LATITUDES AND ATTITUDES

SEEING THINGS

       This west coast lays in the eastern US and the sun's descent drops not towards Hawaii and Japan, but toward the US mid-west.
        After being acclimated to the far western edge of the US, things seems different here. Silly of me I suppose, but I considered drive ways and garage doors as being for the use of cars.  Not sure how this Naples Florida arrangement works. Carefully I presume.

       I've been spoiled by village life in our enclave on the true west coast. We too have our share of senior drivers-of which I am one-and we drive in varying degrees of caution, or erratic dashes, but there is a variance here-volume and a healthy, or unhealthy as it may be, mixture of younger and/or aggressive drivers. Aggressive drivers in volume, working their way through the slower and perhaps erratic others makes for an adventure I'm content to do sparingly. Our dear daughter sounds like a parent, as her parents are about to venture out to play in traffic.  
    "This is season. We have heavily medicated drivers who are just back in town and it's crazy.  No, I mean it is really crazy."  
     Our daughter is wise, bless her heart. This is like LA at half the lanes, at 40 miles and hour but with that hybrid brew of medicated seniors, just back in town for season and the already ticked off locals who probably harbor mad max fantasies of rolling right over them.
      So back to daughters quiet enclave, to enjoy a quiet walk and to privately cherish the ability to shower without turning off the water between soaping and soaking. We can even let the water run until it gets hot. And brushing teeth with water running and not feeling guilty.  Changes in attitudes.

      Even if the sun doesn't set on water!

       See you down the trail.

THE REMEMBERING TIME-AS GOOD AS DICKENS-DO YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE?

DECORATE AND THEN PLAY

     Summer slips in on us, behind a time of remembering and there is a reassurance in that somehow. 

     While we are bout Memorials, paying respect and remembering, we find ourselves smack in the middle of summer diversions.  Picnics, parties, pool or lake time, firing up the grill, breaking out summer gear and wardrobe all seem to get started over this stretch when May morphs into June. As a kid we seemed to slide from what we called "Decoration Day" into full tilt summer. I wonder how many modern families visit a cemetery, or pay homage to ancestors in some formal way. For those of a certain age it was as though we transitioned by reflecting in a manner that linked finality and perpetuity with the full scale pleasure of life, captured in that special zest that is a kid's summer vacation. It was a nice rhythm.

                                          

A PIECE OF DICKENS

A MOMENT OF PERSPECTIVE

   Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling future, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well-thousands of acres of land-a whole province of France-all France itself-lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line.  So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star.  And as mere human knowledge can split and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue of every responsible creature on it."

                From A TALE OF TWO CITIES-Charles Dickens

    

THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PIECES

  No, nothing wrong with your eyes or the photograph.  The 
pixalated look is a product of the the way it is, Legos.

   We harvested these images during a recent trip to the Naples Bontanical garden.  As many as 40-50 thousand pieces are used in the creations.

  See you down the trail.

DIFFERENT CLIMES DIFFERENT TIMES

GOING BACK

   Though he meant it differently, Thomas Wolfe's title You Cant Go Home Again has been nagging around the edge of my mind. A deeper dive into that in a moment, but I wonder if some of you don't find yourself wrestling with Boomer Blues, prompted by the signals that life moves without regard to our wish that good things not change? 
   Here's the trail of this chain of thoughts;  We're back on the West coast after a couple of magnificent weeks with eldest Kristin and her friend Richard.  Magnificent because we cherish family time and because hospitality, weather and relaxation were extraordinary.

    Reading, relaxing, napping and not always in that order.

     The tropical clime, warm trade-wind breezes, balmy evenings and lack of drought created a comfortable cocoon from which to cogitate and reflect.

    It struck me that I've adopted a Cambria drought tolerant ethic. A quick and passing tropical drenching was a magnificent symphony of senses. But I felt guilt at showering at length or watching plants being watered. 

 Naples is nothing if not elegant and caloric. This calorie issue is a fault line of concern for a boomer jock.

