Getting Ready to Say Goodbye

Two more days and we will be leaving Sweet Valley, Pensylvania to head back West to Santa Cruz, California.

It will be a bittersweet move, as it always is, because though I really love Santa Cruz, I have also become quite fond of our home on Bethel Hill Road; the meadow behind the house, the new forest area, and our new neighbors. There are the little areas of the huge yard that I have been slowly taming, and the general solitude and peacefullness of the area really appeal to me.

Right now, as I write, a thunderstorm approaches, causing the dogs to cling to me. Not nearly as intense as the storm last week that had me shaking as I drove home though it - this storm is wonderful and dramatic, coming closer I hope, and should bring another spell of rainfall.

It is warm, fine for now, but generally too hot for me. The little gnats that bite won't be missed at all, nor will the sometimes incessant yapping of one neighbors many, many... many dogs.

I look forward to the foggy Monterey Bay.

Back in Santa Cruz I know everyone and can fill my time easily, stopping by a friend's house, or having guests pop by unexpectedly. Here, 40 miles form town, no one stops by and that is okay, too.

There are a LOT of smokers here, and litterbugs... you can't drive anywhere out here without seeing piles of old garbage in the yard. There is a lot of controversy here about a possible ban on smoking, something I am so grateful for having back in SC.

It is getting darker outside and the storm in definitely getting closer, the distant rumblings turning now to sharp cracks, sending the dogs to my lap as I write - both of them, dogs that is.

I will miss seeing the yard change and if you can believe it, I will miss mowing the lawn - a huge lawn that must be half of the six acres we have here.

The rain just started to pour down with the last thundercrack. Instantly there are little torrents of water running down the hills and around the house. Another flash of light and I wait for the sound...

I will miss this, yet I know that as soon as we leave, I will begin to yearn for the art and music I am involved in back at my other home. My mom is there and will be so glad to see me and the dogs. From there I can connect to my friends, my garden, and a different lifestyle that I equally love.

I will be back, of course, sometime in the fall ,so it isn't forever.

For now, I will just enjoy the storm.

Jim the Biker

Near Sweet Valley, PA I passed a charming little cottage; new construction, but made from locally milled siding with the bark still on it. Outside in the clearing were little red Japanese maples, ferns, and river rock. There in the middle of it all was a buddha overlooking the garden and the river beyond.
Though I was a little hesitant to knock on a stranger's door, I just had to stop and meet the person who lived there. I imagined several possibilities of whom this might be: a young writer perhaps, a new couple from a big city seeking some peacefullness. I met neither.

After explaining why I stopped and knocked on the door, I learned that Jim was a disabled veteran returning to the land of his youth. He explained that he was a practicing Buddhist, for to claim oneself as a Buddhist was to not be a Buddhist any more, as one is always practicing...

He loved it there, and built this house with timber from his property- the property he loved as a child.

He used to be a biker in either the best or the worst biker gang, depending on how you looked at it. He lived in Albequerque, New Mexico for awhile but it was simply not to compare with the forest and the river - the river who's rocks he had carried up to his garden.

He said that he was exposed to Agent Orange while in the war, adding that "it never happened", as if quoting the officlal government reports.

He also told me that from that exposure he had skin cancer and only expected to live another year or two.

I am glad I stopped.