On being told that a man had complained because he hadn’t learned anything in his travels, Socrates replied: “That’s because he took himself with him”.

Changing Temples – Traveling In History
The Travelogue Blog

This is an unusual Travelogue in that it is about real travel but also about the Psychology of Travel, the History and Myth in and of Travel, the Philosophy of Travel. It is intended as a Travelogue in the tradition of Montaigne, Tavernier, Chateaubriand, and countless others one can identify from the 16th, 17th, and other Centuries. It is also an exploration of the Metaphors latent in Travel – metaphors that not only inform the history one comprehends before one’s eyes, but also informs that internal history, which, as Socrates noted, shapes what one learns by shaping the essentials of one’s supposed “freedom” of travel experience on a day by day basis.

Fundamental to the honesty necessary in such an undertaking is some exploration of the compulsion to record the experience. Admittedly, it goes deeper than just recording, than attempting a translation of experiences into a grand and oh so new metaphor for a grand and not so New Age. The very heart of the matter finds one foraging amongst fundamental needs. Those needs are hard to grapple with, for they may be weaknesses, they may be vanity, or they may be that always lurking ego. Whether weaknesses or vanity or whatever else, I know precisely what the fundamental driver is. In the depths of my psyche at least is a longing to want to leave an history that lasts somewhat beyond the perishableness of memory. That is why this Travelogue involves the philosophy of the soul. Some leave children, some leave the grandest of adventures that change or cheapen history itself, some leave multi-volume works on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. My honesty is that I think I will substitute pretending I’ll actually get close to doing anything even remotely approaching a grand contribution to History by writing this travelogue about traveling “in” it.

Perhaps by vicariously walking through the historic, I can translate the vainglorious dream into some productive effort? At any rate, there are other less profound reasons and motivations for this undertaking which I have denominated as “Changing Temples”, as traveling history. Reasons that are, perhaps, more revealing or at least sufficiently justifying.

A broken heart foremost. The seemingly numerous memory triggers that initiate vertigo on the chasm edge of despair. No remedy – home, garden, warm wood stove midst cold winter days, the most calming of music, too much wine – comes close. So, the solution that rises to the top is to run away – into history, for want of a better destination.

So, why describe this as “Changing Temples”? One of the remarkable attributes of three Zen Masters I’ve studied is that each was an artist, calligrapher, poet, (at least one) a lover, administrator, mentor, and all loved drinking Sake with the local farmers. Even when well into their 80′s each would up and change temples. (Three Zen Masters: Ikku Sojun – ‘Crazy Cloud” 1394-1481; Hahuin Ekaku,1686-1768; Roykan Taigu,1758-831, John Stevens. Kodansha Biographies).

Sometimes even a Zen Master finds changed environment a good thing or a necessity, apparently. Why not someone lesser?

A marvelous historian secondarily. Fernand Breudel. ‘The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (2 vols) and The Structures of Everyday Life 15th – 18th Century (1st of 3 vols). If Genoa was the world’s foremost banking center in the 16th Century, what role does banking play there today? Not earth shattering in import, but a modicum of justification to examine and explore. If Venice was the one of the most significant shipping and sea powers in the 16th Century, do they now just ship tourists in and out? Not to be forgotten is Edward Gibbon and his ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. Having read the first three and one-half volumes three times, I find fascinating not only the stunning comparisons with another, significantly more modern Civilization but also the language of the Enlightenment which, as you will likely experience in my posts, still informs my rather overwrought use of the English language.

Third, not ‘hard travel’. There is something to be said for the reasonably familiar – a recognizable alphabet, grammar, and language in which an English Literature major and a traveler who can survive in Spanish and French will not feel alien – Italy, but focused upon it’s Mediterranean aspects ala Braudel.

Not finally really, but also those other reasons that are non-rational, wrong-headed, and altogether fantastical.

Continued . . .

Changing Temples – Highwaymen Cont.

