Waltz Back In

I surprised myself.

Or rather, my body surprised me.

A few weeks ago a dance friend planted a seed by remarking that a waltz party was coming up on or near Halloween. It would take place in Cincinnati, about an hour's drive from my home, in the arts center I've attended for years to get my dancing fix. It's one of my favorite places on earth; in fact, I may as well say it is my place of worship.

 As a dance the waltz is generally slower, easier to manage than some of the full-on raucous and joyous dancing that normally sustains my body and soul (and keeps me from solitary hermit-hood!). Waltzing is both sensuous and simple. Maybe it's just a fancy way of walking in tandem with another human being. It's companionable, it's flirtatious, it's rhythmic, it's rich with a huge body of music played on all kinds of musical instruments. For those who got taught something called the Waltz Box Step, perhaps in a school gym class, just hearing the word waltz may cause cringing. Believe me, (why should you?) there is more fun to be had in a waltz than any box can hold. But another time to convince you of that. This is about what happened Saturday night.

My heroic driver was interested mainly in getting me the 60 miles to the dance and back home again. Not for her the dancing or mingling: she was in the mood for a stool in front of a sports bar TV so she could catch up with the World Series. She was in luck: a pizza joint down the street from the arts center had everything required, and after dropping me off, she strolled down there for her own entertainment. 

Halloween invites play. Take the lid off, dig down into memory and childhood and wherever the colorful or ridiculous lurks, and bring it on out. I was draped in a collection of not-me stuff from a recent thrift store spree with my sister. I was sparkling and flowing and loving the feeling.   Dimmed lights in the hall, pumpkin candles on the welcoming table; choose your own party favor from the bowl of plastic rings: bats, witches, ghosts. Beyond the glass doors I could see black eyes painted on somewhat familiar faces, drapey gowns and glittery fabrics, broomstick tails, and period costume all mingled and dancing about the floor. 

A sweet hug came from P., who was manning the entrance table, and he spoke kind words of welcome. The next person I spotted was the dancer who had planted the idea in my mind in the first place. He had driven up from across the river to the south; I had come down from the north and here we were, where the music and the floor and all the feet come together. Thank you, D, for what you did to get me here. And thank you for the warm welcome when I walked in the door. I knew I was home.

When I set my heart on this outing I did not know how much dancing I could do. Could I last through a whole song? Would I be able to keep time with the music? What had my body lost and what remained? My arms are thin, my legs are thin, and yet they still hold me up. Could I dance?

Once inside the dance hall,  one of my favorite partners came up, greeted me and asked for the next dance. Without thinking, I said what I usually say: "I'd love to!"  And before my worries could take hold, we were in it, moving. Her strong and sensitive lead carried us over the floor with a light, swooping surge of glad energy. We turned, twirled, travelled: music translated into movement. And that was the start.

More dances followed --- more than I had ever expected to do. A few times I found myself asking a partner for little adjustments in speed or frequency of turns, but I never had to quit before the music played out. There was plenty of time for visiting with people on the sidelines, resting, dancing some more, cruising the snacks table, admiring costumes. It was later in the evening that I finally found the words for what I was feeling:   I had become myself again. I was no longer moving in tentative "frail" ways, was not guarding my body as if it were particularly fragile or likely to break. I was actually using myself in the old and familiar "dancing" mode, giving it all my energy, creating the gestures that simply arise naturally when one is translating the music into bodily movement.

I was a dancer. Not a cancer.

Say that again: I WAS A DANCER!!!!!

October 06 2016

As my own body consumes its fat stores and I get smaller, I find myself  eyeing the bodies of people around me, appreciating muscle, fat, contour, substance! It is a great comfort to feel the solid strength of another full-fleshed, healthy body as we hold each other in hugs. I feed upon that reassuring bulk of body that says to me, "I'm here, strong enough to bear your weight, too, so let me share that with you."

I so need that.

At times I feel like I'm ogling others, though. Believe me, that is a VERY odd feeling to have. I have the urge to reach out and touch, feel thigh and shoulder muscle, and strong buttocks. I know --- cringe, cringe -- I hesitate to write it, but it's the truth. Muscle and strength are what we come equipped with, in this animal world. They are not there for decoration: they keep us alive and kicking. And I, suddenly lacking this precious thing I have always had in some measure, want it back!! (It's mine --- you can't have it, oh mine enemy, but you seem to be helping yourself anyway, curse you!!)

