Found in the sand

At Turtle Bay on Oahu's North Shore, I print out the map to the grail--the birth certificates linking me to   Florence. We dash back to Honolulu with only four hours before our flight leaves for the mainland. I revisit my old stamping ground, the Department of Health Services, and find the same excruciating line.   At last I reach the window and present my docs. I tell her I only have a couple of hours before I get on the plane. "Fine. We'll mail this out to you in four to six weeks." She must have caught a glimpse of my crestfallen face, and said, "Well, maybe I can do this on my lunch hour." Whoever said civil servants are numb, doesn't know the staff at the Hawaii DHS. I bless her, and sit down to ponder why it's so important to have it in my hands while on the island.  I remember the two halves of my quest-- the cause, and where she lived.  I had hoped to find her apartment, and the same view, which was perhaps a fool's errand in the shifting landscape, but

The clerk shows up at the plastic window with a piece of green paper covered in a fountain pen scrawl with blots and crossings out.  I take it, almost not daring to read.

I. Disease or condition directly leading to death: Congestive heart failure. Antecedent causes: Fixed nodal tachycardia, aneurysm...  She was in the hospital five weeks before she died, aged 51. The certificate lists the Father and Mother as "Unknown." Name of husband or wife--blank. She really was alone, at least to the state. Her address was listed as Waikiki Tavern. This was becoming an even sadder story than I had imagined.

I dashed across the wide lawn to the State Library, to the librarian who had kindly helped me before.  "Have you heard of the Waikiki Tavern," I asked Mary Lou, a bit breathless. She was happy I'd found the certificate, but hadn't.  We started searching.  It turns out, it wasn't merely a saloon. It was an Inn, and the only place to buy a meal on Waikiki outside of the swank hotels. The Waikiki Tavern was a curiously designed hotel, restaurant, and lounge with 105 "rooms over" a drugstore, beauty salon, laundry, barbershop and Thayer Piano (advertising ukeleles for sale). The remodel of the Waikiki Inn in 1928 was in the "old Norman" style--I suppose a tip of the hat to the British protectorate some islanders may have still been nostalgic for. It turns out you could see Queen Kapiolani's sacred coconut grove from the lanai.

A bit of further research, aided by my brother, revealed that in the 30s and 40s the Waikiki Tavern was a mecca for California transplants, particularly of the surfing variety.  In the surfing annals, it is cited as an exciting, lively place to live. Where surfers came to share stories and dreams. I hope it was like that  for her. The WT was torn down in the 50s to open up the beachfront. We go to the site at the end of Kuhio Street. A lei-draped bronze of Duke Kahanamoku stands there with his board, framed by the descendants of the Queen's coconut grove. Behind his back, it looks almost exactly like the view from Florence's lanai.

Of diamond heads and ottoman silks

I wait for copies of the requisite birth certificates--mine and my dad's, and can think of no better place to be in a holding pattern than Diamond Head. Walking through a kilometer of sere landscape plus 216 steps through the tufa cone,  I arrive with a flood of other day trippers  to peer over the crater's edge at the remnants of the 1909-built Rutger's Fort. Far below, Waikiki tumbles at the turquoise water edge like so much volcanic spew. I recall walking feeling the still warm lava under my sneakers at Kilauea on the Big Island--and the rolling sensation of the land creating itself. Whether it's surfing the bone crunching 20-foot waves at Waimea, watching the earth open its fiery heart, or the calm lianas vines relentlessly claiming human habitations, Hawaii forces us to give up the illusion of control. Did Florence clamber up here for perspective on the ground changing beneath her? Was Oahu her blue haven?

Later, I visit another long-time single woman's Eden at the foot of Diamond Head-- Doris Duke's Shangri-La. One of the wealthiest women of her time, this heiress to the tobacco tycoon, James B. Duke, swept Islamic treasures from around the world into the walls, ceilings and floors of her Honolulu home. She was reclusive, eccentric and had exquisite design sensibilities. Fortunately for her, there weren't restrictions on exporting ancient art in the 1930s--and she collected 2,500 rare objects, many of which are now considered priceless--riad tile walls, a First century gold urn, Mughal dynasty carved doors. What she couldn't buy, she had made--by 400 Agra villagers*. Enhancements to Shangri La continued until Duke's passing. Her butler and friend reports that she worked long hours, rarely taking a day off, to maintain her treasures--even climbing a ladder to defend the filigree against salt-air corrosion with a toothbrush.

