Hanging With the October People

I love this time of year.

Many of my friends know that I pretty much love every time of year, same as I love every time of day. But, as I lean toward sunset and early morning as the first amongst my favorite times of the day I hold late Autumn, particularly Hallowe'en as the first amongst my favorite seasons of the year.

I've spent the last week on a farm in South Paris, the site of my vacation last year. This time I spent a good deal of effort taking long hikes on the many trails in the area, culminating in a walk in the White Mountain National Park - or, Grafton's Notch State Park, up Route 302 in New Hampshire.

The magic of this seasons, its changing leaves, cooling evenings, dramatic sunsets and sweet melancholy - all of it, speaks to something deep in my soul.

I like pumpkins and apples and cider as well. The final, hardier fruits of the harvests are taking over the tables of the Farmer's Market - tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes - thing that go well into crock pots and wait for you to get home from a good day's work.

I go through so much beef stock I should just boil a cow and have done with it each Columbus Day.

 Wednesday saw me come back into town for young Master Theo's birthday party. The son of my late, best friend Eckart Horn, whose widow, Molly, kindly turned the South Paris farmhouse over to my vacation, was turning 7.

What I thought would be a cake-and-ice-cream sing along turned out to be a joyous mass of 14 children in the backyard, lit by candles, my iPhone and a construction-style stand light, all opening, cleaning, marking and carefully carving what seemed an ocean of pumpkins into jack 'o lanterns of the most amazing designs.

Inside sat about 10 parents and other adults, chatting away over spaghetti and meatballs, waiting for the mayhem to produce workable lanterns, waiting for the birthday boy to preview videos he'd gotten earlier in the day.

There is a great, whirling, giddy excitement to be had in helping a child turn a pumpkin into a personality.  Your hands have a special scent to them, part candle wax, part sweet, squishy pumpkin innards.

I had to make sure I gave them a good scrub before I went to my tango practica.

Eventually we did sing for Theo, a cake was presented - which I had to decline because the spaghetti was sugar load enough. Besides which I had to go to practica and then drive back at under the glowing moon, back up into the hills to South Paris, under clear skies pocked with crystalline stars.

So I was very fortunate to partake of a sacrament of Autumn, hard by the Western Cemetery. A flight of pumpkins guard the house, a family I've placed under the protection of the sprits of my family.

There are rituals that keep us aware of the joy and magic that surrounds us, binds us as friends, as elders and as children - and we are all those things together at once. Perhaps later we will sort them out and learn the lessons each teaches but for now, the winds blows, the leaves turn and fall and swish under our feet and we all hold hands - to keep ourselves safe and to share the certainty of the love we feel.

Portland, Maine

Old Friends on Nob Hill

FaceBook Gallery is here.

1977 was my first visit to Grace Cathedral at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. My then very significant other, Nancy, an even greater devoteé of Madeline L'Engle (and her book "A Wrinkle in Time") than I, knew that Madeline's son-in-law was the dean of the Cathedral and I just had to go by to see it and its Einstein window.

I fell in love with the place and still regret that I was such a heel to poor innocent Nancy that she wasn't there to see it with me all the times I've managed to do so.

Such are the echoes of all first loves, I suppose.

Still, my week of training at Apple gave me a chance to visit on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

The first was a single run to the Cathedral Close to walk the labyrinth on the plaza to the facing right of the Great Doors.

A maze is a multicursal path, designed to get you lost. A labyrinth has a unicursal path, and is meant to help you find yourself.

The Cathedral website tells me that walking a labyrinth has three parts:

Purgation - walking in - where you release thoughts, cleansing the mind, opening the heart. Follow the path.

Illumination - at the center - where you stop, stay as long as needed, to receive peace and purpose.

Union - returning along the path that got you there - connecting with the Universe, the world around you - God, if you will.

Oddly I'd had this walk in my mind for a while, since it became clear I'd earned this week of training - it was very sudden and a lot of plans didn't come to fruition but I'm very glad this one did. I'd made a promise to the spirit of my late friend Eckart Horn, that I would do so with his contemplative spirit beside me.

