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.)
Salmon Creek Beach
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.
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.
So many Christmas songs, so little time!
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!
The winner.
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.
A few days before this photo was taken, this creekbed near our home was completely dry!
My son has a particularly creative English teacher. For a recent assignment she had her students choose 7-10 songs that were important to them at some point in their lives. They were to write a short vignette about why each song was important, create a playlist and link it to Spotify. They even had to make an album cover. Pretty cool way to motivate high school seniors, huh? So, this got me thinking. Here are a few tunes that are signposts in my life.
She Loves You
The Beatles
Written by John Lennon/Paul McCartney
In late 1963 I was seven years old and The Beatles were on the cusp of their maiden voyage to America. There was a small music store in my hometown called Caldwell Studio of Music which sold all the latest hit records. That’s where my brother Ray and I bought She Loves You. This song was being played pretty much non-stop on WABC radio, it was the most joyous music that either of us had ever heard and we just had to have it. It was on the Swan label and I can still visualize the design (silver script letters on a black background). The three part harmonies, jangly guitars and rock solid beat courtesy of Ringo made this the perfect song for jumping up and down on our beds, which Ray and I did with reckless abandon as we played this song over and over and over.
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Crosby, Stills and Nash
Written by Stephen Stills
This is the first song on CSN’s eponymously titled debut album and the song that kicked off their middle of the night set at Woodstock. Right before hitting the now instantly recognizable notes of the song’s intro, Stills confessed to the crowd of 400,000 that he and his bandmates were “scared shitless.” Hearing this 3-part song suite lamenting the end of Stills’ love affair with Judy Collins was the beginning of my lifelong love affair with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Their music and songwriting have been a continuous source of inspiration to me for nearly half a century. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was on the turntable the first time my college girlfriend and I made love.
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
Bob Dylan
Written by Bob Dylan
In early 1975, I walked into a party at the apartment of a college friend of mine. In the back bedroom, I heard acoustic guitar music playing so I went to check it out. A guy and a gal (soon to become my dear friends Ben and Laurie) were deep into a rollicking rendition of Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright. Their guitars were ringing out, Laurie was singing it like Joni Mitchell and both had smiles on their faces a mile wide. The room was filled with other kids dancing and grooving to the music. I took one look at this joyous scene and decided right then and there that I wanted to be able to play like Ben and Laurie. I’ve been a musician ever since and I can trace it all back to that exact moment in time.
Heart of Gold
Neil Young
Written by Neil Young
Soon after the aforementioned event, I went out and bought my first guitar: a Yamaha FG-160 that set me back a whopping $75. Many in my new circle of college friends were musicians, they encouraged me and tolerated my stumbling initial attempts at playing the guitar. They graciously invited me into their jams and taught me my first guitar chords. I was driven and determined to succeed. The learning curve on guitar is steep though. What finally got me over that curve was Neil Young’s album Harvest. I spent countless hours locked in my room listening to that record until I could play every song. Heart of Gold was the first song that I learned to sing and play in its entirety. I’m still playing it today.
Amie
Pure Prairie League
Written by Craig Fuller
After much woodshedding, I’d gotten to the point in my guitar playing where I could finally hold my own in the jams. My pals Ben, Bruce, Tim and myself formed a little group we called BLT. We were the “headliners” at many a wild party in the dorms and at our friends’ off campus apartments. What a rush it was for me to be making the music instead of being just a spectator. I was lead singer on the majority of our songs not because I had the best voice, it was passable at best, but because I was the only one who could remember all the lyrics. Amie was our signature tune and the song I most think of when recalling that period in my life. It was the perfect song to kickstart a party. Hearing our friends singing along with us and being moved by our music helped give the confidence to move forward as a musician.
Ventura Highway
America
Written by Dewey Bunnell
Growing up on the east coast in the 60’s and 70’s I was inundated with California culture. TV, movies and most powerfully for me, music were filled with enticing images of sunshine, beautiful girls, endless beaches and freedom. To me California was a mythical place where all things seemed possible. Nothing embodied those possibilities in my mind more than Ventura Highway. The twin acoustic guitar intro, Dewey’s sweet and mellow lead vocal and three part harmonies are gradually joined by bass and drums until the song builds into a rollicking anthem to the promise and beauty of California. Listening to that song as a New Jersey teenager, I’d close my eyes and imagine that it was MY hair the free wind was blowing through. By the end of the 70’s I would be living in California. Of course, the Ventura Freeway in Southern California is just an ugly and crowded freeway but for me it will always be the road to freedom.
Bertha
The Grateful Dead
Written by Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter
My entry point for the Grateful Dead, in Deadspeak when I “got on the bus,”was their 1972 double live album. Eponymously titled Grateful Dead, this record is also known as Skull and Roses. Bertha is the lead track on the album. What grabbed me at the onset about this song was surprisingly not just Jerry Garcia’s guitar work but rather the inventive and melodic playing of bassist Phil Lesh. With Phil at the helm, the bass is front and center throughout this album, providing the perfect counterpoint to Jerry’s interstellar meandering and Bob Weir’s inventive rhythm guitar work. It’s hard to overstate the importance of The Dead in my life. I met my wife and virtually every friend I have directly or indirectly through The Dead. This merry band of fun seekers and chance takers opened up a world of possibilities for me. I was inspired by them to take the road less traveled, so to speak and to live a more free spirited and adventurous life.
