On the Road: A Record of Changes

BEING THE ADVENTURES OF A SEMI-NOMADIC POLYMATH ARTIST, MUSICIAN & WRITER
WANDERING THESE UNITED STATES IN AN ONGOING QUEST FOR PERFECT MOMENTS

Essays, poems, and collected ruminations are being collated and compiled in a parallel journal at Dragoncave. I never know what I'm going to write about next, so if you desire to keep up with what I'm writing and thinking about, you really need to read both journals. Some overlap may occur without prior warning; sorry about that.

Remember that everything happens in the present moment, right here, right now, and that nothing lingers.

This is only a record of changes.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

This Road Journal has been on hiatus.

It has not been abandoned.

I was several months behind updating this Road Journal in February of 2009, and was just beginning to catch up, when I lost several months of work in a serious computer crash. Much of that data has been recovered, but the remainder of the year 2009 has been extremely difficult for me, for various personal reasons, and I am only beginning to catch up, now, in autumn of 2009.

New updates will be added to the Road Journal regularly from now on, as I am able, hopefully until I'm all caught up.

I apologize for the long hiatus with no new updates, and to anyone who believed that this project had been abandoned.

—AD, October 2009

899. 3 September 2008, Tor House & Hawk Tower, Carmel, CA

The house built by poet Robinson Jeffers, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, hewn out of the native granite, at Carmel-by-the-Sea.

The Beauty of Things

To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things—earth, stone and water,
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars—
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts, frenzies and passions,
And unhuman nature its towering reality—
For man's half dream; man, you might say, is nature dreaming, but rock
And water and sky are constant—to feel
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas,
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.

—Robinson Jeffers

Once again, passing through Carmel, CA, I drove by and paid my respects to Hawk Tower and Tor House, built by poet Robinson Jeffers. This Monterey and Big Sur landscape, his adopted home and source and wellspring inspiration, root of much of his nature-based imagery and observation, remains a soulful point along a beautiful coastline. Now maintained by the Tor House Foundation, the buildings are both a memorial and a continuing inspiration; if you're ever driving by, and feel like undertaking a poetic pilgrimage into the world of a difficult, brilliant poet, I highly recommend a visit.

Tor House

If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.

—Robinson Jeffers

898. 3 September 2008, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, CA

crows caw in trees
around my resting place—
morning alarms

Stellar's Jay. Big Sur State Park, CA

I find myself reluctant to start my day today. A little bit of anxiety? I’m in no hurry. I don’t have to drive 500 miels today, only 100 or so, with plenty of stops along the way. I want to be leisurely and slow. But now I’m up, so I’ll make tea. No hurry.

897. 2 September 2008, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, CA

After several days of respite and fun in Paso Robles—wine tastings, during which I found some very good wines; I’m taking a few bottles home with me; good meals, good company, listening to music—I have moved on up the coast. I needed to rest and recuperate after the first part of the trip, and all the angst I went through for a few days. I left Paso Robles circa 2pm, and have spent most of the day ambling up the coastal highway, not pushing very hard, stopping a lot for photography and video.

I spent a lot of time at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in the late afternoon, one of my favorite places here. Then I drove on up here to Big Sur, a little further north, to find a campsite. I set up the tent, then went back down to Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP to photograph the sunset, gold over the calm waters under cloudless skies. I also pulled into several roadside turnouts, those little scenic vista turnouts they have along the coastal highway here, and made more still photographs and video.

Now I have a campfire going. I just finished dinner—ham steak, rice, a glass of pinot grigio—and am sipping tea and writing by candlelight and firelight.

Not a very long day, nonetheless I’m sore and tired and looking forward to bedding down. This campground is remarkably rather quiet, considering it’s pretty full. I’ve camped next to a small stream, and even though there’s a group of young men—bicyclists doing a long tour ride, I think—camped next door, what I mostly hear is the water’s rush, crickets, the breeze in the trees. If I look up I can see the stars through gaps in the trees.

The sickle moon was in the sky just after sunset, brightening as the sky purpled and blued, after the reds and golds of sunset itself.

calm ocean mirror
reflects the setting sun—
the sickle moon

It’s been a nice respite. Now I’m back to traveling. I have plans for the rest of this trip, but I also have flexibility. (Did I leave some little things behind at Paso? I think I did.)

The campfire is flickering. I went over to the bathroom before going to sleep. The neighbors have all turned in. I’ve set my alarm for morning. (I can always sleep in, though.) I’ve taken my pants off in the evening cool, and am sitting bottomless at the table, writing. Ah, comfort. I have plans tomorrow to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then only as far as Santa Cruz, and after that a night at Pescadero. So there’s no hurry necessary.

Some loud people just pulled in, but they’re across the way, and I can probably just ignore them. A family setting up late, after dark.

the campfire illumines the undersides of trees
looking up again, I see the stars