*http://www.shangrilahawaii.org/PageFiles/390/Thalia%20Kennedy%20FINAL%2012%200725.pdf

The people of Hawaii have a historic claim to the shoreline based on rock-solid laws. Through a land swap with the city,  Doris finagled the building of this private cove.

 Hawaii.  The perfect place to disappear.

At death's door

Back on the trail, I finally reach the State Library where I hope to find some trace of my grandmother. The last I knew is that she was here in June of 1946, nine months after the war ended. I slide through microfilm death indexes- 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949--Jan., Feb., March, April, May, June.  Door, Alfred K.; Gonsalves, Jesus; Goo, Yee, Goodness, Fannie; Goto, Grey. Lots of Hamamotos. The rolls reveal Hawaii as melting pot (or racial cauldron).

Finally there she is- 4 lines:
 Reg. No. 1383.
Name: HAMILTON, Florence
Place: Honolulu
Date: June 3, 1949.

She did die here -- in black and white. This number will help me locate her death certificate. Meanwhile, I search the city and county directories for her, and come up with--nothing, except for confirmation of the Bishop Trust Company's hold on things.  How could there be no trace?  I'm told by the librarian, if she had been in the military she wouldn't be listed here. Was she?
She had been in London during the war, working for the government, making contacts. Maybe she joined up here after the war.

With file number 1383, I head for the State Department of Health. Everyone comes here for copies of birth, death, and marriage certificates. I wait, but the line barely moves. I have time to read all the postings.What to do in case of stroke. How to prevent diabetes. The changed laws on getting a first driver's license (must prove identity with birth certificate). Finally I reach the window and show my file number. The gentleman looks it up--finds a reference and asks me for proof that I'm related.  Hmmm. A new wrinkle, not mentioned on their website instructions. I must look a bit desperate as Jesse Koike writes his name on a post-it and suggests I mail in copies of my dad's birth certificate and mine to establish the blood linkage. Otherwise, I'm out of luck.

Empty handed, I visit the banyan, and think about trees walking, putting down roots in the most improbable ways.  Taffy strands pulled between dirt and sky, waterfalls of phloem, haven of Crusoe, and all castaways.

Oahu:The Sky is Falling

10 days in Oahu.  Not many I know choose it when they're island hopping or fanata-sizing about hiking through birdsong throbbing jungles or canoodling in turquoise waters among sea turtles and banana-colored fish.   And yet--here we are:trying not to think about dust-gray Pearl Harbor ships, faux luaus run by Mormons and weak mai-tais siphoned into Waikiki tourists.
I've come to find out what drew my paternal grandmother to Honolulu in 1946 and how she died in 1949, at 51. No death certificate. No family talk of her disappearance over the years. (As far as we know, she lived a solitary life after divorcing when my dad was a toddler.  He never could look at her disappearance squarely, preferring his memory of Central Park summers with her, and their single cruise to South America. ) And yet, she seems to have led her life filled with ambition and verve. Florence flew to London during WWII to work in the Office of War Information, as a civilian. She was a vivid writer, and had planned a round-the-world voyage to research a book. The day he died, my dad still had her ivory-scabbarded sword and Burmese ebony elephant in his t-shirt drawer, along with a few treasured photos and letters. This scant evidence of her existence, and her early death have remained a mystery all my life. My dad kept a photo inscribed, "To Jim, This is the view from my lanai. Love, Mom July 3, 1946." I've come to find that view.

As today is Veteran's Day, all state offices and buildings are shuttered. The quest will have to start tomorrow. Instead I head out for the Foster Botanic Gardens, a few blocks from our hotel. I stop for orchid leis in Chinatown (apparently the airlines have abandoned the lei-draping on arrival, probably along with the free meals and thin blankets) but I still want fragrant blossoms around my neck. Honolulu's Chinatown turns out to be pretty seedy--loads of homeless folks and shuttered cafes and saloons. A few produce stores and humbow shops have particular customers. Oddly, this is also the stomping grounds of fresh-faced Hawaii Pacific students, who don't seem to mind stepping around the sidewalk-sleeping masses. The lei shops line Maunakea street--scent of plumeria and tuberoses mix with hum bao steam and clorox. It's all a bit overpowering so early in the day, so I press on to the gardens.

What doesn't kill you...

A fantastic temple fronts the botanic gardens. Incense and a perpetual flame coax me inside Yuan Kin for a brief moment, then I'm off to the temple of trees.

This critter is fondly called the "sausage tree." 

Wonder if it's filled with Spam 

(the meat of choice 

in the islands--spamandeggs --yummm)

it does seem like the tree gods have it in for the tourists

I'll bring an umbrella with me tomorrow...