Changing Temples
Pt. 9.5.1

And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes

I once knew someone who could quote the Highwayman verbatim. Anyone who has even a smidgen of memory capacity impresses me, given the length and nature of that poem, I was very impressed. That poem is decidedly a Romantic take on highwaymen.

In the latter part of the 1500s, a man named Thomas Coryeat (he who coined the term “Grand Tour” to describe the “education” and “culture” a person – usually a man – would attain by traveling to Venice, Rome, etc.) was traveling over the French/Italian Alps. Up until the late 1700s, such a journey meant you took horses to the bottom of the Pass, then you were carried in a sedan chair hoisted by four men up to the top of the Pass where you transferred to another chair carried by four different men and carried down the Italian side. I have read reports where even one’s carriage was dismantled, carried up and over, then reassembled.

Coryeat and his companion were somewhere in the lower French Alps when they were set upon by a band of five or six highwaymen. The leader of the band could not, it appeared, take it upon himself to rob “gentlemen”, so he sent them on their way. Then he sent two of his men by round-about-ways to waylay Coryeat and then steal his money and belongings. Coryeat was of the mind that the leader could only steal from them when he wasn’t present, thus preserving his sense of gentlemanliness.

Perhaps it is the patina of age and circumstance, but Coryeat’s adventure, I think you will agree, carries with it a certain Romantic character.

A fellow I know here was, literally and figuratively, attacked in Florence last week. One of the two attackers gave him such a blow to the face that he will require oral surgery. He then grabbed the fellow’s smart phone. His companion dug into his shoulder bag and made off with contents which included credit cards, passport, and other important matters. Coryeat had a hard time finding lodging because the innkeepers would not, as we say today, give him credit. My friend has spent hours on the phone with the Indian representatives of various credit card and bank companies trying to cancel, get credit, get cash, etc. He has to travel 3 hours or so to Milan just to get a travel document to get back to England where he must then jump the hoops to get a new passport. I suspect you agree with me that there is little Romantic about that incident.

Well, as much as I would like to cast the adventure of having my iPad stolen in a Romantic light, it was merely a street Highwayman capable of opening the zippers on my shoulder bag in a crowded Calle and extracting my iPad. It was so obviously silly on my part to be vulnerable to that oldest of scams. So, Romantic that I am, I have been cured!

There were some fascinating realities that attended this little incident. All, or most all at any rate, related to what I describe as a lifeline. My first thought when the idea of the iPad as lifeline came to mind was Palm Reading. Mostly dismissed by the rational, skeptical, empirical, juggernaut that comprises the world view largely dominating modern perspective; marginalized and trivialized for similar reasons, Palm Reading has an ancient pedigree. The “lifeline” in Palm Reading was the interpretation of those creases upon each palm which are one-of-a-kind in each individual – like finger prints of the overall psychic and spiritual persona. Some life-lines divide and show frustration of life energy, to the extent of possible early death. Some show profoundly long and stable unfolding. Some show . . .

An intravenous tube, a rope to a drowning person, a kindness show to strangers are all representative of a life line. I think often of the kindness to strangers version. Our family was driving along the Going-To-The-Sun Highway in Glacier National Park. For those not familiar, it twists and turns and winds it very steep way along precipitous mountain valleys to reach the Continental Divide and then descends the same way. We were making our way up the Eastern side late in the day when a small sports car came alcohol fueled fast around a corner, lost control, and began to slide sideways toward us. My dad tried to direct our car to the mountain side of the road as opposed to the cliff side. When all was said and done, it was a rather horrible accident. Our car was so close to the edge that doors on that side could not be opened as one would step into oblivion. There we were, four young children and our obviously shook up parents. I remember to this day the car that stopped and the people who emerged from it. It was a nice couple from I do not know where. They immediately set about comforting my mom and we kids. After some hours had passed – Highway Patrol still not in existence, they bundled my Mom and we kids into their small, vacation filled car and drove us for an hour in the opposite direction from where they were going and deposited us at our destination. A life line indeed.

