Ella’s ears are still pointy, that much hasn’t changed. What has changed is Ella no longer is a kitten, she’s a full grown cat.

Ella was once a foster cat. Eight years ago we took her in on a trial basis, fell immediately in love and decided to adopt her. The first thing that grabbed me about Ella was those pointy ears. When she was a kitten her ears were disproportionately large for her tiny body. They loomed above the top of her head, concave like  bandshells, coming to a sharp point at the top. From the summit of each of her ears sits a tiny tuft of hair. Back then Ella looked like one of those long-eared bats that live in the tropics, her tiny head and large ears were comical and cute at the same time. As an adult, her body has since grown into those ears, but they still look kind of big to me.

Ella is a light tabby. There are hints of stripes along the last six inches of her tail as well as on her haunches. Her feet and the tip of her tail are slightly lighter than the rest of her body, otherwise her fur is a uniform light brown to blonde color and lustrous with health.

Ella’s eyes are a luminous shade of green similar to the polished sea stones of serpentine that are commonly found along the Northern California coast. The cornea of her left eye is partially clouded over, kind of like a cataract. Ella’s view of the world must be a little out of focus.

While she has grown a bit more feisty with age, occasionally swatting at us when she doesn’t want to be bothered, Ella is still an even tempered and very affectionate cat. She often greets me by climbing into my lap, gradually making her way onto my chest until we’re nose-to-nose. We give each other “Eskimo kisses”. She sometimes licks the end of my nose with her sandpaper tongue. I tell her, “I love you too.” I know she understands me.

Ella loves tummy rubs. In the evening when Carol and I are on the couch reading or watching television, she’ll often end up spread eagle on her back in Carol’s lap. Ella purrs with feline ecstasy and is nearly comatose while the tummy rub is being administered.

Cats are by nature quite independent, but Ella does not like it when we go away. A day or so before a trip, she just knows we’re going to be gone. While we pack the car and scurry around the house making last minute preparations, she is clearly agitated. She’ll follow us around the house and has even jumped into the car! We leave Ella alone if we’re gone for two or three days, any longer than that and we have our neighbor stay at our house and cat sit. Ella is a very social kitty and really needs someone to be with her. When we return home, she is almost always waiting for us in the driveway.

I adore Ella, but there’s a bit of irony here. I was never a cat person, however successive girlfriends in the mid to late 90’s would have it otherwise. When I met and fell in love with Carol in the spring of 2001, her cat Bugsy was part of the deal. Bugsy was a gentle soul who helped me to see the sweet side of cat ownership. She lived a long and full life and the day we had to put her down was a sad one indeed. Bugsy now rests in our backyard beneath a circle of sea stones, surrounded by purple irises that bloom every spring.

When Bugsy passed she was nearly eighteen years old. Ella is eight now so with a little luck we’ll have her around for another decade. Relative to humans a cats’ life is short. That fact gives me a deeper appreciation for every day that Ella is in our lives. Some say that a cat chooses you. I am so grateful that Ella chose us.

The beach is a place where a man can feel he’s the only soul in the world that’s real.

Pete Townsend

Driftwood…bleached bones. Tibia, fibia, a random scattering offered up by the sea, come to rest here. Finger bones, toe bones, skeletal remains of once living things. I love the shapes and sizes, no two are alike. This one is Moby Dick, mythical leviathan, gaping jaws, enormous unblinking eye, mottled and scarred skin, sounding then surfacing with a mighty blast through its blowhole only to disappear as quickly as it appeared. The whale swims across the lunar surface of this beach. Craters, peaks and valleys of sand stretch for miles in each direction, footprints of humans, gulls, horses, tiny birds, tinier mammals criss cross before me. These prints are a road map, they tell where to go, where I’ve been, where I hope to be. The tide will soon wash this map away, a clean slate for a different day, a new uncharted direction. We all have maps, inner paths plotted out for us, limited only by our imagination and the desire to follow the path of our choosing.

Wave after wave rolls to the beach, churning, roaring, sea foam flies back from each crest. These waves are my mantra; breathe in peace, breathe out hope. Again and again. The sun dips in and out of high clouds, its appearance and disappearance is a paint brush. Now the surface of the sea is cobalt blue, now it’s a deep olive green. The sun is an impressionist master playing with light and the infinite shades of color.

