I am taking a break between chapters, gentle reader. Not, of course, reading them but writing them. My latest iteration of what I call “the book” is nearing its end stage. Note that one doesn’t say completion, just finishing what is being attempted before emailing the thing off to an editor. Like Winchester’s widow, I can’t stop adding rooms.

It’s great to speak of stages of life, because this supposes that there are more than one. In my current dissatisfied mood, this isn’t always very clear to me. Is there a future? I could numerate all the musculoskeletal pills that have assaulted my aging, semi-quadriplegic body, but let’s just say this. Things aren’t what they used to be.

And this kvetching comes at a really bad point. After all, consider that the pandemic appears to be on the way out. Appears. In fact it may go on like War and Peace. But never mind, because Jane and I are throwing epidemiological caution to the wind. We are heading north to the Redwood parks, the ones near the Oregon border. I have been to the area, but not into the actual parks. Why? Well, the one time I drove there it was December and my English friend and I were somewhat defeated by the weather. Not to mention the short days. It seemed interesting enough to get off the highway here and there and look at the roaming elk. To view what trees we could see from the road. And then head south to San Francisco so Barbara could catch a flight back to London. Another era in my life.

In this era, we are driving straight up 101 to the likes of Garberville. Not to mention Eureka. And on and on practically to Crescent City. The one time I saw that town, it was a strangely ghostly experience. The town had been washed out to see in the 1964 tsunami that accompanied the Alaska earthquake. In 1980 the center of Crescent City proceeded gingerly. There was a building here, a gap of three or four buildings there. Followed by another lone building. Another gap. And so on. Don’t mess with nature, the whole thing seemed to say.

Actually, I don’t know anyone who recommends messing with nature. California is currently confronting the unthinkable, the virtual disappearance of Monarch butterflies. Where have they gone? Well, where they always go, which is predominantly one spot in northern Mexico and another spot near Pacific Grove, California. Pesticides have messed all this up, of course. There is a desperate, state-wide effort to plant milkweed, habitat of Monarchs.

Meanwhile, let’s take the focus a bit closer to home and the knowledge that for the first time in a year and a half, I have ridden BART to Berkeley. I have taken the #44 Muni bus to Golden Gate Park. What do you say to that? 

For the second year in a row, we have canceled the same trip to the UK. Airline and ship tickets refunded. Cancelerd the hotels. And this year we said goodbye to a wonderful rented house on the coast of Cornwall. Family and friends were supposed to meet us there. Forget it.

But for now there’s great joy in simply going down to my local cappuccino outlet and hanging out. Café Society. I have always aspired to it. And by the time we return from Humboldt County, the city buses may be more or less back in operation. The world will never be the same, of course, nor will the commute. It was quite sobering recently to be in the financial district of San Francisco on a weekday, and not be able to find a single place open. Not even Starbucks. People completely stopped commuting, and there’s no indication that they will be back in significant numbers anytime soon. 

Meanwhile, we head north. In 1980 when I did this trip, we drove up the Smith River. It’s the last undammed stream in California. I just had to see it. I believe it will still be there, the water doing its commute to and from the Pacific.