Drifting Into Nap Time

I’m blissfully exhausted after surfing two days in a row of 4 to 5 ft. waves at Malibu Colony. I came back for Father’s Day weekend after being in Ft. Worth again - then flying to Palm Desert for a few days, bargaining with the Devil in 100 plus degrees then over to Sun Valley, where I hiked the beauty of Adams Gulch, had delicious grilled greasy burgers at Grumpy’s and visited Hemingway’s memorial wall, with the words he wrote for a departed friend that ended up applying to himself: "Best of all he loved the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods. Leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills the high blue windless skies, now he will be a part of them forever."

I also visited his simple, horizontal, grey, marble gravestone with only his name on it and I ate Idaho ruby trout at, Michel’s Christiania restaurant: the place, he had dinner before he went home and made the shotgun decision to become dearly departed himself at only 61 years old. My Client took me to each place and explained the details to me matter of factly, but his eyes teared up over the ruby trout dinner as he pointed to the exact corner seat of the restaurant where Hemingway dined. My eyes welled up too because my eerie concerns for him are that he romanticizes he will do the same in his Sun Valley mansion one day. Poor Guy. He does not have a legacy of literary work to be remembered by. It’s like me as a fourteen year old, dark dreaming about overdosing like Jimi Hendrix without me once ever picking up a guitar. Oh well. My Guy does have the maturity of a ninth grader so romancing death and sex is always on his mind, without him taking a serious step in either direction. I could say his divorce is what crushed him into daily ostrich drinking but in more boring and devastating terms it is just progressive alcoholism. Fuck. I am caring about this guy like family now. He knew I was a writer and I told him Hemingway was one of my literary heroes since I was forced to read, ‘Old Man and the Sea’ in tenth grade – and when we were in Ketchum, he purposely took me to each place in the most casual way. ‘Hey D, we are driving right past Hemingway’s memorial, wanna check it out? Hey, D, park the car here and walk with me, we are gonna see Hemingway’s gravestone. Hey, D, ya know this place we are eating at, look at that corner booth, it’s where Hemingway had his last meal.’

I’m back in west Malibu and I’m earnestly sending him metta every morning I meditate – and I mean it. I do wish him well. I do wish he suffers less. I do wish he chooses embraces life and not drink and hide and drink and hide and drink and hide until his dying day. He’ll reach out again, I’m sure. The nature of Sun Valley is a dreamscape and I will most likely return, with less and less and less expectation because I’m realizing it is the only way to keep my sanity and do this type of work.

The site from our trailer home today is also a dreamscape with the absence of June gloom opening an expansive view of the eternal blue pacific under sunny skies. I surfed. I ate a wild mackerel on pumpernickel bread with mustard, lettuce and red onions. I saw my son N and grandson DZ on Father’s Day. We barbequed wild Salmon on our sundeck and went to Pescador beach where I took DZ, diaper free for a little ocean dip in the foamy shorebreak at Pescador beach. He squealed with delight and rolled around naked in the wet sand afterwards. He’s 18 months old. Total freedom for him and tears of love and joy from, D. Sapppy ole’ Popso, D, that’s me. I feel fulfilled enough now to take a long, afternoon senior nap - haha.