My Sweet Lord
George Harrison
Written by George Harrison
My Sweet Lord has been a part of my life since finding the 45rpm record of this song under the Christmas tree in 1970. Songs come and go throughout our lives. Some blaze like a shooting star, others are constant like the sunrise. My Sweet Lord is my sunrise. The power and beauty of this song has not diminished one iota in the half century I’ve been listening to it. It never fails to send a chill up my spine and bring tears to my eyes. I believe that George and producer Phil Spector were tapped into something truly divine during the recording of My Sweet Lord.
I get here and and just wait for the magic to happen. Sometimes the magic manifests itself in obvious ways like the sudden appearance of a river otter or the piercing cry of an osprey as it circles the sky above the river. Quite often though the magic of this place is felt in subtle and barely perceptible ways. Today for example we’re on the cusp of the autumnal equinox and I can feel the magic of seasonal transition all around me. The angle of the sun, the quality of the light and the difference in the breeze are all undeniable signs of change.
The transition from summer to autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. The blistering heat, drought and relentless sunshine gradually give way to cooler temperatures, cloudy mornings and eventually the welcome rains. Last year at this time our area was covered in a suffocating blanket of toxic smoke as terrifying wildfires were once again burning out of control and threatening our community. Weeks on end of relentless smoke, fire and blistering heat obscured the seasonal change that was going on all around us. By the time the smoke cleared and the fires were finally under control, it had already become autumn.
I feel so much gratitude today. At least for now, no fires are burning nearby. The sky is robin’s egg blue, not apocalypse orange and the air is so clean! I fill my nostrils with the sweet, subtle smells of earth, river and forest. After the horrific fires of the past four years I deeply relish and will never again take for granted how wonderful it feels to breathe cool, clean air.
The river is barely flowing. It acts like a mirror: the reflection of the surrounding trees is broken only by the whisper of a breeze that ripples across the water, the occasional jump of a fish and a few early autumn leaves that corkscrew their way down to the surface. The branches of the trees shimmer and wave; some have already begun to surrender their leaves to the timeless march of seasonal change. Many will soon be bare, only to burst forth once again into the glittering greens of spring.
Ravens and turkey vultures wheel overhead, black chevrons against the blue. The screech of a red shouldered hawk and the chatter of a Stellar’s Jay temporarily break the silence. Fallen leaves swirl slowly in the eddy before me. There’s a resident squirrel here, it’s “whoop, whoop” voice is either a welcome or a warning. The rattle of a belted kingfisher tells me that this diminutive aquatic predator is active nearby.
There are powerful forces at work here. You could call it God or magic or whatever you like. Summer is dissolving into autumn. I breathe it all in and let the magic of seasonal change flow through me. Today is truly a gift and I’m not letting it slip by unnoticed.
You don’t need no gypsy to tell you why you can’t let one precious day slip by.
I was awakened at 1:20 this morning by the hypnotic notes of wind chimes; one deep and sonorous, the other high pitched and tinkly. The wind had picked up, something was happening.
The rain began slowly at first, barely a whisper as the drops fell through our pear tree. It gradually increased in speed and intensity, the whisper became a woosh and was joined by the rat-a-tat of raindrops on the plastic roof that covers our deck. I wanted to wake my wife up but her rhythmic breathing told me she was in a deep sleep. I wanted to throw off my shorts, run outside and do a dance of gratitude to the rain gods for this unexpected gift; but instead I just lay there in the darkness and pinched myself to make sure that this was no dream. As quickly as it began, the rain subsided. For the next hour however, this pattern repeated. Wind chimes sing, whisper, woosh, rat-a-tat, silence. And the smell! There is no sweeter aroma on our blue planet than that of the Earth as it drinks in the first quenching raindrops after a long and parching drought. It’s the smell of hope and renewal, the perfume of gratitude. The dirt, grass, flowers and trees all letting our a chorus of “thank you.”
It didn’t rain quite this hard, but it was a good start.
Twelve hours later I sit and write. Nothing is as it was yesterday. The leaves of our fruit trees glow with a freshly scrubbed brilliance. A crisp, clean smell permeates everything. The haze and smoke has been cleansed from the air, leaving the sky the deepest of blues that bathes our community in peace and comfort. The breeze is in absolutely no hurry, it finds its voice in the music of the wind chimes.
The quality of light has suddenly shifted. Seemingly overnight summer has finally given way to the first glimmer of autumn. Is the drought over? Unfortunately it will take more than a magical late summer rain shower to put this drought behind us. But for at least this brief moment, the Earth and all living things is letting out a collective sigh of relief.