Let's hope I don't show up on the Police Blotter of my hometown newspaper, caught reaching in the wrong situation. But at least you'll know what was happening: I was reaching for Life, Substance, Solidity, Reassurance.

I have had good days. Precious good days to celebrate fully and hold dear. I have been able to walk the lane, walk down to the river that runs nearby within a 20 minute walk of my house. On one of the Good Days, my daughter and I visited a beloved sycamore that leans out over the river at a good angle for scrambling up. The same tree generously reaches down with one smaller branch and offers a nice horizontal section low enough to the ground to make a good perch if you don't mind some upside-down moments as you monkey yourself up onto it.

With a little help, I got up:

September 25 2016

This blog started one year ago as "California 2015."   It is now one year later and life and death have taken on entirely new meanings for me. I find it worth writing about.

If you read any of the earlier posts you'd not be surprised that I would want to do that California camping trip again. I had a glorious time. And when it came time to choose a vacation time for the calendar year 2016, I chose to go without much of a break for the first 9 months of the year, and splurge with another 2 week stint so I could go back and do more California wandering.

Things changed, though, in April and May. I began to have some symptoms that gradually grew big enough to make me seek medical help. It was a slow slow process and there were missed cues and clumsy diagnoses along the way. Ultimately, however, in the month of August the true picture emerged: I have pancreatic cancer and it has spread. My time is limited. I'm choosing not to go into a description of medical details or prognoses right now.

And that, right there, illustrates the primary lesson for me to absorb as I perch on this precipice:

HOW DO I WANT TO SPEND MY TIME?

Don't we always know life is short? We know it and yet we don't know it. Ordinary life and concerns occupy our days. But that truth is always there if we look straight at it.

I'm now looking straight at it.

My family is now looking straight at it.

Those who know and care for me are now looking straight at it.



The deaths of my parents four and three years ago pushed me to a greater awareness of the end of life, and since then I've heard myself saying more and more often: "Life is Short!! Life is too damned short!"  My own aging is of course another reminder. It's natural to come to this understanding later in life. But I've suddenly been sling-shot into the realization that it's not just a pithy saying. It's real!
My body is truly under siege. I am doing all I can to slow down the damage but it's highly unlikely I can stop it.

My best choice is to live the best I can in the time I have. Period.

And that is true for anyone who reads this. No matter your state of health or how long you have ahead of you, your best choice is the same as mine. The difference is just that you may have reason to believe you have more leeway, more time to work in. And you might be right. I hope you are.

From livelier days, a birthday bash for one of the dancers in the crowd I hang out with. Hair flying, spirits soaring, reveling in music and the company of happy people. A good way to live!

The Lost Campers people were wonderful when I had to cancel my pre-paid trip. This year, I was so eager to wander California again that I reserved a van in February or March. As the October departure date approached, and the medical news got worse and worse, my sadness over losing that dream grew and grew but I shied away from taking definitive steps.

At last, I wrote Lost Campers a letter and explained. They were lovely: wrote back several messages not only assuring me they would refund my money, but sending me moral support and encouraging me to look forward to my next trip with them.  I'll hold that. That is something to hold.

It is so good to find a commercial enterprise with a heart.

Not so simple with the airline tickets, of course.  I now have an 8-page form to fill out in order to reclaim my ticket money from the flight insurance company!

It is still dark on this September Sunday morning at 6:30. Insect song has been coming through open windows all night and continues now. This house is surrounded in birdsong and insect song much of the time, day and night, a backdrop for my life that I take for granted. But like life itself, if I step back and look at it as the gift it is, suddenly it grows immense and I am stunned at how hugely fortunate I am. To be alive, to live in this place, to have these birds and insects and the family and people who are in my life and keeping me company. I earned none of it. I merit none of it. It is simply there and I am floored.

Day 14: Travel day, Return to Ohio

Friday

"Oh, Righteous!!" said the cab driver. I'd given him $45 on a $34 fare. He let me off at the Delta doors to the terminal at SFO where he had double parked next to a long line of other vehicles.

Re-entry day and I was not ready to make the jump. I revisited memories as I waited for my flight.

The last minute scramble to get to this point meant topping off the gas at a station across the street from Lost Campers. Before I drove off, I went up to driver's window of the truck at the next pump. "Can you use these?" I asked the man inside, holding up two cans of black olives I hadn't opened. He looked at them a little puzzled and I explained I was about to fly home and couldn't take them with me. He said, "Yeah, I think I have a recipe for a vodka drink that uses those. Sure!" Then I asked if he could use a big box of wooden kitchen matches and he said he could, so I ran back to the van and found those for him.

