Wrenching

Marlou and I traipse down the dock at the Golden Hinde just as the tide hits maximum.  The water is all but lapping at our feet, and we are lapping it up.  This is my daily exercise.  With my rowing machine and exercycle in our carport at home, this is my vacation aerobics.  I grip the splintering wood railing, lean lightly to avoid excessive contact with the bird droppings, and proceed.  Marlou links her arm with mine, and we move along the boards.  I take a step with the left foot, which induces a predictable spasm on the right foot.  And we're off.  We are off, given some neuromuscular adjustments, to see the Wizard.  And with arms linked, we do approximate the movie characters heading down the Yellow Brick Road.  If the sprightly quality seems forced, that's because the observer is too severe.  There is, and it's  something I easily forget, a lightness and joy underlying the world.   We have made a conscious and shared decision to enjoy the moment.

The Golden Hinde Boatel calls itself that.  It's a motel for boats.  I can't really believe that anyone approaches this place from the sea, sails up the bay and steps on the boatel dock with their bags.  But this is entirely possible.  There are plenty of slips for boats, plenty of room for boaters and even two for quadriplegics.  Ours has enormous picture windows looking directly out on the bay, Tomales Bay.  Here in Inverness, California, views of the water are highly prized.  And here at the boatel, you get the prize as soon as the clerk hands you a room key.  The place is right on the water, all of it.  There is nothing else here.  Oh, there is a swimming pool of sorts, a small place for kids to splash.  There's even a restaurant.  But what people really come for is the water and the immeasurable quiet.  At night Marlou and I both dream endlessly.

But for now we are on the dock, and I am lurching over the boards, getting exercise.  I am also getting into the 7:30 p.m. feel of the bay and its breezes and smells.  I tell Marlou that the flotsam is rolling in and the jetsam is rolling out.  Both of us can see the mass of twigs and sticks floating in with the tide.  But only I can see Marlou laughing.  I cannot see her with my eyes, at least not safely, because my focus is on the uneven boards and protruding nails below.   But I can see her laughing in my mind.  More exactly, I can hear her.   Marlou has a certain laugh that comes right from the soul.  Or maybe the heart.  Or both.

We have been in Inverness, staying at this motel, for several days and have done remarkably little.  Part of it is the driving.  I enjoy the process of maneuvering my massive Ford van through hill and dale, less and less.  On this particular morning, coming down the small grade from Point Reyes National Seashore, I felt myself getting flung just slightly into the oncoming lane.  I cinched up my torso strap and lightly remarked on the centrifugal force of curves.  But the moment was a reminder.  Driving the wheelchair truck is becoming a chore.  So we have spent lots of time on our boatel terrace and small lawn staring at the bay beyond.

Tomales Bay seems utterly Californian.  Facing east from our motel, the mile or two of blue seawater ends in low brown hills, dry, featureless and empty.  This gives the bay an unspectacular feel.  It even looks unfinished.  The other side, the west side which I cannot see facing the water from the motel, has all the drama.  Inverness Ridge, steep and forested, high enough to be interesting, low enough to feel surmountable, green enough to supply water to the town.   Northern Europe on one side of the bay, Mexico on the other.   California throughout.

That morning Marlou and I drove to Abbots Lagoon.  The drive was slow, because the fog hung low over the hills.  I didn't mind, relishing a good excuse to go 25 mph.  When we got to the parking lot that marks the trailhead, the morning was surprisingly gray, even cold.  This is not what one expects of August in California.  But this is what Point Reyes has to offer.  The climate is mild, but it is incessant.  One can see its effects on the weathered stucco of the farmhouses.  Yes, there are farms here.  There's an agreement, still being worked out, to keep the place partly wild and partly pastoral.  The ranches came here 150 years ago, and now they have a right to stay.

Marlou rolls her eyes at the haute tone of Point Reyes Station, the regional center.  Toby's Feed Store sells bales of alfalfa in front while conducting yoga classes in back.  You can also pick up a $10 box  of granola.  Marlou says the whole scene makes her vaguely nauseous.   But I see something else happening here.  Those old dairy farms out on the windswept Point are barely hanging on, fighting for their economic lives.  The profit margin on milk isn't reliable.  The cost of fuel and everything else associated with farming keeps going up.  And families trying to hold lives together while their kids ride yellow buses two hours to high school in Petaluma...well, it's straining everyone.  Either the farms will disappear or they will have to adapt in the way of, say, the Italians.  These farms will have to become partly agribusiness, partly agritourism.  Just like the yoga at the feed store, the stylish will have to merge with the styleless.

I'm there already, lurching down the dock, simply trying to stay erect, no tumbling, and no margin for worrying about style.  Mine is a wholly functional ambulation, scraped together from neurological bits and pieces.  My style is entirely internal.  It is, I suppose, what could be called melancholy.  The sadness in things seems to intrude at all moments.  Which is why Marlou's style serves to balance mine.  She  is facing a PET scan in two days, and facing it with eyes wide open.   Her blood test has shown that her cancer again is on the move.  But for now she's laughing, even if I'm not.  She is laughing for two of us.  Which is fine.  I can't help but experience these moments as wrenching.  Which is why I have to ask Marlou if she knows the meaning of wrench.  Dutifully, she says no, and I explain that a wrench is a place for Jewish cowboys.