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Hot enough, for ya?

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Ceegar was fighting brake fluid gremlins. Kanuck decided at the very last minute to show up and only after Excalibur beat on him a little. The motor in Cowboy’s new, spectacular-almost-a-Corvette was flatter than cola left out in the sun for the day.

Speaking of that sun? Seattle isn’t supposed to be this hot, so close to the ocean. It isn’t just the air temperature, either. Asphalt absorbs, then reradiates the heat. Montana Mustang measured temperatures of the pavement at 140 degrees, I was told.

The only shade was beneath trees near the restrooms, where it was at least 20 degrees cooler than in the paddock where years ago they cut down all the majestic and shading firs. They did it so we’d have more room for the race cars, they say, and not for the value of the timber.

As usual, when I get to the track, fewer than half the folks coming up want to say “Hi,” and more than half ask “Where’s Jakester?” Some ask in a voice that demands an answer, as if Jakester not being there is my fault. It’s a good thing my 14-year-old Crew Chief is coming up on Friday with his dad.

Kanuck decided to bring his red Camaro, “Roxanne,” because his Corvette wasn’t finished. I understood the disappointment when he said he wasn’t going to come, but after Excalibur got done with him, he showed up. Excalibur can be pretty persistent. Still, it takes more than three days to prepare a race car, even one as well prepared as Roxanne.

Stays Late, Excalibur’s mechanic, walked up and handed me four disks he’d made in his shop for my car to protect aluminum wheel spacers from steel wheels I now use because I liked them on Excalibur’s car. Stays Late had experience I didn’t have: “If the steel bites deep enough into aluminum, the lug nuts can come loose. Not a good thing,” he said.

Despite the competition, we take care of each other out there. Thank you.

Excalibur was ready. I was ready. We’d raced against each other at the Spring Sprints, where he spanked me bad. He turned in times in the ’29s’, consistently. That’s one minute, 29 plus seconds. Less than a 1:30. I’d done that once, years ago. He did it every race.

Yellow Jacket had resisted being pushed hard in the spring, and it’s a good thing. There were things wrong that could have been catastrophic if they’d let go at 150 miles an hour.

Since then, I’d had a little help from my friends, especially Merlin and Mule. Merlin conjured a new heart for my machine. I looked at the power curves, and decided how I needed to drive her. I came up a couple of days early to practice, and asked the local track guru for some advice.

Hey, if you’re going to do this, you might as well commit, right?

Cowboy told me on Wednesday he wasn’t coming. His mom had fallen and broken some bones that might not heal. He was staying close to home for the phone call. But then on Thursday, he said to maybe save him a place to park. His son, and then his sister, pointed out that Seattle wasn’t much farther away from mom than home in Middleofnowhere, Oregon.

So, with family blessing and support, he came up. His son, who isn’t so interested in these machines, even came up with him, along with his right hand, Cowgirl. Family, ya know?

After qualifying, I was third. Kanuck was first, Excaliber second. Falcon was right beside me. Ceegar had brake problems, and did not get a time. Cowboy was in the middle of the pack. There was a Porsche in there somewhere.

Smallblock, who  kicked butt in Indianapolis last month, was solid right behind the leaders. He gives up a lot of cubic inches and runs an iron motor instead of the aluminum mill others of us have. His builder Kiwi is quick to share that information. Smallblock has also gotten into NASCAR style cars, and he’s become quite a driver, regardless of what he drives.

I was lined up behind leader Kanuck for the two-by-two start, and when the green flag fell, I tried to squeeze so close to him that Excaliber couldn’t get to the line. But Excaliber came down on me anyway and squeezed me back.

The rules are a little gray there. Does he have right of way because he’s ahead and wants his line, or do I have right of way because I’m already there where he wants to be?

I didn’t feel like having that discussion, or speaking through fenders of fiberglass. For the time being, I figured if I could stay close enough, Kanuck and Excaliber might push each other out. I stuck my nose in a couple of times, but backed out again before it got bloodied.

Then the Porsche dropped either his engine or exhaust on the track, the pace car came out, and we followed its yellow lights around and around, five hundred horsepower of grumbling. Around and around.

They didn’t just push the Porsche back behind the barrier, and a tow strap wouldn’t suffice. They had to bring out a wrecker.

Around and around. In the heat. I started to sweat, which got into my eyes. Around and around. The two one-gallon bags of ice I put into my driving suit were mostly liquid by now.

Around and around.

Finally we came around and I saw the Porsche was gone. Workers at the kink right in front of us had the yellow flags up, but the tower right behind did not. I figured we were about to go racing.

Kanuck later said he’d thought the race was over. Excaliber doesn’t say much in these kinds of situations, but he was either sleeping or pinned behind Kanuck for just long enough after the starter raised his arm and I saw green. My foot was already halfway to the floor. I went by both in full song, grabbed another gear, went through the right hand Turn 1, the left hand sweeper Turn 2, down the hill into the sharp right and left turns 3A and 3B.

They weren’t gaining on me.

I let Merlin’s magic do its work under the hood, while I tried to concentrate on my job: smooth line, smooth throttle, firm braking, fast exit. Over and over, for about 24 more turns.

I just had to avoid being stupid, not always easy for me.

Sometimes, just not being stupid is good enough. Leading the parade lap was sweet.

So were the kids I got to put in the driver’s seat after we got back to the paddock. After a race, there are often a lot of kids coming by. Their eyes get big when I ask if they’d like to sit in the car, their folks always have a camera. Making memories, a friend used to say.

Hey, that’s how I met Jakester and his dad at the big race in Portland, so it’s a safe bet I get more out all that than I put in. Five minutes from me and they have something else to talk about when they get home and look at the pictures. Easy trade-off.

It was a nice start to the weekend, but Kanuck made it clear before he left the track that race was only the first race, and that there were four more to come.

“I would have caught you if I’d had ten laps,” he said.

“Maybe,” I replied. He’s a better driver, we all know that, and maybe Excaliber is better than me now, too. But not this afternoon, at least not for as long as it took me to jam the throttle to the floor.

Excalibur didn’t say much of anything at all, except to point out in a discussion we had before the races, he’d said  I’d be first or second. That was all. He’s like that at the track. He prefers to let his black car do the talking.

I wandered around our paddock for a little while, my hand out. Roxie Hearts, one of the key volunteers, she lines us up at the beginning of the races, is walking 12 miles next weekend for a cancer fundraiser. She’s a three-time survivor herself, we were told. I figured we “big bore boys” would all like to pitch in, and everybody was willing. More than willing.