Continued . . .

Changing Temples – Highwaymen

Unfortunately, this did not get posted in a timely manner, so there is a bit of catch up. My iPad was stolen some 3 plus weeks ago. It has been a scramble getting back on my electronic feet! Here I am though. More of the regular posts to follow in relatively short order. Glad you are patient.

Changing Temples Pt. 8

“Tomorrow is another day”
Gone With The Wind

The Sister Of The Black Night

“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream”
Edgar Allan Poe

It was a wake you up dream:
Dark, very dark, labyrinthine,
Oh so narrow, old Venezia street.
Sense rather than know
The four nuns coming on abreast.
Jump. Sidle. Dart to make way.
Whether sidle bumped or fallen,
A withered, disabled old Sister needed help.
Help instinctively given. On their way again,
How do we see or seem things in dreams,
The Superior called out: “God bless you Wayne.”
The thousandth of a second reply,
“God bless you Sister”, powered wakefulness,
And the constant reminder of mindfulness
Of the vulnerable hearts of others.
EWP
Vernal Equinox, Venezia 3/20/13

I honestly do not know if it is a “guy” thing or just a particular barnacle on my psyche, but notice that the vulnerability of hearts was deemed to exist in others. It is no deep insight to recognize that much of that exists within the inside heart as well.

I initially described this sojourn of mine as an “undertaking”, a Shakespearean excavation of my attempt to escape a broken heart. There have been brief moments in Venezia where the old, adventurous me seemed to make progress in treating that which ought to be buried with the spritely, gallows-humor of Hamlet’s diggers. However, like many of those weak of mind and spirit, I harbored hope. Please forgive the overly florid nature of what follows – sometimes merely reciting experiences of the human heart leaves only the shallowest of understanding. Also, i did promise Metaphor in this written enterprise! I frankly admit to harboring deep in the sea of my heart an always visible light house of hope. The real harbor has always very likely been my inability to take no for an answer. At any rate, yesterday, yet again, the no answer came, this time with the finality of a tsunami. The light house is now merely an historical structure waiting the eternal waves of memoryless time. Consequently, I’m a bit at sea. “And at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”.

Last night as I returned from my lezioni l’Italiano, walking the rainy, dark nighttime labyrinth of Venezia, I realized for the umpteenth time that an absolutely predominant feature of human culture is companionship – almost universally that of a man and a woman. Nary Ristaurante nor Trattoria, nary Cafe nor H’Ostaria contained anything but couples or people wanting coupling – well, OK, I did see one very attractive exception, but her conversation with another woman didn’t look amenable to any get to know you conversation. When one observes established relationships, it becomes readily apparent that true, meaningful, reciprocal companionship is so ferociously difficult to maintain, it is always a wonder that we almost instinctively keep trying.

I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting alone and eating while having only my mind to stare at. “The mind is a dangerous neighborhood, don’t go in alone”. I didn’t. I went home, drank wine, pretended to read news on the internet, and went to rediscover whether Tennyson still was correct when observing: “sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care”. Or, as Scarlett rightly observed, today is another day to appreciate and make significant.

Continued . . .

Changing Temples Pt. 7

Changing Temples
Pt. 7

“[E]verything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances . . . .”
Viktor Frankl

I have long had a theory that is reasonably encapsulated in Viktor Frankl’s concept of attitude – for those not familiar, he was a Holocaust survivor who wrote ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ – but, more persuasive than those attributes is this descriptor: that he was forced to dig trenches in frozen ground along side his wife – his description of that experience is so heart rending as to be transcendent. She died before ‘liberation’.