That taken care of, I drove over to the entrance of the Lost Campers yard and found it locked. The man I spoke to on the phone yesterday had assured me I'd be able to get in, so I circled the block and found an open gate at the far end. I parked by the wall he described and noticed a trash barrel others had used to toss leftover trash. On the ground against the wall was a line of propane containers just like the one I'd used to make my morning tea an hour ago. The flame had lasted exactly long enough to boil my water (Righteous!) and then it went out, bottle empty. I still had several gallon jugs of drinking water left so I emptied them into the freshwater sink supply and added the squashed jugs to the trash barrel. Not a perfect recycling job, but the van was empty and pretty clean and I was all packed up. I called the cab company and within a few minutes was settling in for a dark and peaceful ride to the airport.

 Sleep has been one of the riches of this trip. I was often tucked in by 8 p.m. and laying aside my book before 9:00. I'd sleep - wake - sleep until a final good heavy sleep towards dawn, waking again at  ~~7:30. That's almost twice what I get at home during the work week. And it tells in my body,  as of course the hiking does. Happy body, newly engaged mind. There is life outside of the compass of the usual work-home-work routines.

For the two weeks of this vagabonding I'd been weaned effortlessly from the stream of audio I normally consume: on work days my daily commute eats two and a half hours and I keep on hand a supply of audiobooks to play as I drive. Once I got used to the constant talk and became engrossed in the stories of life elsewhere, I was reluctant to turn it off and dwell in the silence. I brought the stories into the house in the evenings and on weekends and even into the office to override the babble there. I was hooked on the spoken word, hooked on stories of life more interesting or dangerous or significant than the routine parts of my own. When I packed for this trip, however, I decided to cut the strings. I brought one only, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and that was for dire emergency. Those discs sat unused in my luggage the whole time. Instead of looking on at someone else's life I was present in my own, led by curiosity and letting my legs carry me.

This time, instead of listening to other writers I took time to record my own life, singing my own song, and using the camera to record what drew my attention. It's a little like deciding to bat left-handed all of a sudden: it takes a new twist of the physical and mental capacities to use a set of muscles and nerves that have been lying at idle. As I've said before, I was inspired by the diary kept by Nella Last during WWII. What I have to say lacks the dramatic context of Britain in wartime; missing, too, are the rich social interactions of Nella's life within and without her family. But everybody has a daily life. This is mine.

Three summers ago I returned from a weekend of contra dancing feeling inspired.

The band for the weekend was The Latter Day Lizards, a highly talented group who can bring a few hundred dancers in a large dance hall to a roof-raising happy frenzy.  

   I felt even more let down than usual, once the weekend was over.

I'd missed the chance to buy music at the dance, so I decided to send for some of their CDs

The order form grew

 and it was fun

and it kept growing 

and then there were enough pages to bind together as a book.

http://www.latterdaylizards.com

Day 13: Mt. Tamalpais S.P. to Stinson Beach and Point Reyes National Seashore; overnight near San Quentin

Thursday
My first chore of the day was to empty the gray water tank under the sink in the van. I hadn't used all 5 gallons of the provided fresh water, so this container was only part full. I hauled it to the toilet in the campsite and dumped it there. During the night as I lay awake I had hit on an idea for getting rid of the kitty litter. In preparation for this trip in a van with no toilet, I'd read about various camp solutions and this seemed the easiest to rig from materials easily available. I never needed it because I spent my time close to all the necessaries. So I had a big bucket of highly scented kitty litter and did not want to burden the campground maintenance crew by unloading it there. Unless I suddenly met a cat-owner, I decided I would give it to an automotive garage or gas station for use in soaking up oil and gas spills.

Now for a time I was free to forget this was my last day and just enjoy it. I headed toward Point Reyes National Seashore, traveling down the mountain on the Panoramic Highway to a junction with Hwy 1 where I turned north. The highway hugs the coast and passes a tidewater mudflats called Bolinas Lagoon, where I stopped several times to watch pelicans and other shorebirds. In my luggage was a map a contradancer had drawn out for me, and I was now within range of an odd tidal phenomenon he described. A salt water hot springs is here, only accessible when the monthly tides are just right. Had I been here on October 21 at the right time of night I could have joined the locals who know of it, and hiked down for a communal bath.

