Fire on the Water

My wife turned fifty a few days ago and we drove up the coast to celebrate. We left our children with their grandparents and hit the 101 north, along the Gaviota coast, with the ocean on one side and green hills on the other. We had two bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne, a couple of books, my iPad and Kindle Fire, and no obligations for two days. Chris Whitley was singing on the stereo; the sun shone through the windshield.

Every time I drive through San Simeon and see Hearst Castle high on the hill, I think of the laborers who hauled all the cement and lumber and pipe and nails and plaster and tile up that long, winding and – at the time – dirt road, and the craftsmen who turned all those raw materials into WR Hearst’s castle. Years and money, money and years, hundreds of trips up the hill, Hearst forever changing his mind, always wanting bigger and more grandiose. It’s hard to believe one man was so wealthy that he owned homes all over the country, warehouses full of artifacts, sculptures, paintings and tapestries, and hundreds of thousands of rolling acres in and around San Simeon – a ranch as large as a medieval kingdom. Thinking about the scale of the Hearst holdings staggers me every time.

The best thing about being in Big Sur – besides the raw beauty of the country and a visit to the Henry Miller Memorial Library – was being out of cell phone range, without access to the Internet, away from TV’s and newspapers, canned laughter and advertising. Time slows in Big Sur and one’s mind can get quiet enough to hear a different inner dialogue. We stayed at the Ragged Point Inn and the window of our room looked over a rocky cove. The tide rolled in and made a sucking sound when it went out, sea birds wheeled in the breeze and turkey vultures soared along the cliff line. We sat on the balcony with our books and a bottle of wine, our feet on the railing, completely at peace.

In the world we left behind, wheels turned and engines coughed, phones chirped and trilled, siblings bickered and parents quarreled, lovers made love, and sparrows built nests; Romney and Santorum and Gingrich and Paul played on, each trying to prove that he is the true Uber-Conservative, the Pure One who will bow to the financial markets, dismantle public education, privatize Social Security, bomb Iran, roll back the clock on reproductive rights, and dynamite the wall that separates church and state.

In far away Afghanistan, a deranged US soldier loaded his weapon and left his base without being seen by any of his comrades, and launched a killing spree that left 16 Afghan civilians dead. This is how military occupations generally end; sooner or later the occupier commits an atrocity the locals will not tolerate.

On our last night, we waited until nearly sunset and drove up Highway 1, climbing and then dipping, while the last of the day’s light set fire to the water.