer 

I dreamed of moonlight bathing each stone.
I turned into the whispering secrets of trees.
I became the pathway of the stars.

Sometimes I think I can remember
the thoughts of my ancestors, 

a turn of ankle, or phrase,
and it transports me.
I wish for more stories to find me.
I am always hungry for more.

A neighbor's boy child,
a child who is not my own,
but he has chosen me,
too is seeking the mother.
We sit on the couch eating snacks,
it's a rainy day, the wind is howling.

We each seek a solution
to our lost parentage. 

But so much genetic history
is mindlessly passed on, 

like generations of mayflies.

March 20 1995
rev. slightly 15/11/15

Mudd’s Cafe, Herman Berlandt, Mother Earth Journal, Maureen Hurley

Montana Journal, returning home

Last night I said to Lee Perron: When I was in Montana, I was looking for change, because I deserved better than what I was getting. He asked if I went to John Oliver Simon's going away party, and I said no I didn't want to go because he wanted me to, so he could be forgiven. I'm tired of it.

Our last meeting and phone conversation was fine and I was satisfied to let it go at that. I'd already said goodbye to John. Then I tell Lee: if something happens to John on this trip, a worst-case possible scenario for nine months in South America, then I would have to be satisfied with our last conversation.

John's party wasn't necessarily going to make any difference in my life, or of my memories of him. It would be awkward for me to be there.

Lee asks: Is it dangerous where John's going? I tell him South America is always dangerous, there's always an element of risk. We've gotten into a couple potential life-threatening situations in our own travels together. 

Lee is tired and doesn't respond when I say I sound pretty heartless. He says the signs are all there. Time for me to fast again. I guess I should've been a monk, but I'm an atheist.

Lee wanted to know about my friend Lee Evans, and Patrick? who studied with Richard Hugo and James Wright. He wants to know if Patrick had any memorabilia of theirs. Lee's a rare bookseller so he's always hunting for poetic ephemera.

When I first met Patrick, I didn't like his demeanor, or his words. Oil and water. But when he got on stage and told his life story, I was moved to tears. Whether by accident or design, I was transported into his world. 

He was also also noticeably changed toward us afterwards, and was more accessible and approachable. He wants a copy of my poem, Lighting the Electric Fire, that I had read to the group. He says it's unusual to find such sustained maturity that stays with you all through the poem, and continues to resonate long after the poem is over. 

I also give him a copy of my children's poetry collection, This Body is to Ask. (Garbled text.....) I can't breathe. I do all these crazy things and see very little return. I personally get exhausted and have trouble nourishing myself. 

September 12, 1995

Need to find original and decode garbled text.. who is Patrick? I must've been referring to a Montana poet.

• Montana Journal, returning home
• Montana Journal: Helena
• Montana Journal: flying over Mount Diablo enroute ...

Montana Journal: Helena

Journal Entry: Sept. 8, 1995

Helena, Montana. I arrived last night, near 11 PM. It's drizzling still this morning. my wasp sting's finally gone down ,but the itch is driving me mad. l swig lots of Benadryl to keep the swelling down. It's the length of my forearm and is still feverish.

I'm feeling pretty melancholic and am lonely for a mate. In Utah I looked in the mirror and I saw a pretty woman who's beginning to show her age a bit, and I wondered if things were ever going to improve, or am I destined to be alone like this forever. I feel pretty cut off from Sonny and it's certainly deliberate on my part. 

Wednesday afternoon I returned from Bolinas and Sonny came up for a few minutes. I was in an extremely bad mood due to my wasp sting. I don't want him near me when his ex-girlfriend's here. Obviously I'm not taking this reunion well—especially since I know the pattern. In the morning he comes to chat and tells me he wants to reckon up. He still owes me for babysitting but has to pick up his paycheck.

I didn't bother to tell him I'll be gone by afternoon. In fact, I went to the airport to two hours early. How is that for avoidance? Nathan said he wanted to go to Bolinas with me, but his mom kept him until Sunday. I didn't know if Sonny bothered to invite them or not.