And it was.

The Cathedral labyrinth is a copy of the one in Chartres cathedral - if you can trace the path you'll see it leads you almost directly to the center after only three turns - and then you have to navigate almost the whole thing before you finally arrive. It gives you a taste of success and then you have to trust that if you just continue on the way you will arrive safely.

It's a good lesson, one driven home by my week's work at Apple. I can't talk about process but it confirmed that I made the right choice in switching careers and that there is more that I can do, much more.

The next visit was Thursday, again a quick run in because we needed to get packed to check out early the next day - we were leaving to the airport later on Friday.

My carmate, Steve, from the Rockaway store, had never been to SFO before and we both knew we had to pack to check out. So I copped out and took him back to Nob Hill, parking at the Masonic Temple (another place I'd like to get in to explore) and took him down California Street and over down Pine to Grant and Chinatown.

I was right in later thinking we might have gone to Fisherman's Wharf or ridden the cable car - but time was tight and I didn't know those areas enough to get us in and out in a single commando-style strike.

Needless to say the Dragon Gate and bizarre little shops on Grant Street did not disappoint. The night was comfortable and warm - in fact the whole October week would have qualified as a great August weather spell back in Maine.

Being both photographers - well, I point a camera, he's a photographer - we got a lot of fairly tidy shots of nighttime sights. No vampires (that I could see) but still an atmospheric bit of scenery.

I had first really discovered Chinatown after watching John Carpenter's movie "Big Trouble in Little China". I strongly commend this film to you as it's full of Jackie Chan-style martial arts mayhem and has a strange, meandering, stylish script by W.D Richter (author of "Buckaroo Banzai and his Adventures Across the Eight Dimension" - which also has the coolest end credit sequence ever made).

A friend had joined me to see the movie, in SFO, just outside Chinatown - we had settled in when two hones-to-Confucius tongs showed up to watch too. We hunkered down in our chairs while about 60 really butch looking Chinese guys yelled and cheered at the screen in Mandarin.

Then they started yelling and screaming at each other. That's when we sneaked out the side exit.

Still, it made for an adventurous evening - both then and now. And that seems to be the theme of the entire trip - adventures, discoveries, conclusions and confirmations both interior and exterior. I'm grateful to have had the experience. Now I'm headed off to South Paris for a week of vacation and rest - and thinking about who I am now. Somewhere inside me I think there is something that already knows - I just need to listen to its voice and get organized.

Portland, Maine

Cupertino Tango

Before you ask, no, I don't know if a new iPad is coming out, if the iPhone6 even exists or whether Steve Jobs is cryogenically frozen in the basement of Infinite Loop 1.

I'm only posting photos that can be taken by the public - or starstruck Creatives - nor can I discuss the content of our training in anyway except to say that my sense of how right this job is for me has been joyously confirmed.

I can also say that the food at Caffé Macs is beyond amazing, though I'm sitting here at a patio table at our training site, eating a Subway sandwich and writing this post during lunch.

Sunday night I was taken under the wing of the amazing Joanne Gaskell - DOCTOR Joanne Gaskell - newly minted PHD from Stanford. We went to an amazing place called Alberto's in nearby Mountain View.

It's  a place rather like that my imagination conjures when I think of Buenos Aires - a large, wonderful floor, red-lit bar, well-stocked, a band stand and comfortable chairs surrounding the whole.

Arriving at the advertised time of 7 p.m. found us looking a floor with no-one on it. We had it completely to ourselves for almost 30 minutes and shared some wonderful dances to classic Argentine Tango music, beautifully sounded on the speaker system.

Alberto's is managed by an amiable Geordie lady by the name of Dorcas, possessed of a lilting Northern accent. The front door signs advertised lessons but, she informed me, those were only for bachada and salsa - not my cup of tea. She put me onto a couple teaching beginning tango and salon style tango at a local dance studio.

"Tell them Dorcas sent you". How often can you pass something like that up?

