It's Good to Get Away, Even When You Can't

Part 1: Leaving Town and Ending Up Somewhere Else

It’s good to get away even when you can’t do it. Or, when the people who employ you suggest without saying as much that you should postpone your 4-day vacation because who’s going to get the documentation done if you leave? The project has been a mess since its inception, but somehow a dozen pages of paper are crucial.

All right, all right—forget the lazy second-person references. I need to start taking ownership for these types of things. I could have said “so long” and delegated the task to someone else, but overall I want to be loved and who loves a boss who delegates things so he can go on vacation? So, because the person letting me stay in his house on the north coast is generous (yeah, he’s out of town, too, but what does that matter?), I’m able to reschedule the trip to start on what would have been my father’s 75th birthday. It is a good day to start something.

Entering the pre-dawn, frenetic commute, though I am not a commuter today, I head north then west then northwest then north, leaving behind the office (though 90 minutes later I will call my boss to tell her something I should’ve told her yesterday), my family, and a potential visit to a friend who says he could use some free analysis of his psyche. I know what he needs, I think, but I also know I’m not in the right state of mind to provide anything related to anyone else’s mental state considering that my own is fragile enough these days. I promise myself to get back to him, though, as the car radio sucks in my new Zoe Keating CD the same way the road sucks me in.

And the farther I get from the office, the phone call to my boss, the classes I’m teaching, and the puppy that eats my shoes, the more relaxed I become. Stopping at a wonderful bakery in Freestone, I am disappointed to find that there is no bread today, or at least not until later though I don’t bother to check when the place is actually open. Later, at Sea Ranch, I take a chance and turn east off the highway toward the Twofish Baking Company where I buy a large cookie for the road and a loaf of freshly baked wheat bread for lunches over the next few days. I open the car window to the scents of green, of decay, of air fresher than what the Valley has fed us for so many months. In the grocery store in Gualala, I pick up more comestibles: fixings to go on the bread; bananas; a six pack of India Pale Ale from the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. I am drinking a bottle of that Pale Ale now.

Finally at the house, I toss my duffle bag to the floor, enjoy some very good bread, and watch part of my favorite movie, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Have to love westerns, especially when the story is about old men who are not only butting up against a changing society, but who are recognizing their mortality. The line I notice most today is, “There’s an age in a man’s life when he don’t want to spend time figuring what comes next.”

As I eat the sandwich and watch the movie, I am pleasantly surprised to realize I made the 4-hour drive without having to consume even one 800mg Ibuprofen. (And this is good, for I have been hording my last 4 remaining tablets for weeks now.) While I can probably attribute this to a different automobile for this trip, I would like to think that the 3 massages I have had over the last 2 months have played a part. Julie, a woman with small hands but incredibly precise and persistent elbows, has been working diligently on my back. My doctor assures me that such treatment will be of great benefit to me, and since I have yet to find a reason to mistrust him, I will continue to follow his recommendation. The first massage was, to say the least, not an avenue to relaxation. I have not been naked in the presence of that many women, and even covered by a sheet and a blanket I was somewhat uncomfortable. “Relax,” Julie kept saying. “I’ve never learned to relax,” I told her. I think that was when she first forced her elbow into my arthritic shoulder blade just to show me who was in charge.

After sitting through most of Pat Garrett, I get back into the car and drive to Schooner Gulch for a short hike. But finding access to the beach forbidden and a park worker nearby to enforce the ban, I drive farther north to Moat Creek where I spend some good time on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, and during the walk I find a tree of ripe, green apples, one of which I pick and eat. I also spend a half hour at water level where I gather some shells and a couple of large rocks for the garden at home. The tide seems to be coming in, and I know a mild storm is working its way inland, so I keep a green eye on the water. Finding what I gather to be some sort of mollusk, I prod the thing with a stick, push on it with my fingers, and forget the water long enough to be caught stupid as the ocean—a mini rogue wave—pushes over my shoes and up my shins. The water is cold, and the mollusk is swept back into the small lagoon in front of me.

But, getting wet like this is good, because I know that for at least a few minutes I am able to forget everything I had hoped to put aside for a couple of days. I find a log to sit on as my pants dry, as I roll a purplish seashell I will take home to put into a bowl of collected shells and pebbles I have gathered since I first began coming here. The bowl has traditionally sat on the patio table, but one day recently it was knocked to the ground, and I have yet to gather the pieces together. My son’s puppy seems to like this arrangement, for occasionally she will carry a shell into the house and leave it for someone to find. Sitting on the log, I remember again that it is my father’s birthday, that his ashes were scattered into this same ocean; I wish him a happy birthday and return to the car, then head back to the house and this bottle of India Pale Ale. From the assortment of books I have brought with me, I find Stephen Dunn’s Different Hours and turn to this poem:

Before the Sky Darkens

Sunsets, incipient storms, the tableaus
of melancholy—maybe these are
the Saturday night-events
to take your best girl to. At least then
there might be moments of vanishing beauty
before the sky darkens,
and the expectations of happiness
would hardly exist
and therefore might be possible.

