Christmas is almost upon us and my three year old is beside herself with excitement that Santa will be coming to town anytime now. It’s a funny thing living in Southern California at this time of the year. I remember our first Christmas here before our hearts had fully comprehended what our heads had already understood; that we’d put the East Coast and Europe down, at least for a while .
We went to the movies last night. Clint Eastwood’s new film, the Mule, has just opened here and I’ve been really looking forward to seeing it. The screenplay is based on a true story and I saw the trailer at a recent showing of a Star is Born. There was a reverent tone to the air in the theatre; the announcer remarked that it must have felt somewhat like this at the opening of American Sniper.
Sing of Hermes, Muse, the son of Zeus and Maia,…..a son resourceful and cunning, a robber, a rustler of cattle, a bringer of dreams, a night watcher, a gate lurker, who was soon to display deeds of renown among the immortal gods: born in the morning, by midday he was playing the lyre, and in the evening he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo- on the fourth of the month, the day the lady Maia bore him… Hermes it was who first crafted the singing tortoise. (Homeric Hymns: To Hermes)
It’s turned chilly here in Los Angeles with the arrival of December. Jackets and Ugg boots are out in force and everyone is talking of the cold in the rather embarrassed way that we all do here. I took a very brief drive last night to our neighborhood Ralph’s for some essentials rather than walk. In the mood for music, I googled, as I periodically do, the only I line I remember of a song that has haunted me since the time I spent in Sicily during my undergraduate degree at Oxford.
I was driving along the other day in Santa Monica- can’t remember where I was going- the lavender dreaminess of the place will do that to you. Suddenly up ahead at the end of the street in the distance I saw the ocean gleaming mischievous and silvery bright in the early afternoon sun. Just knowing that it’s there, lurking playfully, is a whimsical feeling.
Sitting in the sunshine with a mind finally free of the clinging tendrils of jet lag I hear the far off rumble of an invisible plane high up in the sky and I smile wistfully. I returned a few days ago from a short stay in a London cloaked in an unfamiliarly autumn garb. Having been on this side of the Atlantic during the colder months of the year for several years I’d been eagerly anticipating the chance to rejoin the seasonal flow of England-even if just for a brief moment.
There’s a line from The Little Prince that’s often on my mind these days. The book is full of wisdom and beauty and I’ve loved it at various stages of life. I think I first discovered it as a child and was captivated by the drawings of the elephant digesting a boa constrictor. Then, during my later teenage years, it was the Fox and the Rose with whom I became fascinated and I must confess that it is to them that my thoughts usually return.
Walking through the leaves falling from the trees,
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees (Bob Dylan, Mississippi)
I’ve been thinking about crossroads, both literal and metaphorical recently. Whether it’s because we are about to enter the high school process with my son and the elementary one with my daughter, or due to my own position now that I no longer have a child at home full time, or simply because the Blues have been on my mind since I started watching Under the Influence and the long shadow of Robert Johnson is hard to ignore I don’t know. Nonetheless the crossroads are there, lurking.
We went running this evening around the Brentwood Country Club. As the sun drew low behind the tall palm trees the air filled with that Los Angeles twilight to which no picture can ever do justice. It is not just the quality of the light but the feel of it that’s important; as if one had stepped for a moment into a strange, transcendent realm where bathing in light itself was all of a sudden a real possibility and for that brief magical time everything is transfigured.
We had a lovely afternoon today. It was our first opportunity to gather with our closest friends here for Sunday lunch since coming home from Europe at the beginning of September. It’s a tradition that has developed over the last couple of years as our ties have grown stronger. Everyone usually manages to get together around each month or so.
I flew home from a few days in Mexico City this evening. I travelled in solitude and enjoyed the unfamiliar space which that created. Traveling without children is always a surprisingly different experience; there is no one else to look after and thus one gains so much extra time to think and reflect.