Legally high in Mendocino

Craft brewers, world-class brandy distillers and pinot wizards are layering the Emerald Triangle with gold, purple and amber. Seeing the writing on the wall for the pot trade,  enterprising locals have turned to legal intoxicants to fill their coffers.

From Germain-Robin combining old-world technology with premium Riesling, Columbard and Zin to distill small-batch brandies rated "beautifully crafted...better than most cognacs,"to quirky Booneville's Anderson Valley Brewing Company. The solar-powered brewery derives their quaffs names from the esoteric Boontling dialect-- a blend of Gaelic, Irish, Pomoan and Spanish spoken by a handful of Boonevillians. The buzz is on.

Although a California native, this would be my first trip to legendary Mendocino and the Anderson Valley, called the New Napa by a pumped up Visitors Center. A new friend shared her method for tasting through this narrow valley snaking from 101 to the coast: Hit the wineries going northwest, beer while retracing your path on the way home, with a possible detour to Ukiah for the brandy and elevated corn whiskey (really?).

My partner-in-dregs and I did our best with the 20 tasting rooms in 15 miles-- heading west on 128,  we hit Boonville General store for coffee and pastries to coat the belly. First stop, with the sun barely ticking past high noon,  was at the lovely Navarro Vineyards, where we sampled their private label chevre alongside their fabulous dry Gewurtz. Heading down the Valley, we ducked into a tiny rose-festooned redwood cabin -- home to friendly Husch, oldest Pinot producers in the Valley. We braved six switchbacks up the mountain to reach another winery, Esterlina, with a killer view but mediocre wines. We swirled and spit single-vineyard Zins (consistently raking in 90 points or better from Wine Spectator) at Edmeades-Champ de Reves' elegant tasting room. Of these four, Husch won our hearts--both for their kindness and their  2010 Old Vines Mendocino Zin. Most wineries in the Anderson Valley don't charge tasting room fees: it really did feel like Napa in the 80s, before the really big bucks flooded that valley.

Sweating through 100+ temps, we twisted our way from umber hills through stately redwood forest to the fog-draped coast. I hoped arriving at the real town would finally dampen the inane tune,  "Mendocino"  from the Easy Rider soundtrack swirling in my brain. (Here's a priceless clip of Sir Douglas getting a little sweaty serenading the Playboy bunnies with his anthem of teenage seduction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIaYO3BkJzw.)

Mendocino village perches on a promontory; marine mist washes over the town most days--making it appear Brigadoonesque when approaching from the south.  We traipsed through the dog-eared streets where the flood of local marijuana wealth has slowed, in recent years, to a trickle. Among the vacant shops for lease, we found some standout survivors: Moore Books with a bookseller who looks like a cross between Santa Claus and Allan Ginsberg; Moody's organic coffee bar -- carrying Wicked Bon Bon's Whiskey and Gunpowder chocolates; and of course the local head shop, Spark, that stocked Chihuly-worthy blown glass bongs and some lip-smacking pipe tobaccos. While some tourists still come to see where Angela Lansbury starred in "Murder She Wrote," and populate the Victorian hotels and B&Bs, we couldn't shake that eerie feeling of a town nearly time-forgotten.

What to do here in this quiet village besides drink and shop? Kayak, dive, hike--just don't wander into the back country where international crime rings still grow and smuggle massive tracts of weed.  But smoke dope with a chill group on the beach enjoying a sunset bonfire? If you want to take in the very mellow mendo of it all.

With the weekend before us, we trudged along the dry paths of Russian Gulch to the waterfall; rambled out to seal rock at MacKerricher; and rode horses on the beach (yes, it is a travel cliche). The Glendeven Inn was a hit with their impressive scotch collection and incredibly well-schooled bartenders.

But the best moments had to be back at the Brewery Gulch Inn, a peaceful, light-filled retreat built from river-salvaged redwoods just outside of town. We say on the deck with a pomegranate-colored Husch 2009 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir and toasted the spirit of Mendocino-- quirky, gorgeous and still a little rough around the edges.

pancakes and burghers

They serve up a hearty brekkie here in Parliament Square on Shrove Tuesday. The pancake race launched at precisely 10:12 this morning, the Lords against the MPs... after a gruelling relay, and several cakes afoul, the Lords were in good form, showing their genetic propensity for flip-flopping and running flat out to stay ahead of the commoners.

The Matchless Vale De-animated

Today may have been my last day as a meadow warden, through no choice of my own. I scratched Fluffy and No. 349, watched the increasingly curly-coated calves snuffle their mums, and skimmed their water trough. Last month, the cows endured a vicious dog attack that, surprisingly, made the news as far away as New Zealand. Perhaps it was due to Petersham Meadow's celebrated beauty. Or the universal conflict between pets (really their owners) on public right of ways, and livestock.