The time difference began to catch up with me and I sat most of the evening out, admiring the atmosphere and the floor craft of the locals. It was great to see the music dictate the end of a phrase of motion, all across the floor - HOW the phrase was danced was deliciously unique - but the consistency of the start/stop was great.

 We then sat at the bar, catching up, her explaining the paper she's presenting at a conference in Canada (her home country) and me explaining what my writing and work were becoming.

The actual real work of my trip began the next day and it went very well.

Last night after a quick tuna-fish sandwich at a local deli I headed back to Mountain View to the Cheryl  Burke Dance studio and a couple of lessons with people who didn't know me from Adam and who would take my dancing totally at face value, for good or ill.

When they advertised "basic tango" they weren't kidding. They showed us some very basic exercises for building the proper control of weight needed for salon-style. The second class was a bit more advanced, using the basics to teach a simple combination of front ocho, parada and cross.

It was pretty clear I had a good grasp of basics - so I found myself the focus of a great deal of arm and foot technique - much beyond simple steps.

Most all of my followers were Russian - Ludmilla, Irina, Katerina - and considered again the mystery of why Russian women, Russians in general, seem to be so facile at Argentine Tango.

Maybe it's the sadness of the music.

So now we're starting to gather back to continue the day's work. Part of me wants to go into San Francisco, part wants to stay at the hotel tonight and just rest. There's a bit of congestion in my chest and I need to relax a bit and rest. Perhaps go for a walk.

But a sense of excitement and verve are under the surface of all that I do here. There is a lot of work to be done and this journey is far from over.

I am glad - and a little surprised - that I took time out to dance and take classes.

I'll keep you posted as to what happens next.

Cupertino, CA

Cirqueface

As my friend C. observed, I am a genuine Cirque Geek.

The Cirque du Soleil has been a template for a lot of my teaching.  There's a reason it resonates with my life.

I've mentioned my DCI Championship performance, winning a gold ring in 1977.

The biggest memory was the view of 34,000 people standing to cheer the end of our performance. I'd not been really focussing on them and they suddenly appeared as we stopped to breathe at the end of "Rocky".

That feeling of accomplishment, of reaching into the hearts of an audience and igniting passion and joy has never left me. The feeling - if not the experience - is what drove my teaching in public school.

So I was thrilled when the Cirque show "Saltimbanco" was scheduled at the Civic Center.

Usually I try to go with C. but budgets and schedules didn't match until too late.

Still I managed to see it last night, again today with my friend A. and her 8 year-old daughter. I love watching children experience the Cirque for the first time.

In the second act, there is a number called "hand to hand" or Vis Versa. I've seen it performed with a mixed couple as well as with two men, as here. Either way it is a dramatic expression of what I get from the Cirque more than anything else.

I started crying during the performance. It suddenly hit me very hard.

While watching it this afternoon I was stunned to see them miss the last skill, an amazing front to back transfer that ends this YouTube video. Friday night they nailed it - Saturday they choked it.

Like every mistake that happens in a Cirque performance they tried it again (last night the juggler had three tries before he got the 10-ball shower - a Russian swing jump onto a suspended Russian board had to be repeated).

But the calf muscles of the porter (the one on the ground - the mover is called the flyer, even in an act like this) just gave out and he couldn't do the final lift. They took a bow and the crowd gave them a huge ovation for being willing to try.

My tears came from a sudden voice in my head. "You decide what you want, you plan it out and then you move". Very simple but suddenly it seemed those words were meant for me - that they were something that I could do.

Sounds absurd - a man in his mid-50's suddenly realizing he had control of how his life could go, but there it was.

The thing about watching the Cirque is the quick realization that those are people up there - dedicated, trained, consumed, disciplined people - who are that good because they are doing something they love - and love bears all trials and questions.

Tomorrow I'm flying out to Cupertino CA for a week of Creative training at Apple headquarters. I have plane flights, rented car, hotel room, expense account, the works. I wanted this to happen since I joined this company four years ago and now it's going to happen. I had to pass tests, work my way from the sales floor (red zone) to Small Device support (Family Room Specialist), set up the Summer camp and Field trip programs - and saw them become strong enough to turn over to others.

