Dream Ending

First I must mention that the sleeping arrangements have been deluxe. I loved the Marshmallow Bed - air mattress, futon mattress, flannel sheets, electric blanket (for the toasted effect) and down comforter.

Commuting between Alameda and the City was joy on the Blue and Gold Fleet Ferry. You could sit out on the back deck and share the marvels of the Bay Area the other non-locals.
With everyone back to their routine on Tuesday, I chose to see the ocean one more time and hike the trail at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, starting at the Cliff house and coming out at Seacliff, one of the ritzyist neighborhoods in the City.
Along the way I finally found a nice rocky beach to look for treasures.


On the last day Stan, Pat and I took the ferry into the City for the last time. We walked around the Mascone Center, up into the Marriott, and had lunch with Serena on a nice little patio with a fountain behind a neighborhood bistro. In the bistro style, a couple guys were improvising with a guitar.




Coming home, was more culture shock than being in the City. After being thoroughly absorbed in and glory of spring colors, greenery and scents, I had to face a couple more months of the dry, windswept, brown hills of Wyoming. After the allure and diversity this unique landscape, of this great melting pot, of all the money and what it can buy, I have to face the bleak reality of the drought and the struggle to be productive in spite of it. Now, after some weeks at home, new birds are singing, I have dirt under my finger nails, I've continued reading my inspirational books, and my love and compassion for Clark has put things back into perspective. I know what I must do but I still can't help thinking of the words of Jules LaForgue "Oh, how daily life is".

" I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me...
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!"



From there



To here



Text © 2004 Mona E. Dunn

California Dreaming - Japan Day

I know. The name of this blog doesn't seem pertinent anymore but I will try to wrap it up shortly about my vacation. I'm actually even starting to get over it and get on with my life. I got home Thursday night, March 10th. Friday night, while out in the pasture for the evening feeding, I heard a group on redwing blackbirds trilling in the cattails behind the house. This is the first definite sign of spring following the appearance of a few new ducks in late February. But even more reassuring, right before dark a lone meadowlark's sweet song drifted across the south pasture to seal the deal. All the gloom of the barren winter melts in anticipation.

Japan Day. Serena and I decided to spend our whole day together doing the town with most things Japanese. But first we had to stop on the way to Golden Gate Park at the Chinese bakery for black bean and a couple other sweet rolls. In the park, we walked through the botanical gardens to the Japanese Garden and Tea House. The gardens were ablaze with all colors, subtle and bright.





After taking in the serenity and poise of the East, we arrived at the Tea House. I don't have much experience with the black and green teas but here in the cold mists of the West Coast winter many partake of an afternoon tea for warmth and comfort. Fortified after our pots of tea, a small bowl of cookies and a sampling of our Chinese pastries, we headed down the center of the Park to the ocean.



We met Cole downtown to eat at Serena's current favorite restaurant serving Vegan Vietnamese. I was instructed that there are only two great dishes on the menu, so I complied and ordered a salad of noodles, tofu disguised as meat, cilantro, mint, spinach, peanuts, and a light, tasty dressing, accompanied by a sweet, strong iced coffee. Next stop, Japantown.



We looked at a rare gem-rock collection of carvings and monoliths for your living room. We couldn't ask any questions about these strange and wonderful rocks because the attendant didn't speak English. Next we went on the quest for a set of tea cups to go with the exotic selection teas that Cole had bought back from his trip to China. We bought incense and wind chimes (inverted mini-gongs) and looked through the Japanese supermarket for dinner. But first, the Kabuki Baths!

You disrobe and leave your things in a locker. Fortified with a bath towel, a hand towel, a wash cloth and a cup of rooibos tea, you enter the large, steamy bath house. Along the right wall, sitting on short stools, women are soaping up and rinsing with a large bowl of water; final rinse, pouring the bowl over you. The suggested routine is: sauna, steam bath, hot pool, ice pool. Notices posted on the wall remind you that this is a meditative experience, maintain a reasonable silence. A table on the left side of the spacious room offers a bowl of ice and clean washcloths, pitchers of cold water with either lemon/lime, orange, or cucumber slices, and small paper cups of salt for rubbing away any rough spots while in the steam room.

As much aversion I have for being cold, I have to admit the ice pool was, understandably, the thrill of it all! While sitting up to my neck in the near freezing pool, I came to terms with the cold water. Sitting on the bench after this exposure, I whispered to Serena, “Just close your eyes for a minute and feel every cell in your body going ‘YIPPIE!!!’. “


Text © 2004 Mona E. Dunn

California Dreaming III

We met at Serena and Cole's in the City at 9:30 am on Saturday. Serena’s girlfriend, Lea from Albuquerque via France, her Senegalese/French boyfriend, Stephan and Paul, from England, arrived shortly. Serena served homemade wheat biscuits, fig, peach, red and green chili jams, with tea and freshly hand-ground coffee to get us started. We shuttled in two cars across the Golden Gate Bridge and up Hwy 101 along the Bay to San Raphael where we cut across the northern peninsula on Sir Francis Drake Hwy to the coast. First rendezvous, the health food store in Fairfax to pick up lunch. Each car put together a combination of breads, cheeses, beverages and desserts for the hike.

We set off to meet at the Limantour Beach parking lot, to hike the Muddy Meadow Trail. On the way I wanted to note the location of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. As we passed the sign and entry, we spied a vulture on the side of the road with a fresh deer carcass…. all things holy! When we arrived, we waited for a half hour watching for the white rental car. We decided then to go ahead and begin the hike rather than wait the day away since everyone had food and the good company of each other.

The trail lived up to it’s namesake as it had been raining for days. After widening the trail several times to get around the mud puddles, we decided to pick the driest spot we came to and eat. More great crusty bread and some gourmet cheeses from Point Reyes’ own Cowgirl Dairy and oranges. We headed back to the beach to see if our comrades had arrived.