In this case, the attack dog was part pit bull, what the Brits call an "illegal dog." A fellow meadow warden, Claire, who captured the attack on her camera, told me these dogs must be licensed and monitored by the police. While the owner and dog fled the scene, they were tracked down in half a day. (Perhaps there is an advantage to all these CCTV cameras everywhere. I just didn't know their acute vision extended to the meadow.)

The perfect storm stems from the muddy zone between public rights, health & safety regulations, Council land ownership, and the risk-averse National Trust managing the land. Meanwhile, an increasingly obstreperous segment of the public refuses to acknowledge the signs to keep dogs on leads, or barbecues out of the meadow-- both hazards to livestock roaming on and over public paths.

During my brief career here, I've seen small children gaze on the cows from an oak stump in the pasture for the better part of an hour, utterly transfixed--and weep to leave. Parents towing their older kids to show them descendants of the cows they grew up with. Hikers stopped in their tracks and figuring out how to get through the herd, mostly with bemused smiles. I've spoken with dozens of locals who cherish this bit of bovine heritage in their backyards, and supported the Petersham Trust for years, raising the money to keep the cows on the meadow through open garden days and cake sales. And the cows have done their part as well, anchoring the meadow and keeping it safe from developer's squalls. Last fall, the riparian meadow and cattle care were transferred to the National Trust, along with an endowment. The stipulation was framed in legalese, that the NT would "endeavour" to keep the cows on the meadow. That endeavour ended today.

The National Trust is unhooking themselves from the horns of the dilemma by shipping the cows and calves back to farmer Michael Bovingdon in Slough. After a mere six months, they are unwilling to carry the risk of a lawsuit, should someone be injured by a cow.

It raises all kinds of questions, not least of which is what have we trampled in our rush to maximize individual rights and freedoms. I think about the surly man who told me he would jolly well keep his german shepherd off lead because the dog is always under voice control. Or the 12-strong group of party folk who told Lin to shag off last weekend when she said fires were prohibited. Have we forgotten that livestock are more than trees dressing the stage of our theatre? That they might have something to teach us, if we were open to another way of being?

This was the closest herd to Hyde Park--a factoid one would have thought bore more intrigue than danger. Who is more of a threat, sloshed urbanites on their weekend idyll, or the cows protecting their young?

By any measurer, this is a tremendous loss. Now when parents bring their toddlers to watch large animals doing what they do, the kids will see a stunningly beautiful, but empty meadow.

Dances with Cows

When I tell people I work as a Petersham Meadow Warden on the prettiest pasture on the planet, they snicker. What kind of policing could these placid bovines possibly need I muse. I follow the herd from apple orchard to kissing gate, holding my whirly-twirly behind my back. They get nervous when they see a stick and toss their heads-- heavy as concrete blocks.

As they huddle at the saltlick are they plotting to interlope on riparian picnics? Or perhaps the head-butting calves will get over-excited and bite an ear a la Mike Tyson?

The cows are earnest protectors of their calves. They will stand patiently while their calves nurse until they get their fill and creamy milk streams down their faces. But unless one is ill, or has a bee up her bum, they dislike being alone. They are a herd with a social order, and moo among themselves to make that clear.

These privileged cows are pastured at the verdant foot of Richmond Hill, framed on the west by the winding Thames, and on the east by the stately red brick and white stone Victorians cresting Richmond Hill. Since Sir Joshua Reynolds painted the view from his house in 1780, visitors have flocked to the hilltop to paint, snap and swoon at the view. In 1902 it became the only prospect protected by an Act of Parliament. While only specks from the hill, for centuries the cows have been a beloved feature of the Petersham water meadow below. Recently, the National Trust--the largest landowner in Europe--took over the management of the herd, and placed them under the watchful eyes of Ian, the chief cow herder, and his cadre of volunteers.

I didn't grow up on a farm, my only experience with large animals was gentling my mustang at the age of 13. Yet I find large animals impart an air of calm and grounding, not necessarily found with pets that share our living room, and mirror our anxieties. Of course, I love those too, how dogs and cats become family, add their measure of joy, and respond to our moods. But the livestock have a bit of wildness left in them. They read our character but make up their own minds whether they wish to respond. They permit the collaboration, but only just. And only if we keep up our part of the contract. Take care, pay attention, and don't interfere with their duties--calving, nursing, eating enough grass to sustain them (which is a long day and half a night's work) and ruminating.