Instead, I found the Bear Valley Visitor Center. It was not yet open so I stood looking over a big map posted on the outside wall. Along came another big tall ranger (do they ever come in size Small?) and he cheerfully greeted me and asked how he could help. What a gift! He clearly loved this place and was generous with his enthusiasm, ready to share what he knew about it.  I saw now how sad it was to have only one day to spend in this park with its 150 miles of trails. Having to choose among the riches, I said I'd like to see bird life, so he suggested the Estero path off the Limantour Beach.

I took a wrong turn somewhere on this walk, never did find the Estero, but I saw how bishop pines grow their female cones:

Another visitor enjoying the sun.

I returned to the van to head for the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which is approached by Sir Frances Drake Boulevard and goes up and over big hills dotted with cattle ranches, all with letter names: Ranch A, Ranch C, Ranch M. I thought at first this was a naming scheme imposed by the Park Service but these are the names given by a pair of eastern entrepreneurs who gradually took over the ranchos that had been operated by Mexican land grant holders after Mexico's independence from Spain. The area was prime cattle grazing land and the easterners built a highly successful dairying operation here, shipping premium butter downstate to the growing San Francisco market of the late 1800's.  This hilly ranch land is referred to as the pastoral zone, and it stretches for miles.

The lighthouse itself was closed today, but the views and the experience of unrelenting wind can be had any day there. 

I watched for whales out in the water, struggling to hold the glasses still and keep myself upright in that  unceasing wind. Wind won out.

All my video clips are hideous to listen to with the wind buffeting the tiny mike so badly. But I left the lighthouse and backtracked along Drake Boulevard to find a road that would take me to the North Beach. Once I got there I could not resist some last moving pictures of the ocean.

As I was taking this farewell walk a text message popped in from Bob, asking for my arrival time  in Columbus tomorrow night. I sent him the beach movie and flight info, along with my hopes that all flights would be canceled so I could be stranded here.

I looked up a new route to take me back to St. Raphael and the 101 for a straight shot down to the GGB. I memorized the route so as to be ready for losing the cell signal along the way. 

In San Rafael I stopped in a Mi Pueblo for the food to carry me through the next 24 hours and on a whim picked up a Mexican guava. It smelled wonderful. I should have left it at that, for the taste was a few steps dimmer and duller.

Before continuing, I stopped for a fill-up of gas and asked for hot water in my thermos so I could have herbal tea tonight. I dropped off the kitty litter on the pedestal of the gas pump, hoping it would not be too big a nuisance. 

The hot water was tepid, the tea barely flavored. So we were even.

Down around the tip of the peninsula St. Raphael is on, I found myself looking for a boondocking site once more. I saw signs for San Quentin and thought that would be a memorable locale, but conditions weren't quite right. On one of my forays in that neighborhood I ran down a road that came to an unexpected dead halt at the gates of the prison. I turned around right quick.

I finally found my roosting spot on yet another stretch of Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Larkspur. I was nuzzled up behind a line of box trucks with the logo "Always On the Move." When I first spotted them from across the boulevard it looked like I might fit in the space between a couple of them, which would shade me from passing headlights. But in the end I decided not to chance attracting attention if the parking took too much wrangling. We were on a sort of parking island, directly adjacent to the road but separated from the businesses and foot traffic. It was a good spot and once I masked my eyes against the lights I slept well until my alarm went off at 3:30 a.m.

Day 12: Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais

Wednesday
In the morning I brewed tea and returned to the business district of Mill Valley to shop and clean up at Whole Foods. I then did something I've never done before and sent the van through a full-service car wash. Now the windows were clean and the spills made by me and some previous renter on the carpet looked more respectable. Later, I had to wipe the inside of the windshield again to remove a smoky film left by the cleaner's cloth. What is that stuff?


The route to Muir Woods gave me daylight views of the Panoramic Highway, a twisting two-lane road with many turnouts for slower traffic.  The Monument is a small parcel of redwood forest enclosed by the larger Mount Tamalpais State Park, and it's a popular site with generous parking for large tour busses and an extensive wide, flat boardwalk  that offers long easy walks for people of all  inclinations and abilities.

Our grandparents'  papers and sketches are still stored in manila envelopes with Department of the Interior/ National Park Service printed in the upper left corner.

A simple patch, a thing of beauty.

Boardwalk repairs.

... he said, trustingly.