A quiet breeze animates the dune grass. Millions of slender, stiletto-sharp blades wave and shimmer. New green shoots emerge from dead brown ones, all dance together in the shifting light.

Coal-black Surf Scoters with conical white beaks bob up and down just beyond the breakers. The frigid sea, the roiling surf is their home. A small knot of tiny sanderlings appear to float as they scurry across the sand, their short, black beaks drill through the surface as each wave recedes. The outgoing tide will reveal a bounty for these diminutive shorebirds. With pure white heads and bodies, mottled grey wing bars, black tail feathers and tiny black legs, they are a study in contrast, a living Ansel Adams photograph. As one they take flight, knife point wings carry them swiftly down the beach to continue their foraging.

The shapes of the clouds are the stuff of my dreams. Today they are soft with ill-defined edges, cotton balls and blurred lines, broad sweeping brushstrokes, sky waves spraying sea mist. The sun is a white blur as it struggles to emerge from behind a grey section of the sky canvas. A clear blue sky is endless but today’s clouds add definition and depth. Now the sun breaks through. Like a lizard I give my body over to its life giving warmth. Renewal.

One of the benefits of retirement, besides the obvious one of not having to go to work every day and deal with the trials and tribulations of a regular job, has been getting to spend more time with my wife Carol. Over the past year Carol and I have made it a point to set aside at least one day each week for what we call Adventure Day. Our days include brunches, lunches, walks and bike rides, but what we love most is to get out in nature. Hiking and kayaking the various parks, rivers and lakes in our area have been our main modes of exploration. I once wrote that “nature is an antidote to restless times”, that statement has never rang truer than it does right now. Exploring nature with Carol is the perfect way for us to reconnect and to shut out, at least for an afternoon, the insanity of a world seemingly gone mad.

Our most recent adventure took us to Olompali State Historic Park. This little gem of a park sits right off the busy 101 freeway about 20 miles north of San Francisco in Novato. Prior to our visit all I knew about Olompali is that it was once a favorite haunt of the San Francisco rock glitterati. In the mid 1960’s members of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and virtually anyone else associated with the SF music scene could be found up here spending blissful days tripping and carousing among the oaks, meadows, hills and forests. Carol and I decided to finally take the freeway offramp and see what this place was all about.

When we arrived, there was exactly one car in the parking lot. Another fringe benefit of retirement: we can explore our favorite nature spots while everyone else is at work. The trail took us around various historical buildings from the turn of the 20th century and up a steep climb through a mixed forest of oak, madrone and bay laurel. The rains of November and December had everything looking green and alive. A few tiny wildflowers poked their heads up out of the forest floor, a preview of the bigger springtime show to come. The trail eventually leveled out and the remainder of our climb was through long gentle switchbacks. Our destination was the top of 1,500 foot Mount Burdell. After hiking for about two hours, we stopped short of the summit for lunch. The clearing we chose had sweeping views of Petaluma Marsh, the eastern foothills and San Francisco Bay beyond. Cars moved like ants way below along the 101. We were so close to tens of thousands of people yet it felt like being in the middle of the wilderness. The air was cool and clean, the quiet nearly absolute. Carol and I ate our lunches, enjoying the easy silence between us.

Tiny white flowers

Paint the forest floor

Harbinger of spring

The highlight of our day occurred somewhere between the sandwiches and the chips. I noticed two very large birds wheeling and soaring in the sky directly above us. I trained my binoculars on them and much to my surprise saw that it was a pair of Golden eagles doing this dance for us! I’ve spent countless hours exploring nature but have never once been blessed with a sighting of this majestic bird. To see a pair of them seemed nothing short of miraculous. These are massive birds with a wingspan of over six feet. Golden eagles are year round residents of our area but are rarely sighted. Next to the California Condor, these are North America’s largest birds. Carol and  I watched in awe, knowing that we were seeing something very special. The birds soared higher and higher, eventually disappearing behind us to the west.

