Devil's Peak

For his birthday, Chris wanted to go on a long dayhike. And so I humored him.

First, there was about 3 hours of trailwork he felt he needed to do along the hidden way from our cabin into the wilderness. Yes, those are poison oak roots in his hands. He actually likes doing this kind of stuff.

And then we came to the public Turner Creek Trail, which has just been groomed (just like I like it) because the VWA obtained a grant from the Monterey Regional Parks District and coordinated the trailwork with the Forest Service, a hired trail crew, and private volunteers.

Of course, I wasn't just humoring Chris by going along on this hike for his birthday. I had a hidden agenda of my own...

...these wildflowers.

Aren't they beautiful?

I'll just be quiet now, and you can enjoy them on your own.

Our goal was the heights,

...and the wildflowers all along the way.

Chris says that when "devil" appears in a place-name, it often means that homesteaders knew the place was used as a refuge by native people and for ceremonies. When you stand on Devil's Peak and look out across the Ventana range, you can see why.

We stayed up on Devil's Peak until nearly sundown, which meant that we walked home by moonlight with our flashlights off. I was humoring him all the way.

And he says it's one of the best birthdays he's ever had.

Łazy – and Rocky Creek (II)

The plan from the beginning was that Matt, Nate, Caitlin, and Ali would join us for Christmas.

And here are the four of them – with my cousin Staszek.

So you can see that the discussion about where we might meet for Christmas had been very brief...

…since Staszek and his wife Irena had invited us to spend a traditional Polish Christmas in Łazy with the two of them…

and with their sons Jakub…

…and Szczepan -- and Szczepan’s wife Patrycja.

They had written that they hoped it would be a Christmas we would remember all our lives.

You'll be able to tell us for yourselves if that's come true.

For awhile now, we’ve been thinking about the relationship between Łazy and the backcountry place we've found at Rocky Creek in Big Sur…

…and the ways of being there we’ve learned…

…with our kids…

…and friends.

In fact, our friends are continuing to create ways of being there even as we travel.

Sometimes you feel to us like a gravitational center…

…while we’re some wayward compass arm tracing an arc around a point that you hold firm.

Sometimes someone visits a place like Rocky Creek and politely admires its beauty…

…while someone else seems to have had it running through his veins all his life.

You make one brief call…

…and before you can turn around, your friends are there to help.

Staszek, Irena, Jakub, Szczepan and Patrycja have visited Rocky Creek themselves.

I speak no Polish. Just now, Staszek is beginning to study English.

But I can’t think of a time when we haven’t understood each other...

…ever since that suburb kid from California showed up in Łazy years and years ago.

When Staszek visited Rocky Creek, he took one look at what we had done, one look at me, and immediately wrapped me in a bear hug. Then he said just one thing.

OK. He said a lot of things. But I only understood one of them.

" Łazy."

But I knew exactly what he meant. "This place is like Łazy for you," he was saying.

And that’s exactly right.

When Staszek, Irena and Jakub returned from that trip to visit us in California, the renovation in Łazy not only picked up pace…

…but perhaps its focus sharpened, too.

There was foundation work to be done…

…and a new well to be dug.

The center of any home is really its fire-hearth…

…so that had to be restored as well.

And lest we give the impression that an act of reinhabitation only requires physical work…

…here’s Staszek poring over his gathered collection of family documents – an act of backwoods scholarship our Big Sur friends understand themselves.

But what is Staszek pointing towards?

...the signatures of two of our relatives.

Signatures in a wide sense. Yes, someone has written their names for them. But the two crosses to the left indicate their own marks since they couldn’t write themselves.

My grandparents and aunts and uncles, of course, all could write. But I’ve seen more intelligence in my grandmother’s peasant hands, and in my aunt Jadwiga’s, than in other forms of erudition I have known – including my own.

Here's Łazy 9 with its restoration work done…

…dated from its inception until the year of our family reunion there.

And here’s the main architect behind these dreams.

He has the precision of an engineer, but also the curiosity of an historian, and the sharp eye of an artist.

So as you can see, everything was waiting for us…

…to experience a Christmas at Łazy that we would remember all our lives.