Last season, and this spring, as I watch Fluffy and her cohorts tidily clipping grass, I have a hunch it's the cows that need protecting more than the people. Ramblers, toddlers, and tipplers snake through the kissing gate to reach the high water path to Petersham-- many unaware of the bovine mob inside. There are signs, more now that the National Trust has taken over the keeping of the cows, but few stop to read them. What ensues is an often charming, slightly surreal encounter.

Urbanites who dodge the most heinous London cabbies while gulping a latte and talking on their mobile are at a loss when it comes to making their way through a herd. They scan the meadow for human help, wondering who let the cows loose.

Others, emboldened by memories of petting zoos, reach out an apple or handful of grass. A rather big mistake.

But that's what we're there for--to intercept the well-meaning, but occasionally wrong-headed, and gently enforce the proper distance and disposition -- in the humans. I keep the whirly-twirly behind my back.

All That Sparkles Isn't Gaul

Peter Hall places the ruddy chipped stone on the oak table.  Light through the Sussex cottage window illuminates the flint ax, his white ruff of beard, and the blue-eyed Bengal cat.

“Guess how old.”

Fine bubbles subduct in golden liquid while he waits.

I’m off by 270,000 years.  He points to a tiny catalog number on the side.  “The Sussex Archeological Society wanted it, but it belongs here.” Hall exhumed the Pleistocene spearpoint when he carved Breaky Bottom Vineyard out of chalk and flint in the 1970s. Chalk-- the porous, eminently drainable soil that connects the South Downs with the Champenoise. Flint to warm the roots. Hall’s French mother helped cultivate his palate early, and it’s paying off, as Peter patiently ferments, sniffs and riddles his way to world attention. Fame he dismisses with a Gallic shrug. “I just do what I care to. Every day.”

Liquid Renascence

Offer almost anyone a choice between an English bubbly and a vintage Cristal, and they’ll laugh.  Until they taste what judges at the 2010 World Sparkling Wine championships in Verona hailed as “a fine mousse, notes of lemon zest, shortbread and apricot. Well balanced.” Nyetimber’s 2003 West Sussex Classic Cuvee trounced 50 contenders, including offerings from venerable Bollinger and Louis Roederer -- selling at ten times the price.

Was this a warm summer fluke, or can the stealthy English sparklers sustain their explosion onto the global wine scene?

Perhaps the answer lies buried in the dirt. Driving south from London, I navigate over Kipling’s “bow-headed whale-backed downs” to suss out the secrets of the small winemakers with big aspirations.

Scenic backroads twist through copses of oak and ash and tiny medieval villages--Ardingly, Ashcombe Hollow, Ditchling. Often the cobbled streets are just wide enough for a horse and haycart--I can stretch my arm out the window and touch the half-timbered houses. “Kill your speed,” the yellow and black signs buzz. I do. Mostly to admire the thatched-roof cottages and stone-studded pubs.  Grape wisteria flows over sandstone walls as 400-year-old churches glimmer with the glassy flint chunks that frame life here. An ancient castle keep yields views of hedgerows divvying up the rolling green like a giant’s chessboard. Along the way, I fuel my quest with Harvey’s Bitter and Ploughman’s Lunches of aged cheddar and chutney, but am hard pressed to find an eatery offering local wines.

English bubblies have only begun rising to the collective conscious. A clutch of southeast vineyards have garnered top awards at international juried competitions. And a fortunate few have joined Nyetimber in what most Brits would consider the highest accolade: a niche in the Queen’s wine vault.

Jancis Robinson, renowned oenophile and consultant to Her Royal Majesty, says, “While English production is still miniscule, about 1,000 hectares, this may be the moment English sparkling wines make their mark.”


Who scooped Dom Perignon?

Mike Roberts pours a glass of his 2006 Merret Grosvenor-- served at the Queen’s 80th birthday bash--and tells why he took the risk to start Ridgeview with his wife Christine. “We have the same soil, and a better climate for fizzes than the French—with more daylight hours to develop the delicate flavors. We don’t need to imitate --what we have here is all English.”

Bubbles release aromas of elderflower and new mown grass (or is that hedgerow?), while 16 acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier bud outside the picture window. Last week the family was out all night lighting bugees--rusted tins with candles inside—against a late spring frost.

“An Englishman, John Merret, made wine sparkle in 1662 – thirty-five years before Pierre Perignon entered a wine cellar,” Roberts notes. Ridgeview trademarked “Merret” for their sparkling wines, hoping the moniker eventually earns the same cachet as the terroir reigning from France.