There they were entrenched in the grassy dunes along the wide, sandy beach finishing up their picnic. Apparently there were two parking lots. We straggled onto the beach in pairs and small groups to dodge the waves, marvel at the stones, shells and driftwood, and wander aimlessly on the sand and in our minds.




Back in the City that night, Stan dropped off Serena and me and headed back across the Bay. Once re-grouped, we decided to go to Cole’s most recent favorite restaurant for Ethiopian food. Serena and I volunteered to get a table and order pitcher’s of Full Sail beer while the other’s circled the block to find parking. When all were present I found myself sitting next to Stephan, the Senegalese eating Ethiopian food in San Francisco. I love this place!

The standard fare of spicy lentils, garbanzo bean paste, cooked cabbage and cooked spinach, and salad greens is served on an extra large plate covered with a “tablecloth” of Injera. This thin spongy sour “tortilla” is made of Tef, a flour not available here but closely approximated by buckwheat. Although the food was not extremely remarkable, I was totally anesthetized by the atmosphere, being here in my beloved city with these intelligent, sophisticated, worldly and witty young people… and maybe the beer. To top off the night Cole invited everyone back to the apartment for Turkish coffee. Oh, for the endurance of youth!

California Dreaming II

All of my senses rallied to help me cope, interpret and enjoy a wide range of sensory imput. Starting right off the plane, someone cleverly planted an expresso shop at the gate. Even before Ieaving the airport, the delicious, subtle odor of Chinese food tempted you not to leave so soon. Of course by now one would be easily tempted since the airplanes only offer a beverage and a one ounce snack.

Once on the Bart train/subway things really started rolling along. At first sparsely populated, we began to pick up rush hour passengers commuting up and down the Bay. Soon there was no limit to the input of sight and sound, patterns of flashing lights outside the windows whizzing across the reflections of faces and bodies inside, squealing of steel wheels on metal rails amplified in the tunnels, people with cell phones, laptops, headphones, briefcases, red boxing gloves, bicycles, magazines, books, gym bags....Going home, hanging on, stone faced, a flicker of a smile, and sleeping to the raucus, rocking commuter's lullaby. Such a comfort to see my brother there to deliver me "home" the rest of the way.

Actually the four car Judah


As soon as I stepped out onto the curb at Stan's house in Alemeda, an intensely sweet smell strongly resembling gardenia engulfed me. The euphoria of this scent of the Victorian Box would swoon me throughout my visit as this flowering tree seems to be a favorite here.



Everything was in bloom. A perpetual kaleidascope of colors kept me totally perplexed about the multitudes of species. Camillas, cala lilies, geranium as large as shrubs, jade plants, azaleas, shamrocks, lavender, shasta daisies, ganzania, and of course the California poppy, to name a few of the thousands I could only guess at. Even the eucalyptus and evergreens were in bloom.



We were all too tired to eat out so Stan pulled out his Trader Joe's deli goodies. There was baked tofu salad, guacamole with salsa, black bean chips, a sushi tray. Stan made coleslaw with apples, and he warmed up a crusty whole grain bread and blood oranges to refresh the palate.What a feast! A bottle of red wine eased me down from "high-speed travel syndrome". The next night it got late quickly after a day visiting with Stan's co-workers, lunch at an East Indian buffet with an Indian fellow named Karim, and thrift store and organic food mall shopping. So we had more delicacies like smoked salmon, sardines, five different cheeses, sliced avacado, red onion, tomatoes and papaya, more hot, crusty bread and wine. Now I know how the Romans got spoiled!



I finally talked Stan and Pat into accompanying me to Serena and Cole's apartment in the City on the way to Point Reyes Station National Seashore tomarrow. Like me, they hesitate to go far on their days off. I certainly hope they enjoy it.

Text © 2004 Mona E. Dunn

California Dreaming

From here...



I awoke this morning as if from a dream. Home in my bed I had to ask myself if I had indeed been in my beloved San Francisco Bay Area. After all of the planning and visualizing the details of the much anticipated trip, here I was in Wyoming again. Then I blindly pulled a book off of my shelf for the morning inspiration and Wayne Dyer in his book, You'll See It When You Believe It, tells us "There is only one dream!...only one dreamer and one dream. Yes, waking consciousness can be seen as one big dream, taken from the level of consciousness higher than this one....
Who is the ultimate dreamer?...From the perspective of the next dimension, one level of consciousness is all that there is, and all of us are characters in that dream...from an expanded awareness we can see that (we/they) are all illusions in our dream." But I do have great photos and memories of time spent between my brother Stan and Pat, my daughter Serena, the City and the ocean. What a wonderful dream.

On a sleepy afternoon, I'm gliding at 38,000 feet at 500 mph from Denver to San Francisco,listening to Celtic harp and flute on the headphones. The incredible and varied lay of the land is so intriguing. (why isn't everyone craning to see?) Thick snowy spines of the Rocky Mountain ranges, basins of brown and red etched with feathery rivlets, grand red and gold mesas carved out at the river's edge. The more mundane terrain looks like leathery frosted,dinosaur backs. Before long the Sierra Madres present themselves, then melt into verdant waves of velour, only too soon to be latticed with civilization. Entering the airspace over the Bay, we sail over a crazy quilt of pastel colors patched over the water; peach, mauve, dusty rose, melon, ocher and chartreuse. I was later to find out that they were salt evaporation ponds which was better news than I had imagined. After a 45 minute Bart ride, I arrived in Alemeda to find my brother waiting in the station. A two and a half hour plane ride combined with other travelling modes from our remote Wyoming ranch resulted in 10 hours of travel.

To there...



Text © 2004 Mona E. Dunn