One of the other volunteers, not a regular on the track but one in an orange shirt keeping spectators safe as we drove around them in race cars, heard my pitch.

“Would this help?” he asked, and gave me two quarters.

“You bet,” I said.

That smallest donation was my favorite. When I stuffed the wad of cash and two quarters through the fence to her station, I made sure Roxie Hearts knew where it came from. Like putting kids in race cars and one becomes Jakester, or finding one loose bolt that could put us into the wall at 160 mph, or one extra stroke honing an intake runner that wins the race, we never know which quarters will make the difference. Right?

Saturday, the heat didn’t let up. When the green flag came up, my foot went down. I got to Turn 2 first, and didn’t look back. At some point, Kanuck dropped out, his engine sputtering. Excalibur got smaller in my mirror. Yellow Jacket turned a lap of 1:28:906, a best ever for us.

The same thing happened in the afternoon. While Kanuck was fighting up through the pack because of his DNF (Did Not Finish) in the morning, and Falcon was trying to dice it up with Ceegar, Excalibur couldn’t quite catch me. Toward the end we backed off, but not before Yellow Jacket turned another lap just a hair under 1:29. Another 1:28.

Two personal bests on a hot day, with lousy traction. That felt pretty damn good. The bags of ice JD (Jakester’s Dad) made up for me to jam into my driving suit were bags of cool water. Excalibur had called me a machine, and it was a compliment.

But what was nicest was when fans came up to say we made it look effortless.

Effortless. They don’t see Merlin sweating the tiniest details of air flow, invisible to most people, even to most engine builders. That’s why what he does is magic. They don’t see Mule under the car, discovering small cracks, or polishing the inside of fenders where tires once rubbed, deciding to open the rear end to discover loose bolts, stubbornly squeezing out every flaw. They don’t see me researching the length of drive shaft yokes for four hours, or sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed in the hotel room at night, my feet stabbing an invisible clutch and accelerator, hands moving an invisible shifter and turning an invisible wheel, practicing each turn in my mind’s eye.

Like a lot of things, the more effort you put in, the more effortless it looks.

On Sunday morning, Excalibur jumps the start, it isn’t even close. He’s six cars in front of me before the green flag. I point at him as we approach the starter station, but they wave the green flag anyway. Later they say that waving off a start is to invite a wreck. It’s happened, but I think not enforcing that a race starts when the green flag flies also encourages wrecks.

Whatever. Excalibur gets loose in Turn 3b, I stick my nose in but he hooks it up and gets away from me. He gets loose again in Turn 6. This time I catch him as we come up the hill, through Turn 7, and I’m by him at Turn 8.

We only run a couple of laps before double yellow flags flower all over the course. I’m in the lead, and nobody can pass me, and I throttle down to a crawl. Safety crews don’t like to be out there when we’re doing a hundred. On the back side of the track, Kanuck’s Roxanne is sitting backwards, front end mashed, in the blackberries. But he’s okay, I see him standing outside his car.

Sometimes, squeezing out just a little more is just a little bit too much.

The pace car comes out and I wave him past so he can lead us around. They won’t get this one cleaned up in time and this race is over. So is the weekend. It’s a long drive from Seattle back to Middleofnowhere, Oregon through the traffic of a July 4th weekend. It will be good to hit the road early.

As I’m walking into the trailer to get get changed, Jakester, still 14-years-old and Crew Chief, hands me a time sheet, grinning. Somewhere in those first laps, we turned a 1:28:49 something. I have Excalibur to thank for that. I’m always best when running someone down.

“You know what’s next, right?” he asks.

“What’s that?”

“A 1:27.”

“You think that was easy out there?” I ask, incredulous, drenched in sweat, still vibrating from speed, from hanging it out on the edge of traction with tires shuddering, feeling Yellow Jacket’s insane urgency as she leaps to redline again and again.

“Just sayin’…” he tosses back, turning around to put the time sheet on our clip board. It’s Jakester, after all. He’s got high expectations.

I grumble something back, but he’s already got me thinking about a couple of turns where I can maybe carry a little more speed, an angle of exit that might add a mile per hour, a place where I just might pick up a half second in a lap more than two minutes long.

It’s never enough.

Retire just means new rubber

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Cowboy was on his way home to Rangeville from a rodeo board meeting when I got hold of him. He’s been on the rodeo board for just about half of forever, they won’t let him off because he knows how to “get it done.”

A couple of years ago, he was working the chutes for the bull riding. A bull got out of the chute and buried him in the dirt. It came back for him, too, but got distracted by a clown or that might have been the end. Cowboy was helped out of the area, but on his own two feet.

“A little road rash, a little stiff,” he said a couple of days later. He’s not about to retire.

That’s Cowboy.

His first race ever, a teenager with a racing license, he hammered it and was in first place over the first hill, but landed so hard on the other side he scraped off his exhaust pipes and drove them right through his rear tires. He ended up so deep in the woods, a rhododendron the size of a small tree came out too when the wrecker retrieved his car. So he got new tires.

That’s cowboy.

Last weekend he was on his way up to the race track in Portland to do a little test and tune for both his fast cars. He was meeting Canuck there, down from Canada, and Hotshot. Canuck may be the best driver around now, but Hotshot was a pro driver in Europe for a while, and pretty close to the fastest driver in our group of go fast.

It would be fun sometime to hear Canuck and Hotshot tell each other how to drive. The testosterone would splash half-way up the grand stand

Cowboy was going to put them in his cars during a test session to help him set up the cars, the new one he’s bringing out in July, and the beast he used to drive.

“Don’t put them on the track at the same time,” I suggested. “They’d have to see who was fastest.”

“I thought of that,” said Cowboy. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep between them.”

I’ve never seen Cowboy this focused. He’s built a new car, put a lot of attention into setting it up, maybe even getting a little driver training, if that’s what this last weekend was really about, and I’ve got my suspicions. He downplays everything, and doesn’t think it’s always necessary to play inside the rules.

“Hotshot says he might come back and race with us,” Cowboy said. “We’ve got to find him a car.”

“Maybe he should buy mine,” I say.

“Whaddya mean, buy yours? You ain’t going nowhere.”

“I don’t know, Cowboy, I’m getting old, and maybe slow. It might be about time.”

“Nah. You turned a 1:29 a week ago in Seattle. You’re still one of the fastest. You going to sit around and play checkers?”