This company is as much concerned with excellence as the Cirque - and our success proves the rightness of this approach.

My job may not seem like much compared to my friends who are doctors, lawyers or full-time professional artists. Frankly I don't have time to care.

I look at the detail of my journey to this point, to those tears joyously confirming my small claim to stand on the stage of those who have accomplished what they meant to do by hard work, sacrifice and a belief that not only could they do it but they wanted and deserved to try.

So now, in a few hours, I'm going to see what I can do to start my next move.

I'll keep you posted.

Portland, Maine

Jim's Eternal Dilemma

"I'm sorry. Are you alright? I didn't mean to hit you and I shouldn't have been riding on the sidewalk.

"Oh no, your phone is broken! Dude that was my fault! Can I help pay for a new one for you?

"You look shaken up, your lip is bleeding.

"No, I'm alright, dude I hit you.

"I'm totally sorry and it was totally my fault".

Actually, that's not how it happened. I had walked C. to her car after First Friday and was checking messages on the corner of Congress and Dow, by the 7/11 when I suddenly felt a crash and an arm reach in front of me, forcing my brand new, week-old iPhone out of my hand.

I think it was a grab for the device.

Then a rapidly retreating voice saying, "Asshole, you were standing there."

I picked up the phone, saw its shattered front, turned and shouted at his retreating back .... "Dude I'm not the one riding on the sidewalk!!"

The flashing red tail-light - at least that was street legal - disappeared down the sidewalk, across Congress and down Mellon Street.

So let's recap what we've learned:

- if you can take something from someone by force or trickery, then do it. Opportunity imputes justification.

- causing loss or pain to another person is fine because you will not feel it.

- there are no such things as victims. Victims are people who don't deserve what happens to them. Anyone not actively trying to gain or use an advantage of any kind is a fool and is therefore unimportant.

- Never, ever admit that you have done wrong, caused pain to another, or broken the social contract we all share. If you do not admit it, it did not happen.

- always, always, always blame the person you hurt. Put them in the hole first so you can kick them as they climb out to confront you.

All my life - all of it, from the very first moments I remember encountering other people - I have never, ever understood the games of power and personality that other people participate in. I've never understood lying, bullying, cheating, stealing, belittling, vandalizing - all of it - even when I was doing it myself.

And the vulnerability I feel is truly frightening. I'll have to buy a new phone - one week after buying one - my lip is split inside, the bleeding has stopped - and my left side is very sore and I'm a little dizzy and flushed.

But I think at the core of my being is joy and curiosity, shadow and light. The hatred and anger I feel right now is very, very hot and bright on the surface - but has no real deep source to fuel it and it will therefore burn out eventually. So I will go on and see what I have to work with tomorrow.

Keep close the peace I have always wished for you, even when my own is far, far away.

The Groom of Frankenstein

Related FaceBook gallery is here.

The road is very straightforward, though it winds through some of the most challenging curves in New England. I start at 9 in the morning on Thursday, heading out after dropping in to wave at C. and give her greyhound, Chief the Wonder Dog, a quick scratch.

I have three days off. They'll be spent at Butternut Farms, with my friends Chuck and Nancy.

The day is warm enough so that I can't describe it with the cliché of "crisp. It is pleasantly cool and I drive with Ianto's windows open just a bit, enough for a breeze but not enough to drown out "RadioLab" issuing from the speakers.

I pass a lot of road work - the sudden clarity of Fall and the rapid onset of changing color serving to encourage road crews to get things done just a bit faster - there are only so many days left until more time is spent plowing and sanding than paving and grading.

Moose Lake is passed, electric blue besides Shawnee Peak. The colors are just starting to overtake Summer's green. I make a mental note to try to climb up there before much longer. I'm not a skier but hills and trees have taken over my imagination lately.

Shortly I arrive at North Conway, stopping at a scenic turnout just beyond to get a view of the White Mountains up the valley. Their tops are wrapped by a sheaf of clouds far away and above me.