My particular take on “attitude” is what I have for a very long time described as “The Power of Personality”. Perhaps it is merely Serendipity or Fate or “Lady Luck”, but I have experienced a dynamic in my life that has created remarkable, succeeding events based on the attitude one exhibits in any given set of circumstances. I do believe it is a rather universal experience, so I will give an example that will likely elicit a pointed memory in you Dear Reader – a pointed, and I would say relatively powerful, memory because such things are unique, unusual, and relatively rare.

This is a current travel memory, if you will. It began with an exchange of emails regarding my desire to rent an apartment in Venezia for an extended period (nearly three months). That last clause is important, because the extended period was a surprising obstacle. Cost was also an obstacle, just not surprising for one simple reason: Venice has been on the top of people’s travel for pleasure and “education” list for at least five hundred years of records I am personally aware of. The most illustrious of those traveling individuals from that far back are Michael Montaigne (he who invented and first popularized the modern idea of an ‘Essay’ – a “testing out” of a philosophy, or intellectual proposition, or, even, a far fetched idea) and Edward DeVere, the 16th Earl of Oxford (he who every evidence shows was the man who wrote the “Shakespeare” canon, one-half of which are the ‘Italian Plays’ filled with details that the actor on Avon could never have known, having never himself traveled outside the precincts of greater London). Yes, Venice is so popular that it is virtually overrun and expensive for that reason – there is another very interesting, key reason, but more on that in another “episode”.

This combination of obstacles resulted in countless hours and inquiries via the Internet. The language was not as much a barrier as one would expect, but enough to add to the stream of time and necessary messages.

One particular landlady was friendly and nice. Her apartment didn’t work because it was booked during the middle of my desired period, but “she had a friend with an apartment”, and she would forward my request. That friend was Deborah K., who had an apartment to die for: location, private garden, aesthetically so appealing as to make one salivate and place themselves in the unknown environment in a psychically calming and satisfying way. She wanted a fair price for the environs, but it was way over my head.

Well, it turns out that Deborah had a wit sufficient to make you laugh out loud – at the end of one exchange, she wrote: “It’s late here, say good night Gracie”. “Good Night George”, I wrote back – committing the ultimate error as Gracie always said: “Good night Gracie”. At any rate, we bantered back and forth. She agreed to allow this crazy, Montana greenhorn to accompany her on one of her twice weekly shopping trips to the over run but oh so amazing Rialto fish and produce market. She has graciously included me in other trips and in a 78th birthday party for her equally special husband.

There is an open friendliness in Venezia that lends itself to Serendipity, Fate, Chance. I’ve been able to tap into this (if only in ever so shallow a way) through a combination of serendipity and engagement – the latter being that human attribute that transcends Fate or takes advantage of Her offerings, and which overcomes reluctance, language, rain, social mores, and responds to peoples’ outreach in an enthusiastic and responsive way – in other words, the power of personality.

For instance. In the last several days, I’ve been just wandering. On each occasion I’ve seen an “artist’s” store front and, always interested in that fascinating subset of the universe which is art, artists, and the people who hang out with them, have looked in. On both occasions, someone (once the artist and once the artist’s son, who is managing Daddy-O’s work) have invited me in. In the latter instance, it was a party (for the Equinox I was told) with champagne and snacks. Well, I was immediately swept into relationship with several people (fell in love with a woman, who was “attached” to the artist’s other son, unfortunately), and I now have promises to get together again with both the artist’s son and a fascinating fellow whose mother is Venezian and father English – a combination, Venezian and English that is – which is very common here.

The first serendipity was much more the struggling, young artist scenario (4 years out of Israel, with a wife and a child). He has promised to teach me a printing style of art he executes in a very unusual form – mostly, but not all, doctored antique pictures, like U.S. Civil War figures with the head of Darth Vadar. So, I will go back.

Continued . . .

Changing Temples Pt. 6

Changing Temples
Pt. 6

Well, here I am! Where am I? -:)

After two days of travel, one night pretending to sleep on the plane and one night pretending to sleep on the train (a “couchette designed for 5’11″ and not 6’2 1/2″), my bio clock is going – “what’s up doc?”