“Racing is a lot of money. A lot of money,” I said. My black and yellow screamer is up on jacks as we’re having this conversation. I was checking the brakes at the local garage when I discovered one of the shafts driving the driver’s side rear wheel had nearly chewed through it’s flange two weeks before in Seattle.

Merlin had told Jakester to tighten the bolts on Saturday before he left the race track for the weekend, and Jakester told me before we let the car down off the jacks on the first race on Sunday. But I never knew there was an issue with those bolts, and I overruled Merlin.

That’s always a stupid thing to do. They came loose.

During the Sunday morning race my clutch pedal didn’t work and I came in after a few laps. During the Sunday afternoon race, the car popped a couple of times and I thought I was “running a little lean” as Kiwi says, and came in.

Another two laps and that shaft would have come loose. Driven by the tire, it could have taken out my oil sump, could have cut through the back of my seat like a chain saw and anything on the other side of that seat, or maybe just let the rear wheel flop over onto the track at 160 mph. It any case, it would not have been pretty.

I didn’t discover it until two weeks later when the car was on a rack for brake work. This maintenance thing is pretty important, and I’d been a bit neglectful because I didn’t have a mechanic close by. That’s really stupido, too.

I think the world of Shade Tree, but it’s three hours just to drop the car off for an oil change. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be done.

I was rescued, again, by Cowboy, who told his mechanic, Mule, who had once been my mechanic too, that I might need a little help. Mule called me up and said he was on pretty good terms with the only guy in the country who has those parts. Mule was putting them in my car a week later.

“Money?!” Cowboy says to me over the phone. “You already SPENT the money. You won’t get anything out of your car, so there’s no point in selling it. You might as well be racing, maybe you only race three events a year. That’s okay. Besides, it’s not the racing, it’s the people!”

Well, that’s true enough. Cowboy is the people who got me into this decades ago, and I guess he’s not going to let me out early. There’s still time to get the car fixed and get to the next race.

Maybe with a enough extra practice, enough extra effort like everyone else seems to be putting into this go-fast passion, there might be enough left to win a race or two. Then again, everyone else has the same idea, so maybe there’s never enough.

Spring Sprints

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Excaliber in his sinister black Corvette dominated the first race of the season. Ceegar broke, Canuck and Cowboy didn’t show, and I wasn’t even close with lap times would have put me in front last year. I couldn’t catch him, except once when he made a mistake.

The field was small to begin with and got even smaller as the weekend went on. It’s too bad, too. The weather was perfect: sunny and cool, exactly what the cars like best. Drivers too. Those who were there got a treat.

In the first race, Excaliber shot out in front and Ceegar was right in front of me, again. I tried to get him on the inside, outside, braking later, coming out of turns faster, but Ceegar was where I needed to be to get by him, then squirted away.

He was in front of me as we came down the main straight when all of a sudden, a huge billow of smoke came out from under his car. That usually means something bad just happened. Last time it happened to me, an exhaust valve ended up in my exhaust pipe.

Ceegar immediately pulled far left against the wall so he wouldn’t put oil down on the racing line. I went by on the right and after Excaliber, as if I could catch him.

That was it for Ceegar, first race of the first weekend. But he has O/C as his mechanic, and another motor back in the shop. He’ll be at Spokane in a month.

I got the jump on Excaliber in the second race, but that black car filled my mirrors for three or four laps, before he finally got around me. I think he was either toying with me or watching my line, figuring out where he would get past. And then he did and off he went, I had nothing for him.

But as I was coming around the hairpin turn at the bottom of the hill, I saw a cloud of dust on the left side of the track, then saw Excaliber facing backwards, off the track on the right. He had cooked it into the sharp turn just a little too hard.

I went by as he started to move forward, and I pushed it. I knew his tires would be full of dirt and gravel for at least a few turns, and I wanted enough room between us so he couldn’t catch me before the checkered flag. That’s how it ended up, too.

But it was luck, and Excaliber has set a new standard. One minute and a half. Well over 160 mph. Winners this year will need to turn 1:29, and I think we’ll see a 1:28 before the season is over, probably from Canuck, and maybe from Excaliber too, given his single-minded focus on getting better, going faster.

BS-ing in my trailer after the race, Excaliber says he doesn’t know how I got the jump on him, and I’m not telling him, either. “You’re just old, your reflexes are slow,” I say. I’m probably older than he is.

“And so it begins,” Merlin says laughing, or he said something like that, I’ve forgotten.

The fact is, Excaliber’s 1:29 was no fluke. He was turning them all weekend, every day, several laps in one race, he was consistent. Some of it is pure power, and that black car has a ton. But you don’t turn a 1:29 because you can accelerate in a straight line. That kind of time takes skill. Excaliber has worked hard over the last several years to improve his cars and his driving. He earned this.

Jakester and I buttoned  the race car up and left the track, but stopped at the kart track on the grounds on our way out. I needed seat time and had sorta kinda promised him when we first arrived.

“You sure you want to get whupped, since you’re probably feeling pretty good after winning that last race?” he tossed out with the cockiness of an almost-fifteen-year-old who doesn’t think he can lose driving karts.

“Perfect,” I think, so we run a quick race, the two of us and three family guys from out of town who are just out to see what its like. I was behind Jakester and we were at the back of the pack as we lined up. As soon as racing was allowed, I goosed it, got by Jakester and everyone else and just started a run.

Jake passed me about half way through, but just like Excaliber earlier in the day, he bobbled in a turn and I got by him. Again. Then he took me coming out of the last turn onto the main straight.

But we had come upon the family guys. We were starting to lap them.

Experience is worth something: Jakester got pinned behind one of them and I went by both just before the checkered flag.

Jakester’s pretty competitive. He did not like not being second, even to me.

“We need to have a rematch,” he says.

“I don’t know. It is what it is,” I say.

“I turned the fastest time,” he says.

“But you weren’t first to the flag,” I say, a bit of payback for the “attitude” when we arrived to drive. He sort of laughs, knowing that’s exactly why I said it. I can see him going over the race in his mind, figuring out what he will do differently next time, thinking, “THAT won’t happen again.”

Ceegar’s Mustang was not to be seen the next day. They didn’t even open the trailer, none of his crew was around. Too much to do, too little time. Falcon showed up to run his red Ford.

In the morning race, I got the drop on Excaliber again but my transmission was a little balky, or I was rusty, and after a few laps when I tried to use the clutch it went right to the floor, where it stayed.

Unable to get power to the wheels, I pulled off the track and coasted to a place in the shade where I figured they wouldn’t have to slow down the race until they could tow me in.

