2:27 on a sunday afternoon in june

Hot and dry and dusty. That was the California of your growing up, when days were cooled by Tang and sprinklers (once the drought had passed) that made lazy arcs in the sky like a jump rump. All these decades on, and California is as you remember it, the air baked as if in a brick oven, and heady with the smell of pine and eucalyptus and lavender and parch.

Driving back home through Hidden Valley in the early afternoon, you dropped off at Foxfield, a riding school across the street. You'd been meaning to come over to take photos, hoping to capture the essence of this hot dry dusty place nestled into a corner of the Santa Monica Mountains, and with little left to do on a lazy Sunday in late June, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

From the road, without the benefit of the sign, you'd never know it was here, would never guess that the place was a hub of laborers and instructors and students and patient horses, large and gentle things that submit humbly to the rider's instructions at the click of the tongue or the tap of a boot heel...

...as well as a few others, whose purpose at the school you can only guess at.

The stables sit under a knot of Oak trees, which is just as well, because without them, the already-oppressive heat would turn the blood in your veins to sludge and melt the marrow in your bones. You're sure of it.


This early into the summer, and already there are fire warning signs on the sides of the hills — advice the stable owners seem to have taken to heart, and with great success, judging by the cobwebs on this fire extinguisher:

At the back of the property, behind the barns and storage units and ancient trucks


and storybook tractors

and tools designed to measure and gauge



stretches this bridge:

a rusty, angular expanse of utility and purpose that tries not at all to fit in with the aesthetics of its surroundings. You love this bridge, this wobbly catwalk of cables and isosceles triangles



love its quiet importance which must ignore the fact of the empty creek bed, below, in order to justify its existence.


You'd think the California earth would protest more, would cry out for water, especially this far into a year with little rainfall to speak of, but it doesn't. Where there may have been desperation is only a calm, patient attendance, an acceptance of what is, a quiet expectation of what is to come. True to its boom/bust Gold Rush nature, California takes things in stride. The rains will come again, and once again, these creeks will be teeming with life-giving water, and the hills will be as green as Ireland's, as impossible as it seems now.


You and your companion don't have as much tolerance for the heat, however


and after a while, it was time to cross another hopeful bridge home.


Along the way, you found the greenbelt dotted with lavender bushes. Their scent always takes you back to another summer, one that folded into memory 20 years ago, the one which your older sister and best friend spent in the south of France, where she purchased for you a harlequin doll stuffed with lavender seeds.


The doll is long gone, but to this day, you can't pass a lavender bush without calling it to mind.

You stopped once more to appreciate this symmetry, purchased with your Home Owner's Association dues

and a neighbor's drought-tolerant yard featuring a gaggle of hens and chicks plants


and then you were home, where you were greeted by the cool of the brick floors and evidence that the rest of the family had already taken measures to beat the heat


as they waited for your return.

father's day #15

Fifteen years ago and some change, we started a family, a home-based business of sorts, complete with its own budget, mission statement, goals and objectives. Going into it, we knew that this company would never turn a profit, not as it stands. But that didn't make it any less worthwhile, didn't discourage us from making investments that, for the most part, won't start to yield dividends for a while still. No matter. It's not like we're flipping real estate or day trading. We're in this for the long haul, betting on futures we are only now just beginning to see the outlines of — just there, beyond the horizon.

We kicked off Father's Day celebrations at Peet's Coffee with pastries and frappuccinos,

then took the long way out to Highway 1, past a riot of bougainvillea lining the road like bull fighter capes, tempting the eye away from double yellow lines that somehow manage to keep order among four lanes of potential chaos.

It's easy to forget, living in a hot and dry valley — where canyons and traffic and the day-t0-day concerns of running four lives, and all that this implies, stand between you and the edge of the continent — it's easy to forget that the ocean is there, constant and faithful and tireless. Also, vast and beautiful and somewhat terrifying. You take the ocean on its terms, never the other way around.


It was windy but warm, and like the pelicans in the above photo, we spent some time perched on Nana Rock, the place where we scattered some of his mom's ashes, almost a year ago.




Then, in keeping with company by-laws, took a handful of Silly Photos to add to our collection of 16 years:





The wind chased us off the beach and back over the canyons, resting only long enough to catch its breath as we snapped this photo of a cactus clinging to the sandy side of a hill just off the PCH,


and these on a turnout on Kanan Road, overlooking Malibu:


Back through a tunnel with K.T. Tunstall on the stereo, the girls holding their breath and a wish

as gravity and gratitude pulled us down into the valley, back towards the home that he makes possible.

Tomorrow we'll get back to the business of running this family, balancing, negotiating, mediating. With little to go on, we'll no doubt be flying by the seat of our pants. But then, that's how we've always done it, and this side of the Pacific Ocean, we're still afloat. When we turn the control of their lives over to them and turn them loose on the world, it's probable that they'll find a way to do it better. In fact, you hope that they do. Because that's your benchmark, that's how you'll know that this whole endeavor was a success.

Happy Father's Day 2009, JMS.


Love,
PJ&J

this and that

Summer. Finally.

Can I say that again? Because right now? Those two words? They are the most beautifulest words to be found in the English language. It's finally summer.

This school year, more than any other in memory, I feel like we crawled to the finish line. But now that we're here, I feel 10 pounds lighter.

In a few weeks, we'll start up with the dancing and the theatre and the driving (again with the driving), but for now, we're sleeping in and eying the pool (it's been cloudy and 70s since mid-May, but Julia wears her swimsuit every day without fail, just in case), going to Starbuck's, and running errands only on an as-needed basis.

Exciting? Not at all. Glamorous? Snort. NO.

But... perfect? Wonderful? Fantastic? Aw, yeah.

Here's what the perfectwonderfulfantastic day called Today looked like:

Jules and I dropped by Westlake High School to turn in the registration form for Orientation Week, which Jo will be attending in August.

(Aside: Is it right that I have a high schooler? That is not a rhetorical question.)

Anyway, while waiting for the office to open from lunch, I found this:



I love the man v. nature feel of this photo.

(Though am not entirely sure what the circle-y concrete thing at the entrance to school is for.)

(Maybe they will explain at orientation?)

(Highly unlikely, but I can't possibly be the only parent that has wondered.)

(Or maybe I am.)

(That's just how I roll.)

And snapped this:



Because this marks the first time in my life when a child of mine will be going to a school where they have to post such rules.

Sur. real.

Still waiting for the office to open:


Nothing much to say about this photo, except that I am crazy about this kid.

Afterwards, I took her for a haircut, and then dropped her back home before going to yoga. And then, at dinner, it was finally time to let them know where we'd be going this summer:


The first envelope read, "I think I'll like..." Leggs McGee opened that one, and found the airline tickets to San Francisco.

Julia's envelope finished the sentence with "...defying gravity!":

but it still took them a couple of seconds to realize that we'll be going up there to see Wicked at the Orpheum.

(You'd think the lyrics reference would have been an obvious giveaway.)

(Especially considering that they were both in a production of Wicked a few years back.)

(And that's ALL WE PLAYED in the car for about three months.)

(Not that I'm complaining — it's my favorite show that we've done.)

(But still.)

Oh, yeah, and stopping by the San Francisco Center for Beard Pappa cream puffs and Peet's coffee (there are no words), visiting the newly-renovated Exploratorium in Golden Gate Park, maybe a day trip north to the Wine Country, plus a stop over at Grandma and Grandpa's, and eating. Lots and lots of it.

And so, the countdown begins. Normally, I'd say that I can't wait, but I can. Because there are quite a few days of doing Absolutely Nothing to savor before it's time to go, and I plan on making the most of every last one of them.