   A jaunt to Ft. Lauderdale between the Atlantic and the Intracoastal Waterway provoked thoughts about  extraordinary wealth and spending of some of the 1%. For a journalist of Scot's heritage, that can inspire what is a full on rumble of pondering and argument.

   But it was the return to our beloved Sanibel Island that drove me into the land of the Thomas Wolfe -You Can't Go Home Again permutation.  Sanibel has always been a special home, a place of great joy and celebration, setting of two of my novels and where we once owned a home.

     We'd visit these rare Gulf beaches, seeking refuge from winter. Our girls grew from tots to mature women, shelling with their mother, building sandcastles with their dad and preparing for dinner at our special places like Jean Paul's and The Mad Hatter. Family vacations came at the end of month long countdowns, filled with anticipation.

    Getting to the island, a rare east west barrier reef island that is mostly wildlife preserve, was always a tonic for the soul. It always meant renewal and celebration with friends.

    But this year was different. The joy and luster was missing. Certainly the serious health concerns of dearest friends, the complexities of aging and the changes wrought by time imposed themselves.

  As we strolled the expansive beach, pausing where we spent so many springs in celebration, it was not joy, but a sadness over a mysterious loss that I felt.  

    Perhaps the Pacific serenade of my Cambria has weakened the magic song of the Gulf. The sun is bright still, the colors are vivid, and it is more green than my California when our sparse rainy season ends, but it just isn't the same.

   But neither am I.  I am older, my children are women, too many friends face health issues, some are gone. The career I took respite from on the Gulf beaches, is past and now seems of much less value that I once gave it. Life's order of things has changed.
   I wondered if I was slipping into a melancholy or depression. Was I somehow cheating the zest of life? No, I argued with myself. Concern for friends, sadness at loss, the inexorable movement of time are all part of the journey. There too is the truth that we cannot go back, we  do not recapture youth. And thus, memory is a gift. That is how we visit where time does no harm. 
    Our task then is to create new memories, as vibrant as we may. In that way the good old days remain good though old and as my Island friend Dave said, "we celebrate each day."

See you down the trail.

ABOUT FORGIVING and ANOTHER CLIMATE

THE RAILWAY MAN

     I'm curious why this is a summer release film, so far from the Academy Awards season, because it is award worthy in a number of ways.

     Colin Firth is brilliant as a post war Eric Lomax in the story based on Lomax's book. Jeremy Irvine is equally  brilliant as a young Lomax in a Japanese prisoner of war forced labor camp. Then too Hiroyouki Sanada and Tanroh Ishida are both excellent as the elder and younger version of the Japanese interpreter Nagase who was instrumental in the horrid torture and abuse of Lomax. Nicole Kidman's supporting performance as Firth's wife is also award worthy.

     Perhaps it is the "politically incorrect" nature of the film's background-the brutality and barbaric nature of the Japanese camp. But this true story is historic. It demonstrates the enormous endurance of the POW's and the spirit that kept them alive. More importantly it is the powerful story of learning to forgive. Firth, one of the finest actors of the age, plumbs the depth of the human soul and experience to deliver a portrayal that is deservedly something you will have trouble putting out of your mind.  Nor should you.  Irvine's ability to display strength of spirit amidst the incredible torture will also stay with you. 

    Perhaps too it is the graphic water boarding that some might find to be too politically charged.  But despite those reasons, the film is inspiring, powered by love and is indeed a timeless exposition on forgiving. Very strong all around. Director Jonathan Teplitzky is to be commended.

A BOTANICAL CLIMATE

  Scenes from the Naples Botanical Garden.

  See you down the trail.

MORE THAN A GREEN THUMB

ALL IN A CUL DE SAC

       It is amazing how gardening varies from climate to climate and region to region.  Frequent visitors to this blog have seen evidence of our work in Central California.

       Here in Naples Florida, our eldest daughter has a neighbor who has created his own version of a tropical botanical garden.  He has transformed a common space in a cul de sac and his back yard into an extraordinary display.

 A lotus is about to bloom.

 Bill has his own orchid house.

See you down the trail.