My feelings were pretty hurt by Sonny's coldness on the phone. I feel trapped before. I keep thinking what could be more erotic than helping Sonny to raise his son?

I sing, treat me like a friend, treat me like a lover, don't keep treating me the way you do. A song fragment comes unbidden as I'm driving to the airport 

Two and a half hours at Oakland, and then I'll be in Utah. 

At the Montana arts Council meeting, waiting for it to begin. Everyone knows each other, except me, so it makes it difficult to make contact. people come up to me and introduce themselves, but I'm awkward and shy.

I have insomnia  xxxx (garbled text) Will I be able to sleep?

One artist I'm rooming with, Claire, says: I used to call my husband Shotsy now I just want to shoot him. I laugh. I was concerned because several of us had been assigned to this room and I came back only to find two strange men in our room. We seem to be triple booked in Room 310. Party on!

We giggled and comment on how progressive the Montana Arts Council is. But five people in a twin-bed room might be pushing it. Is is the Arts Council trying to save money, or just taking introductions a step further?

There's a whole gaggle of us trying to figure out the keys. The woman at the front desk gave them our keys. It really was funny. I keep laughing about it as I try to fall asleep.

9/8/1995

• Montana Journal, returning home
• Montana Journal: Helena
• Montana Journal: flying over Mount Diablo enroute 

Montana Journal: flying over Mount Diablo enroute to Helena

Flying over Mount Diablo enroute to Salt Lake City and Helena, Montana, for the Montana Arts Council meeting. The Mormon Tabernacle shines in the Oakland Hills, like a crystal palace.

I stock up on chocolate and drink a double latte because my next stop is a long layover in Salt Lake City, the idea no alcohol, no caffeine, or chocolate suddenly has me craving all the necessities at once. A good thing sex isn't banned. I'd have to join the mile-high club, then.

The coastal mountain, Mt. Diablo rises up 4000 feet from sea level, with impressive girth. We're flying over the Oroville Dam, and the Feather River, crossing the Sierras, they are like unsheathed knives slicing the sky. I can see Mono Lake, and Buck's Lake.

There's a fire burning in the Sierras. The canyons to the south are filled with smoke. Looks like King's Canyon. In vain I search for Yosemite. What is that next deep canyon below Oroville?

Mono Lake has numerous ancient, and a few not so ancient, shorelines. They're like stair steps leading down to a jeweled eye. Once it was double its present size, and steamers crossed it. Flocks of birds blotted out the sun. An ancient lake, drained by Los Angeles' water lust. Dying slowly, inch by inch. The eye of the desert is disappearing like the Aral Sea.

The block fault mountains of Nevada's Humboldt Basin give way to the snowy Rockies. And the Great Salt Lake. More ancient shorelines. Bonneville Salt Flats looks like a field of snow. I don't know if I like clouds more from above or below. Magnificent either way. I can see them reflecting in the lake. As above, so below.

We descend to the Great Salt Lake, the plane kicking like a mule in the turbulence, shafts of sunlight, and dark shadows divide the ground into patterns.

I run into fellow CPITS poets Darryl Chinn from Arcata, and Susie Terence from San Francisco, in the terminal. We laugh. We're all three going to be Montana Arts Council artists in residence, how cool is that?

September 7, 1995

• Montana Journal, returning home
• Montana Journal: Helena
• Montana Journal: flying over Mount Diablo enroute 

Bolinas Journal: Labor Day at the crossroads

Labor Day in Bolinas. A parade and drum circle at the crossroads. A chalk circle mandala.

Yesterday, we went rowing in the lagoon. Herman and Verona were content to be bickering passengers. Herman was finding arguments and everything Verona said. As usual I was the one rowing against the tide and wind.

The lagoon and the creek were beautiful. It's good to periodically get a view of the land from the water, it puts everything into perspective. Houses diminish, the streets, the cars, the people become invisible—even the pounding hammers lost their barking.

Today's the big Bolinas Labor Day street party and I'm alone here.

