Big Sur Day 4

For some months, I have been wrestling with the definition of "home" as if what applies to me, applies to you. What personally comforts me are white walls and glass, wood and stone and Ligne Roset furniture. I know firsthand though, one can literally share a roof with others whose aesthetic aligns more with Beaver Cleaver's house. Or whose sense of order is disorder. At issue is not design, but security and harmony with one's surroundings. The house is a metaphor for the state of your soul.

That being said, you might think I've run away from home, from my house in Beverly Glen, from friends and family and social obligations, to find bliss in Big Sur. I have not run away, exactly. I have run full speed toward a place that feels as if I've lived here before. And now I am stopped in my tracks. This morning I "listened" to the quiet, alone in a silver field dotted with mustard on top of a purple mountain. What sounded like thunder were waves crashing against the rocks far below. The air intoxicates with the perfume of pine, eucalyptus, rosemary and sea. In the afternoon I drove down Palo Colorado to Rocky Point because there is a restaurant there I thought I would get cellular reception. I was right and I got so much more. I parked facing the Pacific Ocean at sunset, a celestial phone booth. The sky so huge, the horizon where the sun set seemed so much farther away. I spoke with my family. What puzzles me is how I do not feel disconnectedl to the home I've left behind, as if my vision has expanded, my house enlarged, to include this new bedroom above the clouds. When at midnight I traverse a gravel road from this mountaintop studio to my bedroom a mile away, it feels as if I'm walking from the kitchen to the living room.

Today, I am reading Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. He wrote this book to describe his experience as an artist living on Partington Ridge and his observations about life and perception in Big Sur cannot be improved upon. Read it.

You are all with me. Love