Don’t call them British

The joke still circulates that it takes four men to drink a glass of English wine: the victim, two to hold him, and one to pour it down his throat. What fuels the bad rap: British wine generally means high-proof, syrupy plonk. The grapes can arrive from Slovenia, and as long as they’re processed in the UK, it’s British wine. In contrast, English wines must be pressed from English grapes.

Yet homegrown makes up just 1% of the wine drunk here, and most upmarket restaurants still recommend Champagne or Prosecco to accompany their treacle tarts.


The upside of climate change?

Today close to 400 vineyards cascade over hillsides from Hadrian’s Wall to the Isle of Wight. In recent years, a warmer climate, and cross-fertilization with vintners worldwide has turned the tide to sparkling wine.

Robinson notes, “The French are nervous… they haven’t been getting the acidity they’d like.” No one wants to pop a cork to global warming, but the extra heat does appear to be helping English vintners -- and not for the first time. Native-grown wines have slaked the thirst of island inhabitants since the Romans first planted spears -- and vineyards -- here.

Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at Imperial College London, Richard Selley explains, “Viticulture has thrived in Britain for most of the last two millennia. That is, until socio-political factors and the Little Ice Age in the 14th century cooled winemaking off a bit.” But now it seems the heat is rising in Britain again.

“Whether it’s the result of human activity since the Industrial Revolution, or a natural cycle, no one knows for sure. But a one-degree temperature rise will transform a marginally good grape growing climate into an optimum one. Seventy years from now, we may be growing Cabs by the Cuckmere River.”


The great white way

Breaky Bottom and Ridgeview both lie within a flint pitch of the South Downs Way, the 100-mile chalk path drawn across the buoyant geography of East and West Sussex.  Walk it and your boots become dusted with the aeons. Stone Age burial grounds, Saxon forts, and signaling rings from WWII punctuate the rise and fall that once was the ocean floor.

I trek a short portion of the Way as lambs dodge across my path. A great English birthright guarantees foot access across land tracts. Fortunately for the untitled, even privilege can’t buy privacy here.

As I climb the last hill to Seaford Head, the Seven Sisters cliffs rise from the Channel, apparitions trailing white feet in waves.  On a well-placed bench, I offer a quaff of Breaky Bottom 2006 to a kindred hiker.  He accepts, and surprise crinkles his forehead. We muse on light radiating from chalk, a French connection and the warmth to come.

The table of life

"Out of the chaos the future emerges in harmony and beauty."--Emma Goldman

Bopping our table mates with limp scallions while singing Dayeinu wasn't the only highlight of the Seder last Monday. It might have been the "sacrificial Yam," offered in deference to the many vegetarians crowding the makeshift dining hall in this 1920s Berkeley bungalow. Or the elevation of Miriam (the dancing girl that usually only merits a footnote), to her revered place as prophetess and conjurer of mysterious wells in the desert--who refreshed lagging spirits during years and years of dusty wandering.

Nearly half the 50 guests weren't Jewish, many were attending their first Seder, yet somehow all made to feel like family. The hostess, Candace reminds us that we are all on a perpetual journey of liberation with the earth's peoples. We move backwards and forwards through history as the songs of the Tunisian protestors, the 1911 shirtwaist factory protest, as well as the struggles of civilians in Gaza are remarked on by Judy, the officiant.

Karpas, maror, matzah-- Foods tell stories, as we work our way through bitter herbs soaked in tears to the apple and nut relish standing in for mortar used for rebuilding--we take the myth of hardship, flight and freedom into our bodies, into our own histories.

But mostly it was a love fest of self-described"over-the-hill anarchists," filmmakers, politicians, academics, midwives and prison wardens--celebrating the battles for truth and freedom they had joined in over the years. Recounting struggles, up to their necks in water on the way to the land of milk and honey.

And that was the sweetest moment of all, over macaroons and strawberries, seeing that after a lifetime of struggle, hope for liberation for all was still alive among the old lefties, in the old house in Berkeley. My husband and I drifted out feeling like it had been a reunion with people we'd never even met. With echoes of the Buddhist precepts that no one is free from suffering until everyone is, the refrain of tonight's haggadah followed us out the door and into the full moon's shadow.

"So that the next sea-opening is not also a drowning; so that our singing is never again their wailing. So that our freedom leaves no one orphaned, childless, or gasping for air."

