Shibui

I am in northern California, staying in a house on the edge of the earth, literally. The view from our liberally windowed house is the rocky, moody coast of the Pacific Ocean. It seems turned around, on the wrong side. It feels like it should all be flipped horizontally, which of course means it’s me that’s flipped.

I met Iudita in the San Francisco airport and we drove north. But before leaving the city, we stopped at the Golden Gate bridge to complete what has become her ritual when visiting up here, to walk the length of the bridge forward and back. It was extraordinarily long, the bridge, and I loved every step of the way. I was shocked to discover that it’s in a constant state of being painted. By the time they finish painting the whole, massive thing, it’s time to start over again. It seems wrong. Hasn’t advancing technology created a substance more durable with which to cover a bridge and protect it from time and the elements? Iudita said there might be, but that the burgundy color of the paint they use is the point — its become characteristic of the bridge, of its romance. Logic would dictate the color to be yellow, golden. But logic has no business around romance.

We continued making our way haltingly up north, slowed down by a series of traffic jams. The slowness suited me, though. It gave me time to see everything — these parts of the world I’ve never laid eyes on before. There were soft, green hills decorated with bright wild flowers, altogether very feminine and vital. Then we drove through the redwood forest. What struck me about those was not what you might expect — their enormous girth and impossible height — but their age. The sheer length of time they have been standing there at that size, much less how long it took them to grow into themselves, was astounding. Ancient, ancient living structures. Just to imagine the system of roots underneath, how deep and wide and far. What makes such simple wisdom possible? Time. The passing of so so much time.

We arrived to the town of Mendocino and Iudita introduced me to the house we are staying in — where she is hosting her retreat. It’s tall and dark and square on the outside. The landscaped yard slopes down to the ocean, just steps away. The inside of the house is wide open with vaulted ceilings and a loft-like second floor holding up two bedrooms and a bathroom off a balcony, where we were to sleep.

That first night, we sat outside in the hot tub underneath a sky glutted with stars and overlaid by that cloudy path that marks our galaxy. “I can see the milky way,” I said, aware even as I said it that I was within it. How can you observe something as though from the outside when you are, in fact, inside of it and infinitely small? I think it has something to do with time and plasticity. Time and unfathomable distance. Time.

The next day, yesterday, we went to visit Iudita’s friend Richard. This man is nothing less than mesmerizing. He lives inside himself, inside his own limitless passion. Literally. Almost 40 years ago, he drove up to this huge patch of wooded land in a hippie bus and proceeded to build a home for him and his family out of the trees and the land. He did this with great respect. Just as native hunters revere the animals they use for food and clothes and tools, Richard worshiped this land and chose his trees carefully — only those that were sick or on their way out. And even then, he used every part of them, every twig and leaf and piece of bark, every bit, so very tenderly, to build his home. He and his young pregnant wife, his first wife, lived in the bus while they created space in which to live and raise a family. When the house started to come together, they slept under a roof without heat or plumbing or electricity, bundled in the cold, seeing their breath as they read in bed. Richard was afraid to put a hole in the roof, which would be necessary to add a fireplace, because he didn’t want to do it wrong and have it leak, leaving them not only cold, but wet.

It went on like that, through time, decades of time — a divorce, another marriage, cancer, death, falling apart, falling in love again, more loss, more relationships — to where he is today in the middle of it all. He is a sculptor, a metal-worker, a builder, an artist, a poet. A helpless, hopeless romantic. His land is majestic and obviously very loved, very lovingly tended to. His home is the most striking and unique specimen of residential architecture I have seen, with huge widows, skylights, intricate artistic details like hand-thrown sinks, a peninsula deck in the back far above the lawn, which itself is a sculpture garden. An outdoor shower facing the forest. A spa. A workshop bulging at the seems with supplies and raw materials. A guest cottage. A garden. A waterfall. And more. Much, much more.

The man, himself, is filled with an insatiable and relentless, highly creative and spiritual energy. He’s just overflowing with it. It comes out of his mouth in rapid, run-on speech; through his eyes with long, thoughtful and interested gazes.

He can not be adequately described with adjectives. Describing him requires verbs. Like go, revere, pray, laugh, radiate, lean, hold, cry, lift, grow, and heal. Also, light. Sing. Storm. Live. Feed. Create. Die. Allow. And, of course, the one verb all of it is made from — the verb that he, at his core, is and does: Love.

And remember that hippy bus he first arrived in? It is now converted into a unique and quaint cabin, a home that he rents out on a partitioned section of his land. I was quite emotional about it all, as you can probably tell by this writing. I wanted to drop everything in my life and move out there. I wanted to move into his guest cottage and stay. Help him with his land. Write. As fate should have it, Richard had something of the same idea. As we talked and connected, it came out that I am a writer and that he has been looking for someone to write an article about him and his place, his sculpture, his story. Enthusiastically, I volunteered. He told me that he and his girlfriend would be pleased to host me, to put me up in the cottage. He called it my writing cottage. And so it is. So it will be, somehow.

I’m staying in this town for the duration of the retreat. A week, total. Each day so far, I have taken some time to run along the coast line. The ocean is a dark body. The coastal, rocky land is rugged and caved through, hollowed out like souls, by the elements. By the water and its churning. By time.

There were signs throughout Richard’s property that bore one word: Shibui. He said that it means the beauty that comes with time, with aging. That seems to be the theme of this trip so far. It’s time — that dimension that makes space possible, growth possible, motion possible — that allows for such history, such wisdom. Such unspeakable beauty.