Ten minutes on March 22, 2008

Ten minutes on March 22, 2008

Today was the tenth anniversary of moving into cohousing. I was late because I was going through fourteen envelopes full of pictures from 1996 to 1999. I brought a huge selection to the party, and people came over and looked at pictures of this place when it was a nice overgrown field, when it was being planned, and when the sticks started to go up. There are pictures of the houses rising like bots, and a couple gatherings in front of not quite built yet houses in a sea first of mud and then of mulch and mud.

I walked over from the part to watch some of the March madness at the common house. Stanford men got by Marquette in OT and Stanford women dominated somebody. On the way I could hear the laughter coming from the open houses, and the kids playing beckon beckon with Rhiannon (home from college with her cute self administered short haircut), and all the trees are going off so that wind blows a snow of pink and white petals and the scent stays in a halo around the trees well into the evening.

I spent a good part of today recovering from my long day yesterday: waking up in French Corral, a used to be gold rush town way way way up on a ridge out Highway 49.  I woke up and looked out over at the Wells Fargo building, a brick affair from the mid 19th Century, and the rolling hills. Birds were calling to me, saying “come out and take a leak and get your stuff and put it in your car and drive to espresso” so I did exactly that, taking a minute to say goodbye to Luna (Darcy’s cat who Steven inherited) and feeding her wet food so she'll like me. Nevada City was about 20 or so minutes away, down a road with trees and cows and houses and a few trailers. In town felt like the opposite to French Corral; it felt like real estate had come and placed its hand on all the buildings, taking a small part of their souls. But then I found a café with lox for the bagels and very decent espresso and said, well so be it, and read about all the fires that ravaged the Seven Hills here back in the day. The entire place burned at least twice taking with it a rather large amount of the value of the town.

So. Nice breakfast in the sun in the window of a café right on the main drag so I could mull over the architecture of the place and people watch (one fellow with the serious prospector’s whiskers, a couple guys falling over each other’s feet, people who looked like the hand of real estate had touched them). Then drive to Darcy’s, drive the already loaded truck to the dump down 49 to west 20 on the ramp off again right right and onto the dump road. Drive onto the scales; drive around to the dumping area; hump a bunch of stuff off the truck and into a big pit. Not much dignity for the funeral of things; a loud of noise, bulldozers and trucks and stuff breaking.  I kept thinking how someday people would mine solid waste disposal areas for metal, machinery, who knows what.

Then get weighed again, pay, drive back to North Bloomfield Road, load the truck with the rest of the material possessions of the dead woman, drive to Salvation Army, and unload for the last time. The guy working there took pictures of the graffiti on the side of the truck, and told me he and his uncle tagged a lot before they got caught and went to jail. Now his uncle has a site and puts up all sorts of tags from anywhere and everywhere. Then a quick lunch, call Steve for the fourth time and know for sure he’s left his phone home, drop the truck and pay the U Haul dude to drive me up to Darcy’s for less than the taxi would charge. A last look at the place, quiet now in the afternoon sun, peaceful but with a slight edge as I look over at the tree we planted for Jer, site of two violent deaths. Nature doesn’t care, I think, and I don’t quite believe in ghosts, but the mind can’t quite believe all is gone forever here of the sounds, the blood, the rapid expulsion of two spirits like a quick exhale, a packet of energy sent back into the universe as the body slumps back to stuff.

So with all that and going to Penn Valley and playing disc golf with guys I met there (Ron the talker, the someday pro, Budice the long haired dude with some sweet shots, named for his ubiquitous Budweiser product in his bag) and driving straight from Penn Valley to Fresno, eating a meal and then on the road and over the mountain and back, finally, finally, home.

I walked in and found Rhiannon just home from Middlebury, found Kelsey there too and El (who just won the National Poetry prize for her age group) and Kathy Corby (like me dead tired) and I slumped and talked just a bit and drank in their energy and laughter and went out and walked between all those trees, begun in mud and on drawings, now each a halo of unearthly scent, of oh so earthly scent, sweet and sharp in the cold air, like an offering, like a prayer.