It wasn’t serious. I had pushed my recently repositioned clutch pedal so hard it jammed into the fiberglass floor, where a corner caught and held the pedal down. In the pits, I popped it out. Swede the mechanic crawled under Falcon’s car and retrieved a piece of sheet metal they didn’t need any more. I screwed to the floor behind the clutch pedal to keep that from happening again.

“Shall we put gas in?” Jakester asked after we were done changing out the tires. I was hot and sweaty and wanted to sit for a bit before the race. We hadn’t run more than a few laps in the morning, I thought, and maybe starting out a little lighter would give me something to use against Excaliber.

“No, I think we’ll run it as it is,” I said.

I was working my way up from the back of the six car pack, but after a few laps, my car started to pop coming up the hill through turn seven, and I pulled off into the hot pits. It smoothed out, so I drove slowly to the trailer. I didn’t know for sure what was wrong, but I had to admit to Jakester I thought I’d run out of gas.

“I TOLD you we should have fueled her up,” he said. Yeah. Four gallons of gas sitting in the trailer didn’t do me much good out on the track. Kiwi later asked if I knew the technical explanation to avoid embarrassment: “She started to lean out.”

I turned a time well under 1:29 in that race, but Excaliber turned a lap a half second faster. In this sport, a half second, even in a lap of 10 turns over more than two miles, is huge.

I went over to his trailer where he was talking to Canuck who had come down to watch. To them and everyone else, I acknowledged they are both faster than me. I’m kind of like Jakester: I don’t much like being second, let alone third, maybe even fourth or fifth.

Just one more lesson from a weekend of dusting cobwebs collected during six months out of the driver’s seat. The first go is always a learning experience, and I learned that I need brakes. I need power. I may need a transmission repair, and I need practice. A lot of practice.

It’s never enough, especially with Excaliber running consistent 1:29s; Canuck will probably hit 1:28 in his new car; and Cowboy has a new car with history and set up that he’s keeping under wraps until the first big race in July where he may blow everyone away.

And there are supposed to be some guys coming up from California soon who intend to show us how it’s done.

It’s Never Enough: Part II

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My season started with an email from Jakester in the middle of April, saying the first race was coming up the first weekend in May.

I wasn’t planning to go. In Middleofnowhere, Oregon, the car was in the trailer where she’d been since I’d drained water out of the block last fall. I had my racing license, but hadn’t even paid my annual dues to the club. I thought I’d be race-ready by June.

Jakester was having absolutely none of that. At age 15, he’s still crew chief and decided the season doesn’t begin when we are ready; we are ready when the season begins.

“Time to suit up,” he says. That’s not a direct quote, because Jakester is more discreet than that, but that’s what he meant and I got the message. Three days later we were signed up, fueled up, tuned up and fired up.

Good thing Jakester woke me up. Cowboy called about a day after everything was finished, asking if I was going to the Spring race, and I was able to say, “Yeah, I’m ready. You?”

“Nah, it’s supposed to rain.”

Actually, I think Cowboy doesn’t want anyone to see what he cooked up over the winter. He likes to surprise the rest of us. One thing is certain: It’s going to be fierce. It may look like an older vintage race car, but that’s because it was “built down” from a much wilder machine.

Or “restored to original,” which is how Cowboy describes it. Cowboy is the best there is at getting you to think what he wants you to think just by how he says things. “Restored to original.” No harm in that, right? I bet there are a few details swept under that rug.

Cowboy doesn’t like new rules letting much newer cars into our races, into our group.  Cars that are 15 years newer than ours. Able to run super-light frames, with bigger motors and smooth tires that will allow them to stick to the track like they were glued.

“We’ll be middle of the pack. Might as well kiss this racing good-bye,” he said, thinking our popular production Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros would be replaced at the front by cars with less appeal. He makes a good argument, but others see it differently.

“We need more cars or it’s all going away,” says Ceegar. “The fact is, those of us who love these old cars are dying off. We need to have newer cars come out. Some guys we used to race with in the past, like Irish, might even return.”

I enjoyed racing with Irish back when he was still involved. He brought to the track the finest automobiles ever made; a TransAm car, an original Cobra. And he’s a lot of fun to be around, smart and enthusiastic.

It’s true. The grids are smaller, and we’re getting older. A lot of guys aged out, or the money ran out, or they just moved on. There aren’t as many of us as there used to be.

Our cars are getting faster, too, and that concerns me a bit. Racing at 170 mph is not just 15 mph faster than 150 mph. It’s a whole different level, with different aerodynamics, different braking forces, and far more demands on a driver to act and react faster than ever when he runs out of track or out of skill or something happens on the track just ahead that he didn’t anticipate.

We’re going as fast as pro drivers did just a few years back, but we’re in machinery that was designed 50 years ago.

I hope we’re all ready for that.

Ceegar will be there this weekend. He’s 100 percent ready, his chief mechanic, O/C, has seen to that. We may not recognize Ceegar, nor O/C. Ceegar’s lost more than 30 pounds, O/C has lost more than 40. They’re on some diet that cuts portions and uses three drops of magic oil: my guess, something between snake oil and 90 weight gear lube, but you can’t argue with those kinds of results. I wonder if I can sneak some into my crankcase.

Excalibur will be there, too.

“We had teething problems last year. I was going nowhere. The first weekend, we ran a 1:31 and it got worse from there. There was one race I brought the car in and said to Stays-Late (his mechanic) that I wasn’t sure if next time I would bring it in in one piece.  After the front straight, I could stand on the brakes with both feet and not know if I was going to make it.”

This winter, Stays-Late told him, “you will have brakes.” That means Excaliber will drive again with the confidence that made him one of the top three on most weekends, but this season in a fresh and much faster car. Whew.

“I don’t need to win. All I know is that I want to do the best I can do,” he says.

Yeah. Okay. When Excaliber starts a sentence with “All I know is…” you can bet that he knows a lot more than he wants you to know that he knows.

As to speeds as high as 170 mph, he’s cautious but confident.

“I believe that’s where we’re all going. That’s something we all have to consider, and hopefully we all have what we need to do the job… Hopefully, it’s not 1,000 percent harder to go five percent faster. But there’s a world of difference between 80 and 140, or between 100 and 160.” Yeah, things that used to go by fast are now just a blur.

Most everybody thinks the rules on car preparation will be more rigidly enforced, and everybody knows that some will take advantage.