"I'm going to be up there in a little bit. I'm going to be amongst those clouds".

Eventually I arrive at the parking lot which served at the base camp for my climb of the Arethusa Falls some weeks ago. Today I am taking the other path from the parking lot - a base trail that fronts the massive Frankenstein Cliffs that beetle far over my head.  Eventually, in a mile or less, it will climb under the Crawford Notch Scenic Railway and lead right up to the base of the cliffs themselves, far above me.

The trail will then wind along the front and then ascend above the escarpment to merge with the Arethusa trail far overhead and return by the trail I took earlier, returning me to the park.

I am aware that I promised I'd be at Butternut Farm in East Burke, VT, in time for tea so I feel a bit rushed.

The base trail is challenging and my thick soled shoes, perfect for hiking and the moderate trails on Bradbury Mountain don't have the grip to aggressively negotiate the 45º left-to-right angle of the trail. The surface, when not piled with ottoman-sized rocks is made of a stony gravel in a dirt matrix.

Footing is risky. You have to think ahead on every step, planning sequences of 3-4 steps ahead so you don't get tangled. A slip will plunge you down the slope and the rocks are very large and would very unforgiving in the state of a fall.

Still, the light is beautiful, fungii, mushrooms and real fairy circles can be seen almost every 10 feet. Nature runs riot against the mountain.

The Crawford Notch Scenic Railway train passes just above my head - if I crash straight up I can almost touch the cars - if I do so to get a good picture I might well pop out of the woods with my head under the wheels - I'm that close.

But I cross under the Frankenstein Trestle and arrive at the final push that takes me up the steep, rocky and root tangled trail up to the base of the cliffs. The trail blazes, yellow paint patches on trees, are hard to see and I have to trust to my observations of where the trail is worn down before I see the next blaze.

My treasured walking sticks confirm their identity - they are walking sticks, not climbing sticks and they become sudden nuisances. I'm carrying only a fanny pack for the camera and realize I have the wrong shoes, the wrong tools and the wrong storage system. No first aid kit and the cell signal was gone before I left the parking lot.

I take a few seconds to decide on how I'll take a fall: posture, arm position.  A mistake now could be genuinely dangerous.

But now I'm at the cliff face, a powerful wall of stone rises above me for almost 150 feet. I'm acutely aware of the power of the mountain, the slow roar of it's energy, the water rushing down from inside the stones, carving out the stones littering the trail, washing down the gravel making my footing so treacherous.

And now, pictures taken, apple eaten, water drunk, I lean back against the 45º incline and begin to work my way down. Legs are sore, balance is risky and for the first time I realize how ill-prepared I am, technically and physically.

Then it happens. I try to shift my poles to balance my next step through a set of rocks leading back to gravel path and I find myself pitching. My core muscles are too tired to hold my weight back and I'm falling forward to crash into the face of a stone and then slam into the gravel between two heavy rocks.

The pain is explosive in both my forearms, stars burst into my vision. I can only lie there, slowly moving fingers, toes, then wrists and ankles, arms and legs, then carefully lever myself up a bit.

I'm facing down hill at an angle and I decide to move my legs down rather than try standing up against the hill. Everything seems to be working and though my arms are bleeding from substantial scrapes nothing is broken or paralyzed.

So the journey continues down the trail. One of the poles is bent, I try to fix it and shorten both to give me a more centered leverage. Should have done that at first - better still, should have brought a climbing axe.

Eventually I reach the train track and risk getting hit by the train so I can make my way back to the car.

The beauty and danger of this raw, unprocessed look at nature are real. I keep wanting to shoot pictures of everything - and I do, but not continuously.

I prefer, now, to keep these images locked inside me, to share the lessons I've learned and visions I've seen by being the kind of person who has experienced them rather than just passively recording them.

How this will turn out I do not know. I could have been seriously injured, easily killed. I only know I have something inside me to bring back and share and in the coming days I'll give it a name and local habitation.

I hope the Autumn is as lovely for you. The Fall definitely has been for me.

Portland, Maine