Verona and Herman went back to Novato early and I was too tired to return home to cook dinner. I read until 10PM and nodded off to sleep. I only had a 12-hour day, so I had lots of wild dreams and slept until nine AM. It's unusual for me to sleep 11 hours unless something's wrong.

It's as if the ache has settled in my hips, I don't think it's depression, it's more like physical contact. The outside and inside worlds colliding.

September 4, 1995 Bolinas

Bolinas Journal: Labor Day Weekend

Journal Entry: September 1, 1995 Bolinas

Last night, over for wine, I read some new work to Herman Berlandt who said I have a very distinctive voice and style. He notes the image, voice, language, emotion, intellect, philosophy, social theology, even political, the layers I try to include.

Yesterday on my way to Bolinas, I stopped off at Point Reyes, at the vet's office to see if I could get a prescription for Panalog, and worm medicine from Dr. Fisher. I'd written a note explaining how I had lanced and treated the cat's leg wound, having massaged the puss out from between the muscles. I irrigated it three times a day with HCl. I kept wanting to write it in shorthand but I can't remember the periodic table formula and confuse it with the formula for bleach.

So I knocked on the door though it was 6 PM. A cleaning woman answered, and I handed her the note for Dr. Fisher. Then I said disbelievingly, Debbie? She looked dumb was about to close the door on me, then changed her mind, saying she had changed her name.

She said she was known these days as Nina. Now she had to explain to the two younger women who this Debbie was, yes. And she nearly tried to shut the door on my foot and the past as well.

Debbie Howard, who was a friend from my childhood, and I talk about old home week. We gossip for a good two hours. She and Sarah live in Inverness. Their brother Guy lives in the city and has two kids. One's going to Harvard like his grandfather, ken, and their little sister, Jennifer, too has a couple of kids.

When I got to Bolinas I told Patrick Flynn the stories, and he wondered what the moon was in. We seem to have all these crazy meet-ups while the moon is in Sagittarius according to the Bolinas Hearsay News

My horror-scope reports an adventurous road trip was about to happen, and so it did. All the way to Bolinas. Yes, I'm feeling lighter, Jupiter is the planetary ruler of Sagittarius. Gemini and the moon squares that Virgo symbolic fire. We walk down to the Bolinas Library and dance to grunge music until the cows come home, I can barely make it back up to the top of the Mesa.

_______

With powdered lime I purify the outhouse, dusting it white, the piles of shit slowly climbing towards the toilet lid. Herman says lime is the secret, but the stench greets us anyway. I admire that ongoing whitewashed sculpture.

There's something to be said how we daily contribute our communion. There is beauty even in shit, the layered rosettes of toilet paper bloom against mountains of dung, and the sun warms our legs as we sit and survey the garden of what we will later eat. The bowels letting go of the burden of our eating existence.

Verona goes over her lines as Eleanor of Aquitaine. I listened to her pain, the irony, he who imprisoned her, loved her. But he was meant to rule, so he imprisoned her for waging war against her husband.

Herman in Verona ask about my love life. I have no ready answers to give, for I created the distance between us. Vorona asks if it's better to have meaningless sex with someone you don't love, or live in a sexless country.

Herman says the distance between Sonny and me has more to do with that sexual potential, of what might happen, rather than a lack of desire. Verona tells me if he keeps going back to the ex-girlfriend, and has been picking fights, he's afraid of commitment, so the trouble between us is sexual though there's no sex between us. Therein lies the rub.

What would I do with my life if there was no possibility that I would fail? Herman asks me. And I can't get past that domestic laundry of wanting to be with someone, be it Sonny and Nathan, knowing there'd be times when I'd go crazy.

But if I had the option of having both the domestic and the artistic life, what would I choose? It's more than what I have to give, give up my art even when it doesn't come to me easily? I remain loyal to it.

Herman notes that I'm not producing much these days, but it's strong and succinct. What would happen if I was able to live my dream? Well, the element of surprise always arises, how would I survive? Words like "but" and "how" are open to interpretation.