“My guess is, that at least at the July 4 race, you will find some interesting interpretations of the rules,” said Excaliber.  “But if you are a superior driver, that can make up for a lack of horsepower. I always thought the driver was an unheralded part of the equation.”

We do talk a lot more about cars than skills, more about horsepower than technique, more about setup than braking points.

The clearly superior driver of our group, by far, won’t be there next weekend at the Spring race. Canuck’s car isn’t quite ready, he says. Lots of little things remain to be done. His mechanic, Swede, is working on it, he says, but Swede has other clients too.

One of them is Falcon, and changes have been made to Falcon’s red car that he likes a lot. ‘Stang will be there in the blue Mustang that just keeps getting better and better and faster and faster. It’s not like either of them has been sitting on their hands all winter.

There are supposed to be some great drivers up from California this year, who can give any of us a run for our money. Canuck thinks they might push us a bit in Portland, but that Seattle takes longer to learn.

It’s said that Kiwi won’t just wrench and manage cars for clients, at least at the big race in July. Kiwi may drive a big-engine Corvette, and Kiwi used to be a professional racer. He intends not just to race, according to someone who overheard, but plans to qualify first with a better time than any of the rest of us.

“There are seven or eight guys who might disagree with that, who are planning the same thing,” Excaliber says. And he’s one of them. Canuck certainly is. Cowboy, always. Captain America will have a shot. Ceegar wins races, and has gotten 105 percent out of that Mustang each year for so long, he’s got to be close to 175 percent of what that car is capable of by now. I’d like to be in the hunt, too.

Seven or eight drivers in the running for first place, and any one of them could take it. A lot will depend on who did what over the winter; what new cars were built, what big changes were made to old cars, or what small tweaks were found that add up to give one of us the edge.

We’re all looking for that edge. We all live a bit on that edge, in a way. It’s not just what we do, it’s who we are. So we’ll keep doing it until we can’t, and keep looking for more.

It’s never enough.

Shark

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A beautiful turboprop sea plane comes in to pick up passengers at Blue Lagoon Resort. It’s on the beach for maybe ten minutes, loading passengers and gear, then is off to the mainland.

I’m in no hurry and prefer the giant yellow catamaran, a huge marine triple decker transit bus that makes the island circuit once a day and is the only other passage to these north islands.

But none of the hotels where I want to stay have any rooms. I didn’t think the “high season” started for another month, but it’s also Easter Break. Manta Ray Resort, just a long hop down the island chain, has one private room available when I call.

I really don’t want to stay in a dorm. I don’t need posh, but there are some things a man my age shouldn’t do. Manta Ray is also supposed to have tremendous snorkeling right off the beach.

I pick a seat in the shade on the second deck. Zoe and Alice come sit down across from me after they bake long enough in the sun on the unshielded deck above. The two blond girls have freckles. Zoe, for about the tenth time since I met her, asks why I am traveling alone.

“She emailed you from the next room?! She didn’t want anyone to know you were together? She’s just mental then,” Zoe lays out in her thick Essex English accent. “You’re a good guy!”

I start to defend you: “Two sides to every story… I’m sure she had reasons… ” and then stop. It doesn’t matter.

“Thank you. I think I’m a good guy, too,” I say.

I go down at one point to find my snorkel bag. I’d planned to carry it but the resort guys gathered it up with all the rest of the luggage and it wasn’t tagged with a destination. A crew member helped me find it, we tagged and moved it to the pile going to Manta Ray Resort.

We get to Manta Ray and I say goodbye to Zoe and Alice. There’s just four of us getting off here, Claire from Switzerland and a young Japanese couple. The resort check-in person assumes Claire and I are a couple despite the age difference, and starts to check us into the same room.

“That would work for me, but I think Claire might have another idea,” I say when I catch the error on the paperwork. We all laugh.

It’s nice not worrying how every word will be construed.

Manta Ray is not as upscale as Blue Lagoon. My room on stilts is about 10 foot square, and the bearings in the fan may not last the another month. I unpack as much as I think is prudent, then decide to write for a while.

That decision lasts less than 10 seconds. I did not come to Fiji to write when some of the best snorkeling in the world is 30 meters off the beach.

I toss my glasses on the bed and pull my fins and mask out of the green mesh bag (so glad I didn’t lose it on the ferry!) and head down to the beach. After everything is adjusted, I swim out, turn to my right against the current and do a crawl out to deeper water.

There are a zillion fish, and the corals look like they were dipped in the finger paint from third grade.  It’s magical. Eventually, clouds roll in and I don’t like snorkeling alone, so after I dive down to pick up a D cel battery lying on the ocean floor, I swim straight back to the beach while the current pushes me south and I end up right where I set off.

I put my fins on the concrete shelf and am deciding if I should get something to drink when I’m pulled into a game of volley ball by Christina, a six-foot tall German girl with a Teutonic-tinged English accent .

On about the third serve, the other side puts a ball right in a dead spot near me. I do a full stretch body slam onto the sand but reach out with one fist and get the ball up and we make the point. There are oohs. Geezer guy plays!

We play five sets, and finally I bail out.

“I’m too old, you’re too good!” I say as I head to the ocean to cool off with a swim. They’re polite about it.

After dinner, three of the guys who’d been in the game asked if I was going to play tomorrow.

“Depends on two things: The snorkeling might be really good. If it is, I’m going to be in the water. If the snorkeling isn’t so good, then I’ll play… if I’m still able to move my right arm, that is. And if my right hamstring is okay. And my left elbow. My right hip, too. And if I still have a large bottle of ibuprofen left in my bag…”

They laugh. Eric, Gustov and Magnus are from Sweden. Eric says I look Swedish. I say that’s where most of my blood comes from.

The sun is bright the next day. I write, have lunch, grab my snorkel gear and wish I’d loaded my Go-Pro to take photos underwater instead of a Sony that doesn’t work.

It’s bright all the way to the sand valleys that meander between the coral. Bright silver fish and dark blue fish and black and yellow striped fish browse the coral heads for lunch.

There’s a couple not far away and I sort of stay in an area with them, so as not to be really snorkeling alone.

It’s so incredibly beautiful that I’m not diving down to the bottom as I often do for a better look at details. I’m just taking it all in when about fifteen feet away a five-foot shark swims through my field of vision.

The animal is amazing, with movement not lazy, not by ocean fish on the reef standards, more like it’s hyper efficient. It can’t hide, nor waste a lot of energy on unsuccessful frenzy, so it moves with a rhythmic, strong but easy sweep of it’s tail. Smooth is fast, right, Racer Boy? It seems nonchalant, but I imagine the fish around me are quite aware the predator isn’t just out for a swim.

