Under a Blanket of Stars

We sat on the back deck last night, turned all the lights off in the back part of the house, closed the blinds that cover the sliding glass door, bundled up under a blanket and lay back on our reclining chairs to watch the stars. There are no streetlights in the neighborhood where we have rented a house, and obviously the omission was part of the building plan. Only the occasional car drove driving one of the roads nearby, its headlights dimming the stars a tad. I didn’t go camping as a kid, but I do remember seeing a lot of stars in the sky even at home, even more when visiting friends who lived out in the country. What is lacking in those memories is the awe that we felt last night.

The sky looked–cluttered; it didn’t look clear, it looked freckled. And there was just enough cloud cover to add a dimension of wispy opacity in a non-pattern, as if to add texture or softness to a blanket. The stars were so close that it was like looking up at a blanket that had been thrown over the earth as a protective barrier. I like the idea of a protective barrier keeping us safe even in the daytime. The stars are out there even in the daytime, we just can’t see them, so the blanket is there all the time keeping us safe. Safe from the unknown. Maybe safe from ourselves

I had forgotten that stars twinkle. Oh sure, intellectually I know that Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is titled such because of the natural phenomenon. I just don’t actually think about it, or didn’t until last night. They did more than twinkle, they shimmered; they invited my eyes in for a closer look and then seemed to move, sometimes in a line, sometimes farther away, sometimes closer. Startled I would bring my focus back down to earth and blink only to see that the stars had returned to their original positions. They were teasing me, playing games from millions (or billions) of miles away, dancing around in the sky overhead, obviously delighted to be free up there in the night sky. Free to be seen, free to twinkle, free to shimmer, free to be part of a lovely, soft blanket we could wrap ourselves in just before we fell asleep.

An Affair to Remember

Remember that first feeling of falling in love? Maybe the first time that you made love with that new special someone? Remember how it smelled fresh and new, how soothing the touch was on your skin. That's how the air in Sea Ranch, California felt to me last night. I sat out on the deck off the hexagonal house we are renting and looked out at the crashing waves of the ocean that were lit by the stars. The wispy tendrils of the clouds danced among those stars twinkling above my head.

It's as if I could inhale all of the physical and emotional into my nostrils and hold them there. It felt decadent and wholesome. The sea air mingled with the breath of the pine trees and filled me with a sense of calm. Serenity. For a brief moment, the air was my lover, the breeze was his arms embracing me.

The wet kiss on the mouth-that was a dog.

This year we brought our puppies, Molly and Teddy. And they love Sea Ranch. They love the yard that holds oh so many fascinating scents, and the deer that watch us pass by while on our evening walks. We haven't yet introduced them to this portion of the ocean, in mid-Northern California. We are above Fort Ross and well belong Fort Bragg.

Northern California coasts are notoriously cold and windy. The water is certainly cold, and yesterday's breeze sounded from the inside of the house like a minor hurricane, but the wind wasn't cold and the sun still shone and it was just lovely. This morning there is some fog rolling in and it looks like it might obscure the sun for the day. Even then, we are so close to the ocean that we can hear the waves roll and crash. For a water baby (I was born under the sign of Cancer the crab) this is like coming home. Like an affair to remember. So, my Irish coffee and I (cup #3 for the morning) are going back out on the deck now.

Meet Willie Brown

Former San Francisco Mayor, Speaker of the California Assembly, and author Willie Brown was promoting his new book, "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times" at Sonoma State University this evening. I've read that he is flamboyant, self-centered, intelligent, and well-versed on his favorite topic: Willie Brown. All of these things proved to be true. And more.

Willie L. Brown, Jr. is a study in human contradictions. On one hand he is adamant that anyone working as a public servant in political office has only one bottom line to adhere to, serving the best interests of the people. This means that self-serving takes back seat. He also has a tendency to speak of himself in the third person. He never uses the royal "we," but he does talk an awful lot about Willie Brown–by name. He is clear that his role as speaker was to make other members of the assembly look good. He is also clear that he is and was a power broker behind the careers of many high-profile politicians, many currently in office.

He is highly intelligent and not shy in sharing his insights and his analysis. He does not, however, claim to be the cleverest man around. That honor goes (in Willie Brown's opinion) to former California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

My 21-year-old son was my companion. We were the second and third youngest people in the audience. I would put the average age of the attendees at 65 or higher. I took my son because he has an interest in politics. When Fidel Castro stepped down and handed over the reigns of Cuba to his brother, my son had been out of town that day and hadn't heard the news until it was several hours old. He then called and chastised me for not keeping him apprised of this momentous event. We talked for 20 minutes about the potential long-term impacts nationally and internationally of the shift in power. Every other young person (under the age of 25) that I spoke with today didn't know who Willie Brown was. I knew that my son would be interested in spending an evening immersed in political discourse.

The discussion eventually moved to the current presidential race. Brown claimed that Obama has been able to side-step the race issue, but that Hillary Clinton was definitely a victim of gender bias. He seems very clear that if the two were on the presidential ticket together that gender and race would no longer be an issue and that McCain would be left in the dust. He also referenced Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" as a potential primer for Obama to follow Lincoln's lead of assembling a cabinet, in advance, of rivals and supporters alike to assure good council for the presidency.

All in all it was an interesting evening, and I would imagine an exhausting one for the guest of honor. He began his day in Montreal at 2:00 a.m. our time. He then flew to New York before returning to this coast and arriving at SSU. The program began at just past 7:30 and when we left at 9:30 or so he was still signing copies of his book. I'm not sure I could survive that kind of day, especially given that it is not be an unusual schedule for him. The man is 74-years-old and has far more stamina than I do.