Slept late today, and I’m tired, but not diminishingly so. Quite the adventure when I got to the Venice train station. Made the mistake of agreeing to meet the landlady at a cafe near a Vaporetti (water buses) stop instead of at the apartment. So, I’m supposed to email or call from the train station to let her know that I have, indeed, arrived. Naturally, despite what the official Venezia on-line story is, there is NO WiFi at the train station. You know how much I LOVE phones! Well, there is ONE phone at the train station, and that took some inquiry to find – did I mention how rather puffy proud of my self discipline I was that I worked my way through 16 CD’s of Pimsleur Italian? Barely sufficient to find the phone, actually. The sticker on the phone says (in l’Italiano, of course, and Pimsleur is no good here. But life as an English Major has its advantages e.g. Latin based roots, suffixes, and verbs) “insert payment card, dial, etc.” I insert payment/credit card, niente (l’Italiano for nothing). I insert coin, coin returns to bottom of phone, niente. I insert second, alternative payment/credit card, niente. I go through steps one through three several times more, niente.

Oh, did I mention that it’s raining cats and dogs and cold (wet cold) and the phone is outside, of course! (I know, everyone is supposed to have their own cell phone in this oh so modern world, but is it too much to ask for a world where one does not NEED to have a phone?). Needless to say, my sange froi (I don’t know how to say that in l’Italiano!) was sang went. The mind, of course, decides to work overtime – if I can’t contact the lady, I can’t get in the apartment, even if I know how to get to it. Do I ask that nice young lady with her modern cell phone if she will make a call for me? That is rather embarrassing, not to mention what language does she even speak??? Yikes!!

Oh, did I mention that I’m toting luggage around! Ah, travel light is such a wonderful concept, but I never follow it. So, I return to the one object in the world that offers me any hope – Telecom Italia. I insert payment/credit card, niente. I read the label (thank God, I’m a member of Garrison Keillor’s organization – POEM (Professional Organization of English Majors). It says something in the vicinity of “only carte Telecom Italia”. Well, that explains that. So, I trundle self and luggage to a window selling Venezia Tourist Passes and etc. I butcher the language sufficiently, and she is more than sufficiently patient to explain that, “no, we don’t sell those, but (and the translation gets very murky here) perhaps (as I also took a mime class once, I can combine that skill with my POEM skills) at the magazine kiosk just next door”. So, I trundle self and luggage to the magazine kiosk. The language barrier just went from low hurdles to high hurdles, and I never could muster the courage to even try the low hurdles – what if I miss and fall on the hurdle, etc, etc. But, though impatient with the continual stream of idiots, of which I am just the latest rather insignificant speck, “Si” is the reply. I would like to say that he added “no problemo”, but that would show more interest in me on his part than he would ever have mustered. So, for $6.50 US, he hands me a card.

Being rather proficient at all this by now – hope singing eternally, if barely loud enough to drown the incipient panic, in the human breast – I trundle self and appurtenances back to the phone. I follow directions, Magnifico – it works.

So here I am! Costello 1203, 30100 Venezia, Italy. That is the snail mail address, by the way.

I am also VERY hungry. It was hard to eat well and consistently while traveling – 3 days now, and my belt needs to go nearly another notch. For those who know my physique, that’s saying something. I would prefer a fine, American/English breakfast, but they don’t do it that way here in “refined country”!! -:).

Continued . . .

Changing Temples Pt. 5

Changing Temples
Pt. 5

“Sittin’ in a railway station, got a ticket for my destination . . .”
Simon and Garfunkle

Venice, Italy – my destination – is at 45° 26 minutes north latitude. The 45th parallel in the United States runs through Yellowstone National Park and, coincidentally, forms the Boundary between Montana and Wyoming. That may explain somewhat the average daily temperatures for my first three weeks in Venezia: lows 38 degrees +/- 2. Highs 54 degrees +/- 3. By all reports researched prior to arrival, and the dictates of logic, it is a very wet cold. My report is that it has been very cold and wet – definitely a give you pneumonia kind of wet cold. When it’s 41 and raining and the Venetians have put out the walking ramps in anticipation of high tide and exceptional moisture, you feel the cold. It actually snowed today.