I am.

“Did you see that shark!” says the man behind me. I point to where it disappeared into the green curtain of underwater distance, and nod.

I didn’t know how I’d respond if I saw a shark out here. I’m thankful I’m cool with it, also thankful that it was swimming away from me when I see it. But for the next half hour, I’m looking backwards forwards and to each side with a little more intensity than I had been before the shark swam by.

 

Vinaka

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There are about fifteen of us in the boat when we hit the beach to visit the village, but two of the young women have not brought scarves or anything to cover their shoulders. Another woman on board has brought extras. I’m told I’ll have to take off my hat.

It’s conservative, here.

We walk up the path to a school, where we wait in the shade for recess to be over. Boys are playing rugby on a field of packed earth and dry grass, and it’s rough and tumble. Full-on tackle, take down, no pads no helmets, no elbow or knee protection. I can’t imagine such a game being played at a grade school in the U.S.

I have no idea how important rugby is to Fiji, but will learn in a couple of days.

It’s a boarding school, and children come here from other villages on other islands. The row of huts closest to us belong to teachers, and they have small solar power arrays for electricity.

“This is new, and saves on diesel fuel, which is very expensive,” says our guide. Teachers are dedicated, but at least need electricity.

“It’s Friday, so the children will go home today. They will return on Sunday for Monday classes.” They study math, science, English, the Fijian language.

Recess over, we cross over the field to a large classroom with two rows of empty chairs at one end, the rest of the room filled with children sitting on the floor.

“Be sure you clap afterwards,” says our guide. This is his village. I wonder if he has a child here.

This feels a little obligatory. We sit in the empty chairs as if we are the ones on stage. I’ve endured enough grade school performances. I really want to see the village, see how these wonderful Fijians live outside the cities. I’m sure the performance will be very nice and all, but…

Then the children start to sing.

The Fijian songs are intense, beautiful and the singing fills the simple room. It is not the pure, silver bell refinement of a European Children’s Choir. There is an earthen urgency in the harmony of these voices that is far less contained; almost a ferocity. I can’t help but sway with the notes. It is so strong and loud and beautiful, I’m nearly overwhelmed.

A little girl with deep dimples sits near the front, and she watches me very closely, even though I’m in the back row. After a minute I look back at her, cock my head slightly and smile, which brings a wide, beautiful flash of white teeth, a bright light of joy.

At one point, individual children stand up and dance at us, distorting their beautiful faces into terrible masks of crazy, tongues out, eyes bugged out, a grimace or fish face pushed eight inches from ours as they hop and flap about. It is startling at first, even a little scary, but all the rest of the children are laughing and singing.

Then the songs are those we recognize, and the little girl in front laughs with me as my fingers follow her’s and we climb an itsy bitsy spider up the water spout. Yes, I nod at her, I’m a dad, I know this song, while I sing along.

When the singing is done and our final, very real applause has ended, we stand to shakes hands with as many children as we can. The little girl nearly leaps out to grab my hand, stare into my eyes. We are smiling, acknowledging. Some things, you just recognize.

To hell with colored pencils: I put my largest bill of Fijian currency in the school donation box outside the classroom door.

We go to the village then, of huts about the size of a large U.S. kitchen, some made of corrugated iron, others of concrete block, others of grass. The Catholic church is the largest building in the village, of course, and is made of concrete.

There’s a communal laundry tub with water for washing clothes.

“The diesel generator is only turned on for four hours a day, from about six to ten p.m.,” says our guide. Diesel fuel is very expensive.

In a grassy square under some trees, village women have laid out tarps covered with items for sale.

“The money you put in donations box is for the entire village. What you buy from these women is for their own families,” we are told.

There are too many women to buy from everyone, and it’s a disappointment they are selling identicaal book marks, door mats, shells, bracelets of shells.

“Buy this for your wife!” says a woman on the blanket in front of me.

“No wife,” I say to her.

She squints at me. “How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Dunno. 50, 60?”

When I tell her, she tsks, shakes her head. She does not approve of me being single. Some things you just recognize.

I remember the reading glasses I brought to give away. I ask the woman in front of me if glasses are needed and she says yes. Like an idiot, I give the glasses to an older woman sitting on the next cloth, because she’s older and I thought she might need them more.

This causes a little dispute between them. The glasses aren’t just an aid, they are a commodity, in a village where trading is living.

I make the rounds twice, three times. I do buy bracelets that my daughters may or may not decide to wear. I do not buy a bracelet with shark’s teeth for myself. I don’t wear shark’s teeth. Why give sharks an excuse for revenge?

I come to a place where children are sitting with their mothers, and from my backpack I pull out a tray of water color paints for a pair of boys.

Their mother gives them a little nudge on the shoulder, and the quiet instruction in Fijian to say “thank you.” Some things you just recognize.

“Vinaka,” they say together. A very small boy in a red shirt to my left watches hopefully as I reach again into my bag, but two little girls have appeared. I give the bubbles to them and the little boy cries out. His mother hushes him. I look at him and am sad, but the bubbles I’m holding would be better for these girls who are older.

The little boy cries when a bubble leaves the loop. Again his mother tries to hush him, but he can’t be consoled. I have nothing left in my pack. He cries as she puts her things away, and as they walk off down the trail.

Then we are done, it’s time to go.

Walking down the path I talk with a young couple from Monterey. Trey is in the Navy, Ashly works for a company that sells organic pesticide for vegetables, I think she says. As we walk out of the village, Trey is saying how amazing it is to see this much happiness when the Fijians have so little.

The little boy in the red shirt is still crying in one of the huts next to he path.

“Excuse me, I have to make amends,” I interrupt Trey, and walk up to the little boy standing on the threshold of a concrete hut that has almost nothing inside except what’s needed for survival. I squat down so he’s a little above me.

“Bula” I tell him. “Hello.” It’s the only word of Fijian I know, besides  vinaka, “thank you.” But he instantly stops crying. His mother stands behind him, and she is smiling.

“You are a wonderful boy,” I say from only a foot away from his wide brown eyes, looking as deeply into him as I can.  “I will come back here,” I say, and I mean it. Of course, he can’t understand a word, but the tears are gone now, and he smiles.

I stand up and start to leave. His mother says something to me. Though I don’t understand the words, I can tell she is telling me to stop. Some things you just recognize.