More and more you learn to live
with the unacceptable.
You sense the ever-hidden God
retreating even farther,
terrified or embarrassed.
You might as well be a clown,
big silly clothes, no evidence of desire.

That’s how you feel, say, on a Tuesday.
Then out of the daily wreckage
comes an invitation
with your name on it. Or more likely,
that best girl of yours offers you,
once again, a local kindness.

You open your windows to good air
blowing in from who knows where,
which you gulp and deeply inhale
as if you have a death sentence. You have.
All your life, it seems, you’ve been appealing it.
Night sweats and useless stratagems. Reprieves.

Part 2: Lurking in Somewhere Else

Over-fed and under-slept, I get back on the road early enough and head more north than I already am, steering the car through a light mist until I stop in Mendocino where the mist has turned to rain. In my bright-yellow rain coat and my Akubra kangaroo-felt hat, I commence to stroll through town in search of something different. For 90 minutes I step wetly into the shops and galleries, the Vibram soles of my shoes squeaking on wooden floors. In the bookstore I am intrigued by the good selection, but I remember the stack of bought and borrowed books at the side of my bed at home and decide to spend no more money. Because my government will never have an interest in bailing me out of whatever financial crisis I encounter, I also figure it best to embrace monk-like frugality for a few days just to be careful.

In a small café I stop for hot tea and a cookie, and I sit to let myself dry out a bit. (Spending time drying out can become a habit.) Perhaps because this is Mendocino, there are good vibes here, the ’60-ish kind you may have heard of: wonderful odors, organic drinks and food, organic people who seem peaceful and happy. The more time I spend in places like this, the more aware I am of a common restlessness people my age often have in our familiar cubicle environment. I cannot speak for those people, but there is a good chance that I am ready to surrender cubicles and money for… for what? Something different to do, perhaps—like looking for something different. Starting next July, I will begin earning 5 weeks of vacation per year. That seems like a lot, certainly, but that I have 8 weeks on the books now and have not taken an extended vacation this year makes the accumulation of additional time off rather pointless. While in the navy many years ago, I took 30 days of leave—flew home from Japan. For a good part of a week my high school friend Gary and I drove around Southern California, visiting Huntington Beach and Disneyland. I’d never done drugs in high school, but for nearly that entire month Gary and I and others I’d known in high school consumed no small amount of marijuana. It was a very stupid thing to do on many levels, not the least of which was the random drug tests the navy liked to spring on us. I was one urine sample away from the brig. Still, a month like that was a good thing, and I have come to envy those people who frequently enjoy such a luxury—the Puritan idea that we exist to work is, frankly, stupid.

Sipping my tea in the café, I watch a young couple step in out of the rain. At the counter they ask the same tall, bald man who helped me about the various pastries and breads displayed, and he joyfully provides details. The couple orders 2 cappuccinos and as many pastries, and they both seem happy. They sit near the window, leaning into each other as young people will do when they are in love. He touches her leg, and she brushes pastry from the side of his mouth. They finish before my tea is gone; I watch them leave, and he pulls a hotel key out of his coat pocket. They look good together: comfortable, relaxed, unhurried. When they are gone I don my hat, slip my arms into the raincoat, and step into the rain, heading toward my car. The sky and ocean match shades of gray, and the drive to my own lodging is just long enough. Then, inside my friend’s house again, I leaf through Ted Kooser’s Delights and Shadows, coming to this.

Walking on Tiptoe

Long ago we quit lifting our heels
like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—
though we thrill to their speed
as they flee. Even the mouse
bearing the great weight of a nugget
of dog food is enviably graceful.
There is little spring to our walk,
we are so burdened with responsibilities,
all of the disciplinary actions
that have fallen to use, the punishments,
the killings, and all with our feet
bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.
But sometimes, in the early hours,
we can feel what it must have been like
to be one of them, up on our toes,
stealing past doors where others are sleeping,
and suddenly able to see in the dark.

Part 3: Home—Home Again

After several days of mist and rain, hiking, sitting, reading, writing and grading, I am home again in the land of TV and Internet and dogs and conversation. The respite was good. I spent several hours walking through one rain shower or another, and my shoes are still damp though damp in a good way. The climate I enjoyed for those days made me want to return to Oregon again, and if I can somehow manipulate someone into offering me a free room for a night or two, perhaps I will head there in the next month or so.

Of course, there is the 3-game sweep the Dodgers managed over the Chicago Cubs to come home to, yet another predictable ending to a fine season of hope and promise. I was fortunate, even glad, to not have witnessed an embarrassing sweep, but I cannot say I am not surprised. The Cubs are certainly not the only team to have let their fans down over the years (100 for the Cubs, actually), but, geez--it's like courting a woman for a lifetime but never getting beyond second base (sorry--weak writing, poor metaphor...). I am especially sad for my 95-year-old grandmother, who more than likely cannot wait another century for the Cubs to win a World Series.

The dogs are marginally pleased to see me. Most of my students have not submitted the papers they promised to get to me several days ago. Tomorrow is another workday, and already I am plotting ways to escape.