However, it is, relatively speaking, balmy weather. Being from Montana, it hasn’t phased me so much – though the damp cold does give one pause. The key issue before departure was: how does one pack? First, of course, “travel light”. That wisdom has been drilled into me through travels in 23 countries (if, as my good friend says, The Holy See can be considered a “country” – it is, according to international law, a “permanent international legal personality”). Well, I’ve violated the travel light principal so many times, that I can only say I have proven its truth.

I did, however, pack with Montana Winter Wisdom intact – layers upon layers, but not so many that lugging all that stuff around when it’s high, dry Mediterranean summer will make me curse myself too much. That whole issue of weight e.g. goods to be hoofed around is a prime topic for detail – boring detail; for who hasn’t encountered that particularly individual problem each time they travel? Suffice to say that 85% of my approach has been to add stuff that I would have to buy in Italy anyway and I can buy at CostCo without the intermediary of a Euro priced currently at $1.34. Yikes. No matter how cheap the place, that still represents daily costs one-third higher than my daily normal.

However, I weighed the duffle today – at least 32 lbs. Yikes. I’ll rue that many a step along the way. I’ll probably ditch some of the books I’ve got in and my file folders containing fodder for writing projects. That’ll reduce it 6-7 lbs – he said, oh so optimistically.

Actually, it turned out that there wasn’t all that much rueing. For, I am, if you examined my life even cursorily, eating an extravagantly leisurely meal at ‘Express de Lyon’, near the Gare de Lyon, in Paris. If you are just itching to know: it is the le Plat: Pove de Merlu a la Bretonne. The Entree is Assiette charcuterie a l’Estragon. The Entree was very much in the spirit of tapas in Espagne, very chewy, undercooked pork with baby dills (quite nice dillness, I might add). Average to good on most standards, underwhelming en France’.

All this after un viaggio normale: a Colorado shuttlebus through snow and roads such that half a dozen vehicles were off of them; the indignities of modern ‘security’; a flight over the big lake; a not long enough stop over in Reykjavík to claim a new notch country in the travel saddlebags, aeroporto Charles de Gaulle, Paris, RTR train to Gare Du Nord, RTR train to Gare de Lyon; check bags in an unusual but accessible process – especially if you remember what it is like to check your bags in NY or Chicago (forget it) – so as to enjoy a 7 hour layover that allows a bit of wandering and stretching of the legs; a wine shop (for the overnight couchette with three other ‘strangers’, “of mixed gender” – as only the French can warn); and a strong intent to return to a Boulangerie of particular interest.

City hordes do not change much, no matter the locale. Weather plays as much of a role in determining one’s sense of uniqueness in a particular place as language, architecture, etc. If it is Spring time in Paris, well, let’s just say you NOTICE this city – or at least you notice particular members of the species inhabiting it! Being early March, however, it’s only subtle clues that tell you where you are.

As cool, sophisticated, and coutoured chic as they surely are in The City of Lights, they – the women particularly, smoke incessantly. How couture it must be to kiss an ash tray – perhaps one is only to concentrate on kissing other, often remarkable, attributes – ah, the French way of love?

Two men of an uncertain, but assuredly greater age than I, are truly enjoying their conversation (friendship) at the table next. Being in French, et iz only sure they are enjoying each other.

Being a little too anxious for my own good, I retrieved my luggage way too soon, so I have spent several hours on a Gare de Lyon bench humming Simon and Garfunkle, during which I could have wandered Paris. Somehow, each time I travel I think I’ll learn my lesson, but at 64 the opportunities just aren’t gonna crop up like weeds anymore. As Socrates will continue to remind me, I have assuredly taken myself with me.