She brings the bag of items she had been selling from the lawn and that I bypassed several times after looking, even though I was tempted. She reaches inside. She makes me take a tiny shell bracelet. I’m overwhelmed.

Vinaka.

Mother’s Birthday

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I wrote this at the end of 2012 for one of my dearest friends. Well, honestly, I wrote it for myself. My mother died 42 years ago. I was in India. Today, St. Patricks Day, is her birthday. While I did not know her well, this is what I would have wished for her.

Her mother hovers near death, so light now she floats six inches above the bed while nestled small and frail so deeply in the sheets.

I am blessed, asked to sit in this room, asked to bring strong arms from which grief can be released. Blessed, trying to anticipate small needs, driving small errands, a presence to offer balance, solid with no weight.

Blessed, in this watching, to see here great beauty.

Two weeks since she fell and shattered bones in hip and neck, a week since she lost consciousness. Four adult children attend with children of their own, a great grandchild due in a month visits via the womb.

“Perhaps mom hangs on to meet her great granddaughter,” someone says.

“I think it would be better if mom meets her before she is born,” says daughter-soon-to-be-grandmother with a smile but not joking, the quickness of her response and the love in this room offers another chance to laugh.

With laughter and warmth they share stories of childhoods where Gaga played her important role, memories brought out and burnished like holiday silver.

So many meals for so many as her own children searched for channels into adulthood, moved back home sometimes with their own kids until fully fledged and swimming on their own. There are many stories.

Running through it all is the common theme: “She made each of us feel like her favorite.”

A grandson reads a book, his grandmother had read it to him, he cannot continue for tears that flow from love and loss. His father sits at mother’s bedside, head resting on one arm, his eyes to the floor while she looks to other vistas.

He caresses his mother’s brow for a long, long time. There is is no measurement for this waiting. He cries, one of his sisters puts her hand on the back of his neck.

The mourning is as natural and accepted the laughter, as the need to go out and get fresh air, to go home for a shower. We attend in shifts. Tears, laughter, errands, waiting, nurses come in every two hours with an opiate to ease her pain.

Until the end each dose eased her breathing for a while, but then seemed to have little effect at all.

A grandson in the Air Force flew home from Arizona, he and his brother stand at her bedside, eyes bright to her. They just stand, holding her hand, no tears, no drama, peace emanates from them. In another world they wore robes and traveled by horse or mule, they are timeless.

Rebel son of rebel dad, long hair creeping from under cap, but pride earned and voice direct to her even as she cannot hear, the love she poured into him pours back to her, from pitcher to cup to pitcher.

The words “I love you” bring from her a smile. They are the words spoken in this room most often.

An Army Sergeant brings his family home from Texas to be here for the services, and uses his leave to be part of this, to help as he can. Soldiers, aviators abound in this family, tough men who do not flinch from their own weeping.

They attend, ageless youth. Baby blankets she made for them, satin edging worn away by their tiny fingers, return to the foot of her bed, warming her now and them now again.

“What will I do, her love was so important to me,” asks a granddaughter, a professional pilot, overwhelmed in this moment by her helplessness.

“I just don’t want to let go of her hand,” responds her mother, who for years absorbed the pain of her mother’s uncertain shuffle to flowers in the garden, worn by years of a long transition.

Daughters together here and now, their tears flow to her in one stream through it all.

Then, a smile, another story, one stands to go to her bed, to hold her cool hands, to feel her feet to be sure they are warm enough as circulation slows.

Over the last days and nights her breath slows, becomes uneven, long pauses cause everyone to stop, to listen, then she gasps as the body’s need of oxygen overwhelms her soul’s desire to flee, the breathing is ragged in her throat, softened only by sponged drops of water.

“There is a door,” she said when she still had a few words left to share, “but I don’t know how to go through it.”

“Daddy waits and will show you the way, your papa waits and will guide you,” her children reply to her stillness. “All those who have passed through will be there.”

Finally, early in the morning her breathing slows even more and grows even more shallow, then just stops. This struggle is over, surrounded by loved ones through it all, not one moment of this departure did she spend alone in this room.

Such a blessing to be here.

Making memories

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The new book is about half done. The first ten chapters and the last three are written, so I know how it starts and I know where it goes. Weird, but now all I have to do is draw the map between them.

To wrap it up, I pulled a phrase I’d uttered many miles ago to a someone I’d just met. “I’m not ready to let you go.” Later, she and I used that moment often as a reference point for how it all began.

Yesterday, I shared with her I’d used the seminal sentence, even though she and I have been through so much since then.

“I notice you put a lot of your own life into your writing,” she said.

“I hoped to make you smile,” I replied.

“I am smiling,” she said. I could tell from her tone it was true.

“I wanted to give the reader that same sense of hope, vulnerability. In the book it’s different in degree than when I first said it, but the same in what it meant.”

“Hmm,” she said, or something similar.

A couple of months ago, on our last trip over the mountain, she was engrossed looking at photos she’d taken on her phone of places we’d traveled. “It’s all about making memories,” she said.

I wanted to say, look at the snow in the trees, wet leaves on black pavement, take my hand in yours, make this a memory! Be with me! But I just drove, knowing that grasping harder would squeeze the remaining life out of what we had, not knowing how to keep her from slipping away.

So I put words I’ve heard and words I’ve said and wanted to say into the mouths of characters in a novel half finished. It’s a complete fiction woven of moments some of which are real, by a writer trying to make sense of what is and what’s not, using memories to create something that never happened.

It’s Never Enough

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After a season of racing, Ceegar and I finished almost the same number of laps, but I finished two more than he did. After my engine issues in Seattle, after his dropped mirror in Spokane and flat tires and the wreck in Portland, it came down to two laps.

I’m headed north this weekend to get some sort of award for that. It doesn’t mean I’m the best driver, because I’m not, or my car is the fastest, because it’s not. It means I finished with two more laps over four or five races, and it’s a chance to get together with friends.

The organization we race with is letting cars 15 years newer join the fun. I’m all for it if it brings more people out to play, because our sport is dying. But part of me doesn’t think it will make much difference. Kids don’t grow up to be gearheads anymore.

Strange, because we live in a time when the most amazing cars ever sold are coming right from the factory, cars with 600+ horsepower that handle better than the most sophisticated race car of 40 years ago. Better than much of what we run on the track on race weekends.

Putting that kind of firepower in the hands of the untrained is stupidly irresponsible. Eventually enough bad things will happen that nobody will be able to buy these machines.

