For Friday: A Feeding Frenzy

We were having dinner Thursday evening, looking out at the bay and watching a surprising number of pelicans diving for sardines. The sardines have been running for almost a week. The trawlers were off in the distance and had finally pulled in their nets. It was great to see the pelicans and cormorants getting food. So, after dinner we took a walk down to the wharf to see if we could get a photo or two of the action. This is what we saw. We couldn't tell if they were harbor seals or sea lions, but they were churning up the water and eating like there's no tomorrow. (We exported the video in the lowest quality possible so it would download quickly. A lot of quality is lost in translation.)

Wordless Wednesday: Reflection

Dominion

We are living in a tourist town at the moment and it has pretty much driven us insane. Well, it's not that we weren't insane before, it's just that it was at a comfortable and manageable level. Now our abhorrence of crowds and noise has driven us indoors on even sunny days. While it may be true that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, what happens in our little tourist town filters up from the streets into our open windows. We hear a cacophony of car radios, conversations, sirens, dogs barking, coast guard helicopters, slurred foul shouts from the throats of ignorant drunks. There is an omnipresence of noise matched only by the endless light that casts its eerie glow rippling out and further out on to the night sea. It never freakin' ends.
If you were to look out the window at the expanse of Monterey Bay that spreads before our eyes everyday, you'd swear we were in the most heavenly spot on earth. But here's what living here the past nine months has revealed to us: The ocean cannot defend itself from our every insult. What appears pristine is a body of water that no longer can adequately feed the marine life that must find food here here. The sea otter, which once made a comeback from being mercilessly hunted for its fur, is in decline for the first time in a decade. Sea lions are dying in droves. Yearlings are washing up on our local beaches. We spared you a photograph of one that we spotted just below these achingly beautiful cliffs. Both the pelicans and cormorants have been starving this year. We watch them flying back and forth, back and forth searching for what we have already taken by the net-fulls from the sea.
There is something so incredibly pacifying about staring out at an endless horizon along an expanse of blue blue waters. So many come here to appreciate this beauty, but many come to treat the earth with a heartless disdain. Their fishing lines snag and snarl whatever innocent happens along; their propellers rip the flesh of unseen mammals; their oil and gas leave paisley slicks on the surface; their effluence goes straight to the heart of the matter.

People often ask us why we would ever want to leave here. There is only one real answer: Staying means staring into the most beautiful of illusions everyday.

Wordless Wednesday: Coming At You

Thank you all for your support and kind words. June was a very rough month, but now July is coming at us full on. We're glad. So, good-bye, June, and good riddance.

Found and Lost

Martin died on Sunday June 28th around 2:30 pm eastern time. It's amazing to consider that we had just found him on Facebook only a month ago. On May 28th I received this note in response to our request to add him as a friend:

Not only am I THE Martin from Fords, I am the guy who will always love you guys!
Been looking for you all for-ever... Go to www.angryoldartist.com for more info.
Far-fucking-out, man!
Peace,
Martin
Roger and I were speeding up highway 101 after leaving my mom's in Orange County. We had just pulled into the rest area at Gaviota, north of Santa Barbara when we got the call from my brother telling us that Martin was gone. We had been expecting it. The hospital had sent him home with hospice care on Thursday. The very good people of hospice helped relieve his anxiety and stress and kept him at ease while he made his final exit.

I cried for many miles while driving up the highway. That stretch of 101 is so beautiful and perfect for reflecting on life and death. The hills are golden and reach all the way to the sky and roll on to forever. There is more space and distance there without buildings or structures than almost any other place I know. There's just the crazy highway that splits the earth for us so we can hurl by at 70 mph (the posted speed limit!).

We found and lost Martin in 31 days. He was our poet painter poignant partner in life. My twin brother befriended him when we were all still in elementary school, back in 1963. Martin surprised us with his art, his passionate profundities, his professed peculiarities. We all fell in love with him, not romantically, but familiarly and it stuck for all these decades.
So, when we found him last month and learned that he was in a hospital in Tampa, Florida receiving a fourth round of chemo for acute myeloid leukemia, we sent him a little computer with a built-in camera and skype, so we could reconnect and take a good long lasting look at each other. Maybe we thought our love could save him. It's what we secretly and openly wished and almost believed. Maybe we wonder if he hung on to life long enough just so we could see each other again and say our hellos and good byes. Maybe we're just shocked and relieved that we had this wild chance to confirm what we all knew was true: We dearly, dearly loved each other.

I borrowed Martin's beautiful paintings from his angryoldartist.com website. They are "Adam and Eve", "Touch", and "You'll Get Used to It." The photo is also borrowed from the internet. It shows the land around Gaviota rest stop on Highway 101 in Santa Barbara County.

Wordless Wednesday: Imagining Bones

if the light is right
and your wings are spread just so
I imagine bones