I took pictures and videos of trees, panning from top to bottom and from bottom to top, and with each snap thought, "This shot has been done and done better many times before I came along with my little iPhone and camera. Why am I doing it?"

I ask myself the same question about this whole blog thing. Who is it for? The world has no pressing need for more words about one more person's travels in a part of the world already well-documented. At the moment, it's so I can still the urgings of my would-be journalist soul: "Get it down and get over it."  But I don't wish to get over any of this adventure because it's been rich for me in a life that is dominated by a 6-to-5 schedule of work and commute. Daily life is a fascinating thing, if only to the person living it. Thank you, Nella Last, for the reminder and the inspiration. To write is to slow down and look and feel and notice. It may stir up conversations with others, and that repays the effort. It may prompt others to do their own recording,  or at least to slow down and look and notice.

I took a diversion from the boardwalk and got some hill climbing in, heading up the Canopy View Trail, then down again via Lost Trail and Lower Fern Creek Trail.

  


I asked a docent what groups have gathered in the parking lot under the auspices of this sign, and she said a Women for Peace group had marched through the park on a recent weekend but she was too new to know of other events.

From a kind park employee at the entrance booth I had been given valuable local camping information, and this led me to a small windy campsite called Pantoll Station in Mt. Tamalpais S.P. It was a tenting site and I registered and paid the Iron Ranger as if I were planning to set up in site number 4. Then I set out on another hike.

I took pictures and videos of trees, panning from top to bottom and from bottom to top, and with each snap thought, "This shot has been done and done better many times before I came along with my little iPhone and camera. Why am I doing it?"

I ask myself the same question about this whole blog thing. Who is it for? The world has no pressing need for more words about one more person's travels in a part of the world already well-documented. At the moment, it's so I can still the urgings of my would-be journalist soul: "Get it down and get over it."  But I don't wish to get over any of this adventure because it's been rich for me in a life that is dominated by a 6-to-5 schedule of work and commute. Daily life is a fascinating thing, if only to the person living it. Thank you, Nella Last, for the reminder and the inspiration. To write is to slow down and look and feel and notice. It may stir up conversations with others, and that repays the effort. It may prompt others to do their own recording,  or at least to slow down and look and notice.

From the journal:
I'm sitting at Mountain Theater within Mt. Tamalpais State Park, marveling at the scale of this work, all done by the CCC during the years of the Great Depression. These serpentine stones are massive --- 3 to 4 feet wide -- and there appear to be 40 rows of them, raking back into the hill from a large flat stage area with its own prompter's pit or cave. In the distance, as backdrop to the musical that is staged here every summer, I see sun lighting up the skyscrapers of San Francisco. Earlier on this 45-minute hike uphill from my camping spot at Pantoll Station, I had a view of the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge and the small lump of Red Rock Island. I'm not exactly on Mt. Tam, but close enough to feel its soul.

I returned by the Old Mine Trail which went through a grove of Madrone trees, then patches of oak and bay, and then out into the open with grass and outcroppings of blue-green serpentine.

Serpentine

I descended steep hills to return to Pantoll Station and tried to picture the work it took to build that theater. I read later that in 2008, the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Corps, three of the CCC workers who'd helped build this theater were present at a ceremony recognizing their labors. As one of the men said, 

"It opened me up to a whole new way of getting to know people from other backgrounds. And it was the first time I'd met people who were going to college. The CCC got me out of my limited life. I left feeling worthwhile, like I'd contributed." Article here.

After a dinner eaten on the table of the cold and windy site I was ostensibly occupying, I pecked out an email to my Sewing Sisters, hastily sketching my travels over the past few days. It was too cold to linger long and I soon packed everything away and got myself under the covers in the van. I read for a while, then lay awake making a mental list of things to take care of tomorrow to wrap things up, for it would be my last full day here. I wanted to end the day within striking distance of San Francisco in order to return the van by 6 a.m. Friday. 

Day 11: Henry W. Coe S.P. then north, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County

Tuesday
The sweet peace held when I roused in the morning. Sitting over tea at the outside table I could hear the ruffling of feathers as birds shifted from branch to branch nearby or scuttled under brush on the ground. A water spigot 10 feet away attracted birds after my splashing there left tiny pockets of water near the drain. Now a ranger made the rounds in a pickup truck, checking trash containers. No words, just quiet clatter and then gone. A woodpecker with bright red head, about the size of one of our flickers, pock-pock-pocked away at a standing dead tree 100 yards behind me.