Instead, Google electric cars will drive us safely to buy crap from China we don’t need sold at whichever shopping mall we programmed in and while we play with our email until we get there. Won’t even have to look outside.

It’s probably time for me to think about slowing down, but I saw a T-shirt years ago that said, “The faster you drive, the slower you age.” Maybe that’s something from Einstein, I don’t know. But for those of us out there every season, it seems to be true. Or maybe we’re just a bunch of aging adolescents who believe it’s true by avoiding the mirror.

At some point, reality is going to catch up with us. I worry about that a little bit. It’s not just kids today who have access to power and speed that might exceed their ability.

Cowboy’s building a new car, Canuck will probably have his finished. Beater will be ready to go in his new Frankenvette. Ceegar will get it done with his Mustang, he always does, and I’m not exactly sitting out here in MiddleofNowhere Oregon waiting for the sun to set.

We may be building cars that are faster than we are. I wonder if something bad is going to happen one of these days because of that. We’re not fly fishing out there. If we coax these thundering, howling beasts up from 160 mph to 167 mph, what might happen? Those are speeds that professional drivers would have loved to turn not that long ago.

Do we have the chops for that? The judgment? What happens if we build bigger engines but don’t have bigger brakes? If parts fail that we amateurs don’t want to spend money on?

I suppose that’s the nature of the game, and we’re still playing. Bigger motors, wider tires, faster cars. Ready or not, here we come. It’s not about awards. We’re still out there because that’s what we do, the cars are faster because that’s what it takes, we keep looking for more because that’s who we are.

It’s never enough.

Turtles

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The road out of Nicoya turned into a one way and I was glad Susan was asleep. The streets were narrow, busy and things were happening quickly. Street signs to Samara or Nosara had disappeared, and I was going this direction by gut instinct.

When the truck coming fast the other way filled the entire street and almost the windshield, and I had to dive into the driveway of a bus station to avoid a head-on, I was sure the swerve would wake Susan up. Thankfully, she still slept.

My daughter K.C is like that. Fifteen minutes out of the driveway, K.C.’s head tips and she’s sound asleep. Susan thought she slept for about 20 minutes. Actually, she was out for most of the five hour drive south to Samara. That’s a good thing. She missed driving that would have unsettled a passenger.

She woke when I had to backtrack and take the highway, when the creek I was going to cross had logs and branches piled in the channel, left over from heavy rains. We stopped in Santa Cruz, where we were the only Norte Americanos in sight on the busy streets.

Samara was not the original destination, but it was getting late, signs to Nosara were non-existent, and I didn’t want to be driving at night up small dirt roads in the jungle trying to find a hotel.

I knew of a place in Samara. Not a great place, but a place, and on the beach, and a short walk to food.

“I really like this,” said Susan of the place, despite the lack of soap, shampoo, and with towels that had been washed so many times they had little more than the memory of being terrycloth. I think the towels were a new addition since my visit last March. The place was rough, the lime green and purple walls cracked, shelving put up in places not easy to reach or too easy to crack one’s head.

But Susan said “Thank you for finding these places,”  as we lolled on the beach before packing up the next morning.

We moved on to the Little Green Gecko hotel (Piqueno Gecko Verde), made up up a dozen or so cabinas in the rain forest just to the north of town. Not on the beach, but placed gently in the forest where the owners planted native species and took pride in being an eco-friendly. The shower was outside in a rock enclosure.

Susan had a whole baked fish for dinner, the head with teeth staring her down. It was delicious. I had chicken in Gorgonzola sauce. That too. We saved salads for lunch the next day.

I finally drifted off to sleep at 3 or so. Three hours later, fully rested, Susan said “I hear monkeys!” I groaned “I don’t think so,” or something and rolled over. She was out the door in a flash, in a strangely wonderful whatever’s handy tomboy girly girl amalgam of high heel flip flops, beach coverup and outer shirt, this time not mine.

She texted to let me know she was okay a couple of hours later, and that there were monkeys “everywhere.” I headed down to a wild and rocky beach. Then she texted and asked for the name of our hotel. Given that her sense of direction is, well, somewhat random, I was a little concerned. I texted back Blue Iguana, or something where we were maybe going to stay a few days earlier. It was Gecko Verde. Ooops.

While I was down meditating on whether poetry would be different if the moon really were made of green cheese, Susan texted that she’d made it back to the room. What she did not text was that she had befriended another coatimundi, a large raccoon-like animal with inch-long razor sharp toenails and a long, prehensile nose.

Another one. The first was several days before at Sugar Beach. “Peanut” got his name from the fact that he took an entire bag of peanuts from Susan when she wasn’t doling them out fast enough.

”Please don’t let him climb into your lap” I said, thinking that rare Central American diseases would surely follow a long rake of those claws deep into her leg.

“Appleseed” was much more polite, and loved apples, but not the peels. She also loved peanuts, and I guess I’m thankful she tipped over the bowl before Susan decided to feed peanuts by hand to her one by one.

“Where are the monkeys?” I asked, thinking Susan must surely have found one to take home in her carryon bag.

“He’s coming over tomorrow morning. May he borrow your passport?”

Susan was out of the shower and putting the salads together a half hour before we headed down to watch baby turtles just hatched from eggs head out to a new life at sea.

In the Daihatsu Bego, we followed the white Nissan pickup of our guide through the river. When I saw how high the water came up on the Nissan’s running board, I hoped the little car with it’s smaller wheels wouldn’t decide to float downstream,  but we made it with enough momentum.

At the beach, tiny and incredibly cute Ridley turtles made their way directly to the ocean. Some had to make the trip three or four times, as the waves washed them back up the beach, flipped them over and left them upside down in the sand. Over they’d go again, and head to the waves.

I feel a little like that sometimes. But right now I feel like I have been caught by the wave and am moving properly out to sea.

“It just keeps unfolding,” Susan said, and it’s true. So much has happened that seems to be directed but without our intervention.

Except that tomorrow, at noon, we begin a two day journey home, back to Oregon. Across Costa Rica in one day to the airport, and fly out the next. I know this trip will fade as our context changes, as bills and jobs and tasks postponed now demand attention, reality defined by where we are and what we have to do.

Later that night, Papaya, a real raccoon, would stop by for peanuts and… papaya. Those were his favorites. Susan objected to feeding him junk food, and so he stood on his hind legs when given fresh fruit and when he wasn’t picking peanuts up in his hands like a two year old.

The hammock where I have taken up residence holds me in a crescent embrace. It rocks with the slightest push off the deck below. How to hang on to this, how to make this last?