In endless blue

Two Golden eagles

Dance with the wind

We continued on our way to the summit of Mount Burdell. The views of Mount Tamalpias and the hills to the west were breathtaking. Along the spine of the ridge we spotted several large prints in the trailside mud, most likely those of a mountain lion or bobcat. On our way back down we caught a fleeting glimpse of a coyote. The Trickster of Native American legends was sniffing around our lunch spot. It melted back into the forest before we could get a clear look at it.

A flash of fur

And he’s gone

The Trickster knows

Towards the bottom of the trail we crossed a gentle spring-fed creek. What beautiful music it was making as it tumbled down the hillside over rocks and fallen branches. After these past few years of drought, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for the sounds of running water. We returned to our car, feeling newly connected, not only to ourselves but to the natural world at our doorstep.

The forest speaks

A gentle silence

We hold our breath

The beach at Salmon Creek on the Sonoma County coast is one of the most spectacular and awe inspiring stretches of sand that I’ve ever set foot upon. My wife and I love this place. We recently spent an afternoon there, it was one of those warm and golden blue-sky winter days that make you glad to be alive. The otherworldly and dreamlike nature of Salmon Creek is similar to being on psychedelics without actually having to take the drugs (we did, however, smoke a bit of cannabis, just to give the day a little extra glow.)

The narrative form often fails me when I attempt to write about a day such as this, so I’ve chosen haiku instead. Our day was filled with these magical vignettes and that is what each of these poems represent. Enjoy.

• Three deer
• Still as sentinels
• Melt into dune grass

• Azure sky
• White with brushstrokes
• Cirrus and vapor trails

• Wave after wave
• Rolls from the sea
• Eternity

• Tiny footprints
• Random, delicate trails
• Woven through sand

• Bleached bones of driftwood
• Strewn like jack straws
• Up and down the beach

• Osprey descends
• Wings swept back
• Talons strike

• Four whale spouts
• Tiny puffs of smoke
• Timeless ocean dance

In an upstairs widow in our home hangs a crystal. This crystal is a multi-faceted orb about half the size of a ping pong ball, shaped like a fat raindrop and coming to a slight point at the bottom. A thin filament runs through the top of this crystal. There are fourteen beads of various shapes, sizes and colors strung through each side of the filament so what you see is a perfect bead-covered V terminating in the crystal. These beads were given to my wife Carol by her friends eighteen years ago at her baby shower.

There are four small southeast facing windows about head high on one side of this room. The window on the far left is the first one that catches direct sunlight so that’s where we’ve hung the crystal. The rising sun only shines through this window at certain times during the year on clear, cloudless mornings. When the first rays of sun hit the crystal, the walls are instantly covered with a multitude of tiny brilliant rainbows. Give the crystal a spin and the rainbows dance, dip and dive around the room. This is a fleeting show as the rainbows only last as long as the sun shines through the window. This crystal holds a special place in the ongoing history of our family.

When our now seventeen year old twins were babies they shared a room. This room is downstairs, it’s one window faces west. Back then it was the setting sun that created the dancing rainbow effect. Carol and I would spin the crystal again and again as our babies lay in their cribs, mesmerized by the dazzling dance that we were creating. Judging by their wide-eyed wonder, to them this was pure magic. I understand the science behind prisms but still find it magical the way prisms and light create rainbows.

Now I go through life as a former child. I try every day to view the world through the prism of childhood, looking for magic and wonder wherever I can find it.

(The “dancing crystal” effect inspired me to write this song, it appears on my cd Late Bloomer. Give it a listen.)

Out of all the holidays, major or minor, Christmas has by far the most songs associated with it. Thanksgiving? Well, there’s Over The River And Through The Woods and… Hanukah? There are two that I know of. Great songs, but still only two. Halloween? There are quite a few songs that we hear on and around October 31, but most of those are about spooky things unrelated to Halloween and not actually about the day itself. For holiday songs, Christmas has it hands down.

When considering artists who’ve recorded Christmas albums it’s easier to think in terms of who hasn’t done one. From William Shatner to Frank Sinatra and all points in between, virtually every well known musician or celebrity has at one time or another made their musical statement regarding “the most wonderful time of the year.” Christmas songs run the gamut from the mundane and maudlin to the joyous and transcendent.

