June at last!

 Good Morning,

May you have a June filled with Joy.

 I have decided that I shall find something every day to remind me to get in touch with the deepest most Joy filled aspects of living on this Earth.  This Morning I was awakened by the chime of an incoming photo message showing me the faces of two of the  most beloved people in my life. A great way to start off this resolution

 Also, fun almost magical discoveries for children top the things that make my heart glad and these simple little bits of polymer invisibility were a big hit among the children and adults in my classroom. This is full of water and marble sized gelatinous spheres, but they are invisible in water

If I scoop them up they appear

and on a flat surface they magnify what is below them and project light like a crystal ball will

They remind me of water droplets like the rain on my calla lily

When I had a baby the best advice I ever got, was "when he is cranky, put him in water"

Works for every kid I know

including my inner brat.

 I also delight in color
So flowers
and painting with melted crayon on a warming tray
 both give me joy.
 I'm actually easily joyful if I don't watch the news too often or worry about the fact that I live paycheck to paycheck. I do still live and Life is GOOD

Summer and Winter in the Redwoods

 Here on the Redwood Coast, water is a given.  There is the pacific and the wild rivers and the redwood trees need 5 00 gallons of water a day, most absorbed from the fog.  Winter rain comes hard and brutally with winds in excess of 110 miles and blasts of hail, but the summers are deliciously warm and inviting without becoming scorchers.

 We go to the rivers to fish and swim and kayak much more to the ocean.  The rivers are warmer and at the beach, there is clouds and fog except when it is blown away by sandblasting wind.  Oh, sure, there are soft, easy days at the beach that fool the tourists into moving here, but the locals know they are an illusion and if you can stand a solar free zone is the only way you will ever be happy here long term.

 The previous pictures are all summer, the ones which follow are from January, when we got 8 inches of rain in two days and are bracing for more

 This picture shows the same spot, and the same giant rock as the sunny shot where people play on the gravel beach up above

So winter is green here, and grey and unlike the whited out world many of you experience.  We rarely scrape snow from the sidewalks, and seldom have frosty windows, but there are months of rain, and the sun becomes a faint memory.  I need to lock myself to my computer and write, but even in the stormy drama, it is wonderful to get out in a landscape with so much beauty.

Crescent City, Still Dredging out the Tsunami Damage

 Back in March, when the Tsunami stuck Crescent City Harbor the same day the Japan was hit, we were lucky that only one person lost his life.  Even that one, brought pain to a community where the sea has a history of reaching out and claiming lives. Still a lot of people lost their income and their family boats as the busy, crabbing and fishing harbor went through a full day of flushing like a giant toilet as the water rushed in and out and churned the docks to pieces, sank the boats and filled the boat basin with sludge.

Now nearly 7 months later, There is progress.  The parking lot has a huge pile of boken docks and boulders and the silt is being dredged out and hauled away, one barge load at a time, but except that barge and a few boats tied to the side, the basin is empty of the life it once had bustling there. Still many of the daily routines have resumed.  The sun alternates with rain and fog but gives no clue that it holds the strength we were hit with that day.

 There is so much that is lovely and peaceful here
and the people who make their home here have a quiet strength and a generous nature and a willingness to rebuild again and again

 Yet they also have a barely suppressed violence and a coldness that shows up in violent crimes and murder far more often that is easy to live with.  The women and children of this community are no strangers to being victims and the claim that "there is no law north of the Klamath" is repeated often enough to let you know it contains at least a grain of truth.

Where docks and crab boats filled the harbor before March, now silt fills it and must be removed one barge at a time

View of Battery point lighthouse

 So now that the harbor is filled with a huge floating platform, dredging up black and stinking ooze from the bottom of the boat basin and sending barge after barge of it away, to make room for the rebuilding of docks and the return of a working commercial fleet.  Now that Battery Point lighthouse shines its beacon on the hope of a fresh start to the community as we rebuild

Let us also shine the light into the darker places, the meth addictions and drug and gambling addictions, the families in crisis and the abused and neglected children, the homeless population that drifts here for the milder weather but finds few recourses and few resources offered.  Let us not deny that our children and young men and women have been front page news in grizzly murders again and again.

 Let us shine a beacon not only on the face of the sea, but on the face of our community, and as we come together to rebuild, let us rebuild a home where every child has a champion and a hand willing to reach out with support and protection.  Let us make our town a real community, where homes are safe and people are valued and the storms of life bring us together to help.