Continued . . .

Changing Templates Pt. 4

Changing Templates Pt. 4

 

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

                                                                         The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien 

 

1633 miles, three passes, twelve summits, three crests, and several legitimate, but unnamed, candidates for several of the above, and I was standing by the Pacific Ocean just off Highway 1, “The Shoreline Highway”.  The day of departure was like so many of its predecessors – filled with unexpected hurdles on the way to accomplish simple, last tasks on the “To Do” list.  The plumber blew out the water pipes, we put RV Anti-Freeze down all the drains.  The electrical plugs were pulled and the door closed – but I forgot to check the door to see if it was securely closed!  I guess it’s fair to say that I never leave calmly.

 

But it’s been relatively easy days with very special friends, delightful cousins, and my loving Auntie Irene wineing and dining me for all but one of six nights of travel.  I like taking the old, U.S. Highways. So that is what I’ve done – given my thirty year old Road Atlas, I took on more of those summits than any right headed fellow with even a modicum of sense would have.

 

I spent one morning with tea and serene music watching the sun rise over the valleys and mountains of the Trinity Alps in Northern California; took ‘the Avenue of the Giants’ and ‘The Redwood Highway’; made the obligatory New Age, burned again Hippie stop to feel for the pulse of a giant redwood – which was entirely unsuccessful.  Did not stop at the ‘World Famous Tree House’ where it was clear that only a Hobbit who has drunk a substantial amount of Ent  drink would find it comfortable lodging. That last reference is not entirely off the mark, for not too much further on there was the ‘Elfin Glen’ tourist stop.  

 

I am writing most of this on a sunny, 50 degree day by the ocean.  It’s a fine, isolated, clamber down the bluff beach with a seal sitting on a rock some 200 yards from shore and some of his fellows bobbing in the water less than 30 feet out.

 

History – particularly that of the 16th Century Mediterranean – has been a major determiner in my utilizing Travel as antidote and in determining where to go.  While I recognize that it is not an entirely profound insight, I realized very quickly while crossing Montana that I was traversing History on my way to travel History.  Lewis and Clark’s astounding mountain, ridge-top journey – over a hundred miles of clefts, valleys, downed trees, and near starvation – Grange Halls, the Oregon Trail, El Camino Real (a name, by the way, that only was applied by travel hucksters in the American 1920′s to the ‘Route of the Missions’ in California established by Fr. Junipero Serra beginning 1769).  I guess one could say that it is a tidal pool type of history compared to the deep ocean history of Venice, the deeper history of Rome, and the nearly fathomless history of the Greeks, the Minoans, or the Phoenicians. Nevertheless, one very mortal and short life shouldn’t assign too much value or precedence to one depth of history over another.  As illustration, I’ve included a picture of a stunningly marvelous Art Deco building in Morro Bay, CA.  It is a superb example of tripping over history to get to history.  Unfortunately, the photo artist did poorly, so take a minute to examine closely.  There are three, stainless steel extrusions, windows in symmetry, and a flow and feel that rivals and beats anything Miami Beach has to offer.

 

The thought about a short life not assigning too much value to any particular depth of history was informed by the death of my cousin Jo’s husband Gary.  I knew him from the relationship one has with a favorite cousin, but he was also a fellow District Judge.  So I knew him better than might be expected.  I liked him a lot.  Calm, very conscientious and competent, and, I strongly suspect, a deep source of comfort and support for Jo who just lost her only son to suicide, and recently lost her beloved mother – my Dear auntie Em. He was younger than I.  Came home from playing racketball, went into the bathroom, had a heart attack, and Jo spent an interminable time waiting for the ambulance while giving him resuscitation.  My, the depth of sadness.

 

I continue my spiritual and psychic dance with my own mortality – more imminent not only because of thoughts of Gary, but also my 64 years and the very real lesson of history – that which I will soon be.

 

Continued . . .