As a kid, my mom always had music playing around the house and she doubled down at Christmas. From the day after Thanksgiving until our heads hit the pillow on 12/25, our family was served a steady diet of holiday classics. By far the number one record on my mom’s holiday hit parade was Johnny Mathis’ Merry Christmas. Mathis’ smooth as silk crooning on such classics as Winter Wonderland and Silver Bells are forever etched into my childhood Christmas memories. Released in 1958, this album still gets its fair share of airplay. Not far behind Johnny was Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song, Frank Sinatra’s Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, and Andy Williams’ It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year.

Christmas is such an emotionally charged time of year. There’s a lot of pressure to be happy and to get into the spirit of the season. While I generally look forward to and enjoy the holiday, I’m definitely not always happy around Christmas. The mixed feelings of joy, sadness, melancholy and ambivalence are often hard to reconcile. The most enduring Christmas songs manage to take into account all of these conflicting emotions and produce some truly great music. Vince Guaraldi’s original compositions on the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas is a prime example. Guaraldi’s shimmering piano work throughout this record perfectly captures the emotional rollercoaster that is Christmas. You don’t have to celebrate Christmas in order to enjoy all of the wonderful songs. There are 500 recorded versions of White Christmas, it is widely considered one of the greatest holiday songs of all time. It was written by Irving Berlin, a Jewish man.

Which brings me to my favorite Christmas song. Choosing one is like trying to pick a favorite Hawaiian sunset; there are just so damn many great ones. The Phil Spector produced A Christmas Gift For You is loaded! From the Ronettes rollicking rendition of Sleigh Ride to Darlene Love’s desperate plea on Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) there’s not a dud on the entire album. Karen Carpenter’s achingly beautiful take on Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas sends chills up my spine. The Roches, sister trio from New Jersey, affect heavy Bugs Bunny style Brooklyn accents on their hilarious and unique send up of Frosty The Snowman. Bruce Springsteen’s ebullient Santa Claus Is Coming To Town is enough to make Ebenezer Scrooge himself get up and dance. Last Christmas by Wham! is a dreadful song. The insipid vocals and vapid 80’s synthesizer make this one of the cheesiest Christmas songs of all time, but for a couple of weeks every year my teenage daughter and I laugh ourselves silly every time we hear it. So many songs, so little time.

So drumroll please. My favorite Christmas song is: Keith Richards’ recording of Chuck Berry’s Run Rudolph Run. This bare bones arrangement features in all its raunchy glory Keith’s unique guitar playing that is the trademark of the Rolling Stones sound. While not usually regarded as a great singer, Keith’s “ragged but right” vocals here perfectly captures the rollicking rock and roll spirit of Chuck’s original. I bought this record when it came out on 45rpm in 1978 and it’s been in my holiday rotation ever since. When no one’s home, I crank up the volume and do the air guitar bop around our Christmas tree!

Music is as integral to Christmas as Santa, Rudolph, family and that intoxicating, fresh cut fir tree smell. Thanks to the advent of music streaming, there’s now a nearly endless supply of holiday classics at our fingertips. Pick your favorite playlist and fill the air with the sounds of Christmas.

The trees are nearly naked, their skeletal branches are stark against a white and overcast sky, a sky without definition. The thirty foot oak tree that stands outside our house has picked up the pace at shedding its small, light brown leaves. Like puzzle pieces they cover our cars, the street and the sidewalk. Oak leaves are piling up on our front lawn too. They crunch under my feet as I walk out to check the mailbox. I rake these leaves into a fairly large pile and pause to reflect. This memory floods into my mind.

An enormous pile of leaves, oaks as well, sits in the backyard of my childhood home in New Jersey. My siblings and I sprint towards the pile, leaping with reckless abandon until we land with a crunch and a rustle right in the center. We emerge bursting with laughter, our hair and clothes covered in the badges of autumn.

Years later with children of my own, I’d relive this experience vicariously through them under our oak tree, seeing more than a bit of my eight year old self in their laughing eyes.

