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1 October 2010
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Grand Canyon have defined the broad parameters of our post-San Francisco excursion to date. The former was a modernized old-world luxurious treat from Toni whom we were going originally to visit in Montana where she had terminally cared for her brother Robert and ended up wheel-chair bound herself. About the same time we first embarked from Rhode Island, Toni suddenly upped and moved back to Los Angeles. She described herself as 'homeless' but at least had been declared cancer-free in contrast to what the doctors in Missoula had told her. I remember once visiting my grandmother and great-aunt in the hotel on Hollywood Boulevard and Grand commenting as Aunt Dorothy was emerging from the swimming pool, "It's so strange for me to see my little sister as an old woman." I suppose that I am now the same age as Dorothy was at the time.
In any event, as John, my former college roommate at the University of California, Santa Barbara – who now lives in Flgastaff – was taking us to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, I phoned Toni and discovered an ecstatic replacement to the struggling and relatively despondent soul we had regrettably left in Los Angeles. She had found herself an apartment just off North Beachwood Canyon Drive, friends were arriving momentarily to help her unpack, her dog Tehu was coming back to her, and a dog carer lived right next door who would walk Tehu twice a day. So our trip to Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano and the Grand Canyon became even more one of additional celebration.
There is, of course, no justifying description of the Grand Canyon that is possible. It's formation alone defies the imagination. As with the Gorge du Verdon in the Provence, it is a place that undoubtedly the gods would live. While the lava fields of Wupatki are eerily awesome, this multi-creviced opening into the earth is simply splendidly awesome. John took us from one vantage point to the next. Perhaps toward the end of the day, our contemplative and lingering stop at Yaki Point was the highlight of highlights as the canyon colours and contours mellowed in all-encompassing silence and the slanting touch of the late afternoon sun. Richard and I walked down into the South Kaibab Rim Trail to see the sun finally nestle into the horizon after what had become a perfect day of enchantment. After connecting by phone with the artist Chris Enos whom I had lost track off for the last nearly thirty years, we headed back to John's place in Flagstaff for some Finlaggan, an Islay malt I had previously not heard of, and to meet John's friends Pat and Bill.
But between the glitz and allure of Hollywood (including dinner one night at Mouso and Frank's with Lee and Caryn – one of the most attractive couples I know, and another at our old favourite, Mexico City with Richard's brother Paul and his amazing wife Jonne-Marie) and the delights of Flagstaff and environs (including dinner our first night with Bob and Kathleen in their lovely home that had been spared from both the forest fire last June and the precariously nearby devastating floods that followed), we have been marveling over the beauties of California and our good, good fortune for the wonderful people we know. Our first night after EssEff we spent at an old favourite, Deetchen's Big Sur Inn and the next day we had lunch with Bob's mother Mary whom I had first met in front of the Pallazo Pitti in Florence back in 1961 and then spent the night with two gems, Gary Smith and the artist David Ligare, in their perch nestled into the Salinas Hills.
Time did not permit our preference for Route 1 along the coast, so we drove Highway 101, the old mission trail, to Los Angeles. Richard was driving, and I fell asleep – only waking when Toni phoned and we were already in Carpinteria – thereby missing completely any view of my old alma mater town of Santa Barbara. But time constraint also precluded any possibility this round of seeing Efale, my sister-in-law Pat or Howard Fenton's widow Jean. But what I did get to see between Salinas and Los Angeles only reaffirmed the beauty that is California, perhaps not as monumental as Bryce Canyon, Zion or Grand Canyon but no less declaring the magnificence of our great and precious planet.
And then there was our Marlowe in Palm Springs who, along with dear Rosalie and one-of-a-kind Mary, another of our octogenarian loves. And here we also got to visit with Geoff, another octogenarian, and Dan, a non-octogenarian artist. And here again, with the immaculate manicured desert plain of Palm Springs surrounded by rugged and majestic mountains, this combined contrast between the civilized and the purely natural renders a fascinating synthesis. Marlowe is 'family' and a lesson for those of us who follow on how to unite the health of older age with humour, wit and delight.
From Flagstaff, we drove through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona en route to Deming, New Mexico from where we visited Columbus thirty miles away to find the cemetery plot of Richard's parents, the five acre plot of land Richard's parents had left him and to see Virginia Boyle who had cared for William Switzler for his final days. It became a grounding memento of two great souls who traced their way through a different here-and-now of a time and place on this singular orb we know as earth.