30 - blanca

… secrecy is appropriate to creative activities, to the relationship of lovers, to prayer, contemplation, and retreat. The extraordinary thing about our major experiences is that they are so secretly intimate, meaning just us, personally, individually. All that is dark is not necessarily repressed. And what is deep in depth psychology—even if conceived on a biological model as rooted down in the dirt and darkness—must remain underground. The source is out of sight.

      —Suicide and the Soul, James Hillman

~~~

So there we are, room service delivered, the two of us in comfy-cozy terry cloth robes, a view of the ocean, at the breakfast table, an array continental: hot coffee, tea, oatmeal, strawberries, cantaloupe, croissants, breakfast tots and sausage circles, juice—tangerine and grapefruit, and it’s like we’re stunned, both of us at ease, few words, on the heels of a whirlwind beginning, nearly a year in the making, and we’re lingering, then she broaches the subject, asks about being with each other day-to-day, what that would mean, is it doable? Where to live?

What so gets to me about her is this, and I’ve mentioned it here more than once,… there’s an openness and liberated sensuality, so engaging and attractive, she gives it off, a love of life that’s boundless; being with her emboldens me, makes me want to dance, in defiance of and in concert with death; it looms, so near, enticing, tempting, can’t ignore its presence.

This 60-plus hours-a-week oncology nurse, a woman who’s around the dying, day in and day out, someone who’s not troubled by the pain and suffering she sees clearly, someone not running away from it or speaking of a god who sanctions or excuses it, someone not deriving comfort from some imagined hereafter. She’s fearless and leaning in, and now she wants to take it a step further, wants to become a physician… this modern physician-poet, like Keats, sees something I can’t quite see, and I am drawn to her because of it; and I am thinking if I spend enough time with her, touching the “hem of the garment,” that maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for, the right words, sincerely and precisely, a finding, or a conjuring, to get at an answer or an understanding of this riddle we call life.

A profound connection this, not insignificant. My life will never be the same. We’re about to embark upon a journey together, and we have no way of knowing where it leads.

~~~

Have been thinking about the suffix –poet, wondering if we shouldn’t all add it to our job titles, or whatever we do, or how we identify ourselves, or what we love—our vocation. That the poetic should underscore how we live, a prompting to slow things down, to develop a new understanding, to begin to enter to and empathize, to not compete with and objectify others. It is this objectification and labeling/pigeonholing that leads populations to desire the death and destruction of others. It’s time to stand strong; to create an art of living that’s based on love and a reverence for life, to become a humanizing force in this horrible and beautiful era.

~~~

My father, George Kinney, though a businessman/contractor for most of his life, was first and foremost, and at the core, a plasterer-poet. He learned from the artisans of old, journeyman plasterers who saw their work as an art form, they took pains in learning their trade, the three-year apprenticeships meant something, they developed bonds as they were among a band of blue collar aesthetes who loved their work, who at the end of the job, on the day the structure they had contributed to building was finished, there’d be this moment, a looking back, and with swelling pride and a sense of accomplishment, they’d mark it in their minds and look forward to the next challenge.

Then, after years and decades in their communities, if you’re along with them, on a stroll or a drive across town, they’d point to this or that building, and they’d recall the work, how long it took, the little things that went wrong, and then always this, “Isn’t it a marvel?”

A poetic sensibility from those without formal education in literature and aesthetics, folks who’ve naturally entered into and appreciated what they’ve been a part of, a wordless understanding, that there’s something about the human imagination, in this case the engineering and architectural mind, that we all step into the conjurings of others and create, help “make” something that contributes to a sense of our communal well-being, a little bit of pleasure and joy, an honest appreciation…. this the poetry in life, the moment to moment travail and difficulty met and endured, and the resulting work, the magnificence of the simplest of things, so so much, if we take pains to see it.

~~~

We were strolling on the glorious grounds of this stately resort, hand in hand, what profound delight, two full-grown adults feeling ever so young and innocent, and it’s in the hand-holding that you remember, that you tap into that which never dies, the touch, each to each, mother to father, brother to sister, teacher to student, comrade to comrade, all of us, if you can fathom it, a camerado, ala Whitman:

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself; will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

~~~

We end up in the bar for a late afternoon Piña Colada, and we ask the bartender for a local restaurant recommendation, and he says he just heard about a place called Blanca; it’s hidden away in Solana Beach, just up the road past Camino Del Mar onto old Highway 101. I pulled out the Droid, located it, called and made reservations. A dinner to toast the search, to find the perfect love nest, preferably with an ocean view, maybe in Del Mar.

“Dream on,” she cracks.

Yes indeed, I will dearest, this is a fucking dream, and you’re the flipping dreammaster.

Comments

[Linda]

I wish there were opportunities for real apprenticeships these days. This practice still exists in Europe (France, Switzerland, Germany). Perhaps this professional niche would fill a void for many young people who are better suited to work with their hands and minds. Alas most of the true craftmen and craftwomen I know don't consider apprentices as part of their role.

[Maxwell Kinney]

It was something the "Old Man" raved and ranted about, as the work increasingly went non-union. Plasterers lost the "art of" plastering as the focus became less and less about union, about preserving the craft, and more about bottom lines, about only making money. Cheap, non-union labor made a come back.

The "Old Man"? What an anomaly. He was a labor union president who believed in excellence, in learning your craft, in teaching your craft. He taught apprenticeship school for years while a journeyman; and when he crossed over, as a contractor on the other side of the collective bargaining table he negotiated in good faith, understanding the value of union, of apprenticeship, of excellence,... both worker and owner/manager alike should be concerned with preserving the quality of the work, that it was in everyone's interest to focus on excellence, teaching it and passing it along.

He was never about the money in the end. He was about excellence, about taking pride in a job well done and about being a part of something larger.

A true socialist who never cracked a book on socialism or Marxism, a man who believed in community, and working together, and hard work. An inspiration...