Toad Haul

We show up at dusk at the road barrier just outside Richmond Park on a day neither the fog nor the shock of the tragedies in Japan ever abated. A small knot of the "wellies and anorak set" plus two in suits, quickly identified as town councilmen for the Richmond Park, Ham and Petersham districts, David William and Brian Miller, all hold blue buckets and survey the knee-high chicken wire fence lining Church Road that was to corral the migrating toads. It was our charge, as the newly inducted Toad Patrol, to carry the common toads, or bufo bufo across the road and further them on their journey to their ancestral spawning pond, now apparently enclosed in the Sultan of Brunei's estate.

"There are holes in the wall they can wriggle through," says Jonathan Fray, who lives just down the road. He and his partner, Diane Slater, instigated this amphibian rescue effort, after watching hundreds of their numbers squashed on this road last year. Alison, the Ecology Officer from the Richmond Borough Environment Directorate, is handing out Risk Assessment forms to the Patrol, warning us that we had a high risk of colliding with fast cars and a medium-to-high risk of drowning in deep water as well as contacting toad poisons. This gets my attention.

I'm directed to the supplementary sheet which whimsically cites a one Miss Ormerod, a Victorian lady who determines to find out for herself what it was like to eat a great crested newt. Now whether she was sampling what MacBeth's weird sisters evidently found to be a revelatory delicacy, or looking for an equivalent of our blowfish sushi experience--a slight tingling of the lips, but short of convulsions, wasn't specified in the handout. Only that it was not recommended that we try licking a toad, lest we endure the foaming at the mouth and shivering fits that beset Miss Ormerod. Oh these wacky Brits. They're only reserved on the outside, just propose a lip smack with a toad and see how fast they break into smiles.

As it turns out, the poison toads emit from their 'warts' is pretty much their only defense from predators-- not being as spry as frogs. Still a toad has to be pushed pretty far before he releases his amines and alkaloids (one of them, omethyl bufotenine, is said to be a potent hallucinogen). As in, teeth clamping down on his back. I'm put at ease by Alison coming forward with a bufo male who clings to her wool jacket and looks about quite calmly at our huddle, even as she picks up his feet to show us the knobs beneath his long toes that identify him as a male. A councilman surfaces with a female, twice the size of the male and rather more anxious to be on her way, quite bulging with eggs, like an overstuffed soft-sided valise.

A biker speeds through in the deepening dusk, and then a few more, ignoring the Traffic Diversion sign. David William calls after them, "You can't ride through here," but is largely ignored. One stops and asks why not. Evidently not all residents share the concern of Froglife, the booster association trying to avert amphibian disaster. This little group has transported hundreds of toads across Church Road in the last few weeks, while Froglife reports forty thousand more toad lives saved across Britain each season.

But two toads is all it was to be tonight. Diane says it may not be warm or wet enough tonight for the hoardes to emerge. "If you can see your breath," Jonathan adds, "you probably won't see many toads." We walk the wire fence but see no movement among the fallen alder leaves, so will come back on a warmer, wetter evening.

Perhaps tonight as the Toad Patrol wend their separate ways back to the latest flash of unimaginable suffering around the planet, they will keep this little song from Wind in the Willows as the selvedge of their minds, and dream of carrying blue pailfulls of bufo bufo to safety: 'Helper and healer, I cheer--Small waifs in the woodland wet--Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it--Bidding them all forget.'

Nutmeg, waterfall and lime time

A nutmeg scents my palm, the dark red flames of mace clinging to the glossy brown surface--as though Aubrey Beardsley on ganja had taken his brush to them. I hold it tightly as Vaughan says, "95% of the nutmeg crop was wiped out by Hurricane Ivan in 2004-- and a tree take 7 years to bear after planting. But we are resilient." He guides us through the nutmeg and banana cooperative plantations enroute to our hike to St. Margaret's Falls, first of the Seven Sisters in Grand Etang National Park.

Four of us have torn ourselves from the siren arms of the luxury resort on Pink Gin Beach to explore the precipitous verdant mountainsides of Grenada's interior. The road winds through forests of palm,

mahogany, and the few giant gommier trees spared both in 2004, and the sucker punch of Hurricane Emily the following year. We passed homes on stilts, some newer and in good repair, others rust-riven and bearing the clawmarks of hurricanes. Many have hibiscus-rimmed gardens with paw paw (papaya), a few cacao, nutmegs, sweet potatoes, corn, pigeon peas and callaloo, a dark vegetable that looks and tastes like bok choi. Plants flourish

in this rich volcanic and humus-dense soil. They say if you spit a watermelon seed, a vine bearing fruits will appear the next day.