The apple, cherry and Asian pear trees in our backyard are also in the midst of a leaf shedding frenzy. Shaped like tropical fish, their brilliant yellow leaves vibrate with contrast as they swim across the grass, turned deep green by the recent rains. At the height of summer these trees form a nearly unbroken canopy of green, obscuring all but a glimpse of the houses and backyards of our neighbors. The trees are alive with birds but they are difficult to spot, hidden as they are in the dense foliage. But with the branches of these trees gradually laid bare, the birds are now in plain sight, the mysterious locations of their springtime nests are revealed as well. Woodpeckers, chickadees, sparrows, robins, jays and warblers can be easily observed as they flit from branch to branch, tree to tree. Feeders- nectar for the hummingbirds, seeds and suet for all the others – provide winter food for them and excellent birding for us.

The thinning foliage of our apple tree reveals the last of the fruit. Bright red apples hang like early Christmas ornaments amidst the jumble of branches and limbs. We’ve reached our limit on eating, juicing, donating to friends and applesauce production so we leave the rest of the apples to the scrub jays, flickers, woodpeckers and squirrels. This has been a banner year for apples so there are plenty to go around.

Right on cue our citrus has begun to ripen. Easter egg yellow lemons, bright orange tangerines, navel oranges and gradually pinkening grapefruits all announce their presence in hues that deepen with each passing day. One of my great pleasures this time of year is eating the tangerines. They always seem to taste best in the morning when their lightly dimpled skin is wet with dew. The peels come away easily, usually in one continuous piece, revealing the small fruit within. When I pop each section into my mouth, there’s a burst of juice and complexity of flavors that can’t be bought in a store. Grapefruits and oranges will be squeezed later, providing us with fresh juice for months.

The days are getting shorter as winter solstice approaches. Darkness arrives early and stays well into the early morning hours. The air is crisp and invigorating. My breath escapes me in swirling clouds of white, each exhalation disappearing quickly into the air. The cool overcast days and near freezing nights allow me to slow down and deeply appreciate the changes that are upon us.

While the leaves gradually disappear, Christmas decorations begin to reappear. I feel a sense of urgency this holiday season. Last year the holidays were for all intents and purposes postponed. With traditional celebrations, gatherings and travel nearly back to pre-Covid levels, we are all thankful and eager to make up for lost time. I began noticing Christmas decorations even before Thanksgiving. Front lawns are now alive with a festive explosion of twinkling lights, color, Santas, reindeer and all the other icons of Christmas.

In closing I can’t forget to mention the sunsets. On certain nights in autumn/winter when the clouds and weather conditions are just right, the evening sky is ablaze with every imaginable shade, hue and tint of pink, yellow, orange, purple and red. Mother Nature has really loaded up her palette with colors this year and on some nights she uses them all.

Winter is closing in. Build a fire in the fireplace, snuggle up someplace warm with the ones you love and savor every moment.

It’s before 8:00am and all things seem possible. Before 8:00am there’s no hatred; the mean, vicious and small minded all sleep in. Before 8:00am no one wears a face mask, fear is still in bed. While greed heads dream of more and more and more, the earth awakens and begins to shed its comforting blanket of fog. Everything feels new and refreshed. I breathe in the cold morning air and exhale miniature clouds that quickly melt away. Anger and strife hide under quilts of denial while hummingbirds, newly awakened, dart from tree to feeder, feeder to tree. Before 8:00am I feel as if I could change the world for the better with just the sheer force of my will. At this time of morning there’s no judgement, everyone and everything is accepted for whom and what they are.

The day dawns slowly and deliberately, as it has done for millennia. The yellow leaves of autumn sashay slowly to the ground, landing with an inaudible sigh. Walking barefoot through the dew soaked grass is an invigorating baptism. I crunch into a freshly picked apple and savor the impossibly sweet juice as it fills my mouth. The birdbath fountain shimmers and gurgles while it awaits its first visitors of the day, usually the chestnut backed chickadees, fearless and free as I long to be.

The quiet of this peaceful autumn morning inevitably gives way to the cacophony of another day on planet Earth. In the face of an increasingly broken world, I still somehow hold on to the hope of promise and renewal. It’s before 8:00am. I refuse to give up, I refuse to give in.

