Big Sur Days 7 & 8

Big Sur Artist Residency

There is a particular quality to sound when you live in a canyon. Having lived in Beverly Glen (where, strangely, Henry Miller lived his first year in California before discovering Big Sur) I have often marvelled at how the flow of traffic is faintly reminiscent of a raging river, and on rare occasions, a burbling brook. Maybe because, acoustically, sound gets cradled by the canyon walls, instead of being thrown out into the abyss (like at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard), you grow to know canyon noise intimately. Many nights from my balcony over Beverly Glen, I’ve wondered about the colony of crickets who keep the same tempo. How can a million summer crickets stay the beat (there are always an errant few, if you listen hard.) Or is it that their cricket racket is only the product of two enormous mother crickets, one on this side of the street, one on the other? On certain occasions, the canyon is very still. Sunday nights particularly, you can hear a pin drop. But, let’s say it is quiet on a Thursday afternoon, I go to my balcony sentinel and can determine by the traffic flow whether or not, there’s been a bad accident down the road, like a fallen boulder blocking the stream.

In Big Sur, on the deck that wraps the studio, I sit in the morning sun and count sounds. The chirping of birds, crows calling orders, the wind rustling tree tops and whooshing up the canyon from the ocean, sounds of the wood rearranging as the breeze dries last night’s rain, my heart beating, the sound of my breath. 7 sounds.

Yesterday the rain began at dawn and did not stop until after I’d gone to sleep. While it could have been nice to stay in bed all day, reading and admiring the paper white narcissus bulbs that Erin brought me when I arrived in Big Sur, I am admittedly like Pavlov’s dog. The coffee being up the hill in the studio, I will brave all elements to attain it. I safely navigated my car across the part of the road that is chipping away.

Had the best day. Painted, played, ate pumpkin cookies left over from the weekend picnic, listened to Queen. Bicycle, bicycle...”fat- bottomed girls, you make the rocking world go round.”

By late Monday afternoon, I had a dilemna: the road down to the guesthouse where I sleep would be too muddy to traverse. Having been assured by Jim Cox earlier that I’d likely not encounter any dangerous animals if I walked on foot (the fox he’d just seen "shouldnt be anything to worry about," he said), at eleven o'clock, I bundled up and stepped out into the rainy black night. My little flashlight would have better suited a chore like finding keys in Paris Hilton’s handbag,illuminating a circle maybe five feet in front of me. I thought of Jack Kerouac's book, Big Sur, how he hiked that immortalized trek from Monterey along Highway One, a flashlight taped to his hat, not knowing if his next step would land him in the Pacific. At least I was sober. To defend myself against the Twilight Zone thoughts, I instinctively began counting steps as I splashed left right left right into the pitch night. 549 steps from the studio to the guesthouse. After a hot shower I realized I hadn’t experienced that particular brand of thrill since I was a kid.

This morning I recounted the adventure to Jim, the caretaker here at Glen Deven. It earned me my first "city chick" facial expression. Then he told me about the deer-slaying mountain lions who like to sunbathe in eucalyptus trees, the PG&E guy who refused to service the property after encountering one, but now comes dressed like he was going to war.

This afternoon (Tuesday) I met and dined with the Board of Trustees of the Big Sur Land Trust. Many seemed unaware of this pilot residency. I was more than happy to tell them what a gift this time and space is to artists (me in particular!), to thank them and encourage them to include the arts when supporting “things endangered.” One of the most interesting things I heard today is that they just closed escrow on a property I think they called Bald Eagle Mountain, named for the two American Bald Eagles who together have spawned 24 offspring (hope I have those facts right.) Once again, as with the gathering of Big Sur artists, there were so many people who I’d like to know better. The woman I sat next to at lunch, Jean Grace is a professor of geology. She gave me the title of a book I want to read: The Assembling of California, by John McPhee, said to be one of the liveliest writers about earth sciences. You can not look out my window and not wonder about these things.

Now, if I’m going to paint, I had better stop writing. Until next time, you are all with me. Love Susan