Vaughan tells us about the traditionally cooperative nature of

the Grenada's cocoa, banana and nutmeg industries. "But the IMF aid after Ivan was a double-edged sword. It helped some more than others, and tested the bonds of the community." We walk past a colorful farm with beautiful golden cows, staked to keep them out of the crops. "We have a strong belief that we are not like crabs in a barrel who climb on each other's backs to escape from the bottom. Here, if one succeeds, he tries to pull the rest up with him."

His words spread warmth through my limbs like the balmy morning air, as we pass ginger, heliconia, and begonia blooming along the path. We reach Mitchell's Bar, closed but watched over by Bob Marley, and work our way through the giant bamboo and down rock steps, built in the 18th century to make carrying the harvest over this mountain a bit easier.

After boulder-hopping across a river, Vaughan points to a narrow muddy uphill track, and says we can carry on to St. Margaret's or take this side path to Honeymoon Falls. Happily, the others agree to head upriver to Honeymoon, which we reach in short order after Vaughan splits the river with his body to show us where to climb. We reach the pool at the bottom of the

50-meter falls and plunge into chill water. Without question, this is one of the most exhilarating moments of my life. The crashing sound and power of the waterfall were tremendous and swimming towards it, took all my strength to tread in place.

Resting on sun-struck boulders, we eat bananas and hear about "hashing," a local sport where the hasher blazes a trail with a cutlass, and the crowd follows, running, walking, however they want to ambulate to the finish line, which is nearly always a rum shack. "It's not a race, and the hasher always makes a route that everyone can manage. It's really all about what happens after everyone arrives."

On the way back, we meet Mitchell, struggling up the hill with the first trip to provision for the day. He smiles and tells us he started this outpost bar recently, and it's going well, but adds, "It's hard to do this all by myself, mon."

Perhaps he won't have to for long.

(For another sweet glimpse of this island, here's a video on the organic Grenada Chocolate Company, started by a guy in a hut and eleven others working with 18th-century equipment.

http://rococochocolates.com/blog/trevor-macdonald-meets-grenada-chocolate-mott/

Having world enough, and time

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling ... of that something which you were born desiring and which, between the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for?
~ C.S. Lewis

And so, I have flown from the Pacific around my ankles with the sandpipers' daily newsfeed to the banks of the Thames. Backwards in time to spend time with an old college friend, ex- ex-pat, entire soulmate. I haven't been in the UK since my Westmont semester abroad, when we larked about Canterbury, Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Lake District. 30+ years ago. The cultural divide still surprises, all the curious street names flooding by on the taxi ride from the airport (soon to be dredged up from the river bottom of my jet-lagged mind.) Leg stretching on the queen's walk along the facelifted river banks (why do I think of Sally Potter's film Orlando here?) I almost stumble on a streetwoman listing under a bridge, like a gray bird caught by a cat and released with a wing dislodged from it's breast, spare some change? spare some change? her three note song a whippoorwil's call. Day reflects off tower bridge, then dies in the lone apple tree's white blooms

Now it's 3 a.m. and I watch the waxing moon set over the inky Thames. A pre-dawn breeze riffles the surface of this liquid mixing chamber; molecules eddy through centuries-- barges, bards, bell tolls swirl through bridges as our attentions anchor the drifting past.

How what we love defines us

Laguna

The flag snagged on a jacaranda tree
just where the children’s tower
cuts a place for itself in blue
ocean swirls at the ankle
contained for a moment by the crumbling sea wall
festooned with purple seastars
and waving urchins. We have placed ourselves
in this bright bracelet they may call home.

Can we learn the language spoken in this garden?
Translate the sighs of mussels clinging to stones for all they’re worth,
or green anemones whose languid tentacles reach through water-bent light?
The eyes they don’t need bequeathed to other creatures,
they are all foam and salt, the steady
wave washing over with everything they need.
They are patient.
Waiting for bright fish who find themselves captive
to the sudden mouth singing.

The sea mirrors the sky, violet dyes sailors who knot and unknot
stranded in sand to the tune of the sinking sun, wait for
the blaze to ignite some dormant urge, just before drowning in a far horizon. Salt tingles the lips and tongues of those who dove beneath
breaking surf this afternoon--who tightened their lids against the sting
to thrill in the tumble of the wave moving them,
moving towards them all this time from Rangoon and Auckland-they coast on phonemes like blue glass from Bali.

It’s the spaces between the waves that draw me.
Before each singular note breaks and shimmers, the rest.
I abandon interpretation to the casual pelicans glide ,
the trio of spouts where slick dolphins rise like a descant,
breaking the mirror into a thousand shards of light.


(Forgot to post this poem when written on
4-13-08)