Happening upon this park was a stroke of good fortune. Now that I was here I wanted to wander out into it, so I put off leaving for a couple of hours and found more to admire:

Like a dancer who has the floor and knows how to fill it.

I nuzzled the manzanita silk, thinking of PT's words.

Cone of a Gray Pine

There were galls on many of the oak trees:

I don't think oak gall kills its host in all cases, but I did see several trees bearing galls that looked pretty dead. 

I could have stayed for hours, not on this hard bench but roaming the rest of the 87,000 acres.

I don't know what I would make of these if I hadn't heard about them at Pinnacles.

4 or 5 of these giant cribbage boards were clustered right next to the path:

I pictured the long drive ahead through San Jose, San Mateo, San Francisco and it jarred against the stillness of this Place Apart. It would be a pleasure to see it in spring wildflower season and I'd be equally happy to return on another quiet October day.

The drive down the long switchback road felt different, of course, than it had yesterday. This time I also had a better view of Anderson Lake Reservoir, which I'd passed on my way up and briefly noted. A wide, dark band above the water line showed past water levels.

Later note: they're draining the Anderson Lake Reservoir deliberately to make the dam more stable against earthquakes. The decision to do so was tough in this time of severe drought, but the reservoir holds so much water it would drown thousands in minutes if it burst suddenly: 8 feet of water would fill the streets of San Jose in 14 minutes. I think I may have been seeing evidence of that sickening drainage effort when I saw that mark.

Near San Mateo is the impressive Crystal Spring rest area, creeping up the side of a hill overlooking the highway. The architecture is wacky and interesting with chunks of serpentine worked into the walkways that lead from the restrooms further up to the top, where stands a giant craggy statue. It represents Father Junipero Serra, cause of many of California's missions.

Mike Fernwood has a great photo up on Flickr under Creative Commons License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode

 One commentator reports that for a while his daily commute was brightened by the sight of this statue with an added touch: someone hung a giant yoyo from that outstretched finger.

San Francisco was never my home but hearing the name takes me back to early life in Berkeley, like the smell of certain flowers. I must have heard the words often in my parents' conversations. Late afternoon traffic crept slowly up 19th Ave. from stoplight to stoplight until at last I reached the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge. Then I was on the deck of it and became part of its history, and looking up to the ironworks above me I was also suddenly plunged back into my own history. I laughed and let out a whoop and next moment was in tears, thinking "This is still Home, never mind a lifetime spent elsewhere." That move to Ohio at age 7 was a major transplant and I did not send out new roots right away. There's a certain damp chill in the Bay Area that can also be found in other places (England, Scotland) but it takes the cold sharp smell of eucalyptus to carry me all the way back to the Bay Area on the Memory Express.

As I walked along the parapet of the vista point on the Marin County side I heard a man in his twenties on a cell phone reporting to a friend the results of a batch of job interviews he had just had. One of the potential employers was Google and that interview had gone pretty well but he had more enthusiasm about some others, unnamed. He looked pretty collected for someone who had just been through all that.

I found my way up a road that led to the top of the Marin Headlands overlooking the Bay. Folded and refolded rock layers exposed by the carving of the road were fascinating. The layers and folds reminded me of laborious directions for making croissant dough. (Being more of a rock person, I've never attempted that recipe for fear of results like these.)

I had no plans for the night but I was ready to settle somewhere and get flat and let go. It took another few hours to find the right spot for it. I drove down off the headland and north into Mill Valley, a high income commuter town. I parked for a while near a church of a vaguely generic and unfamiliar name:  Community Church, possibly. I thought it might be an overnight parking place but there was too much dropping off and picking up of youngsters. I continued roaming and went up the long, long climb of Edgewood Ave. which came to a junction with the Panoramic Highway. I made turns, backtracked, made new turns and finally found myself on a quiet road bordering Mt. Tamalpais S.P.

By this time I needed protein so I pulled over for a simple feed hoping it would clear my head. Only one car passed as I was eating and that was enough of a lead. As before, I started out fully clothed and lay down to see what would happen. It was a long time before another car appeared. Some teenagers out on a night walk passed by, and later a pair of runners, talking as they ran. I fell asleep and was wakened later by headlights close behind the van, lighting up the interior. "This could be it," I thought, bracing myself. Then the car pulled back out onto the road and went away. I slept again until morning.