One day last spring I finally sold our daughter’s bicycle. She’s 17 now and drives a car. The bike had been collecting dust in our garage for several years now. It was time to let it go. This one was the last in the continuum of three bikes that she’s owned, and it was a real doozy! It was bright pink with floral designs on the frame, it had hand brakes and ten gears and multi-colored streamers spilling out from the ends of the handlebars. A woman bought it for her granddaughter. The little girl looked to be about ten years old, the same age as our daughter when we first bought her the bike. The joy on this girl’s face when she got out of the car and saw the bike was a beautiful sight. She quickly jumped onto the seat, gave it a test ride around our cul-de-sac and we called it a deal. I loaded the bike into their car, the girl beaming the whole time.

Last night I finally got around to selling the portable basketball hoop that we had bought for our son. I spent most of a Christmas day seven years ago assembling the thing. When we finally had it up, he and I shot hoops until well past dark. It’s been a couple of years now since he’d last used it. The hoop had since become a perch for neighborhood songbirds and an occasional resting place for fallen leaves from our oak tree. A guy bought it as a Christmas gift for his young son. We disassembled the hoop and just barely managed to fit it into the back of his mini-van. Looking out front this morning, all that’s left of the hoop is a large black spot of mud and leaves that had collected under the base. It’s a strange empty space, kind of like the void left when a tree is cut down.

Yes, it’s just a basketball hoop, but it’s also the many hours spent playing H-O-R-S-E and one -on-one with our son; the impossible 25 foot jump shots that caught nothing but net. Of course, it’s just a bicycle, but it’s also the unbridled joy on our daughter’s face, her long red braids flying out from behind her as she speeds down the street for the first time on her new bike.

It’s not the “thing” but rather the memories that are attached to it.

These past few years have been particularly active and filled with change for our two children. As they transition from tweens to teens to late teens, I’m reminded that the only thing in life that’s constant is change. This is especially evident to those of us who have children. The transition from one phase of their lives to the next is happening rapidly and right before my eyes. It’s this dynamic nature that reminds me to be present, show up for my kids and appreciate every moment that we share. On the cusp of adulthood, our children are putting away childish things and preparing to take that leap of faith into the future.

A week ago Sonoma County, where I live, received its first substantial rainfall of the season. By the time the deluge had passed, nearly 8 inches of rain had fallen over a 24 hour period.

It rained last night. I mean it really rained. This was not the fleeting storm of a couple days ago but an actual sustained storm that lasted through the night. Rain was still falling when I woke up this morning with no sign of letting up any time soon.

After dinner last night I sat out on our deck. It was dark except for the small candle lantern that I had lit. Raindrops swished and rat-a-tatted onto the plastic roof that covers the deck. The speed and intensity of the raindrops ebbed and flowed, alternating  from a near downpour to barely a whisper, on and on while I sat there in silent gratitude. The plants and animals, rocks and grasses, creeks, rivers and lakes – all desiccated and desperate for rain, any rain – were drinking in this glorious autumn shower. I could feel their collective sighs along with my own. The intoxicating smells of wet earth perfumed the air. I filled my lungs again and again and just couldn’t get enough. 

When I looked out our bedroom window this morning, the grass was aglow with millions of water droplets, each one reflecting a tiny piece of the new day. The branches of our fruit trees were bowed with the weight of last night’s soaking. The red and green apples looked even more inviting than usual; having been washed clean they shone as if polished. Small puddles had formed on our deck, darkening the weathered redwood.

The past four Octobers have been a trying time as we’ve all been living under constant threat of wildfires. Evacuations, smoke, red flag warnings and power shut offs had become a depressing reality of life here in Sonoma County. Thankfully this is an altogether different year. Every raindrop that falls hastens the end of fire season.

All living things are drinking in this rain. Let it pour until the creeks and rivers are once again flowing, until the lakes and reservoirs are swollen, until the parched brown hillsides light up in their winter shades of green, until the air is once again filled with a symphony of croaking frogs, until rain is no longer a dream but a part of the Earth’s and our renewal. Let us all rejoice and give thanks for rain.