El Corazon del Mundo Maya

Some people exchange gifts. Some have a fancy night out on the town. Some go through elaborate mating rituals.

Not us Roving Dogs.

Big Dog is disgusted with "made up" holidays, hyped up by marketing, so even when I assure him St. Valentine's Day is no more "made up" than Easter, he always ignores it. And while most Japanese embrace other people's Holy Days, I remain largely uninvolved with Judeo-Christian-Islamic celebrations.

The IDEA of a Universal Love Day appeals to me greatly, though, and I have sort of co-opted the 14th of February as my holiday. Big Dog still ignores it, but am I detecting a celebratory pattern of our own? Seems we find ourselves in a new and different place every February 14th. Tokyo - Boracay - Waikiki - Puerto Escondido - Barra de Navidad - Zihuatanejo - Los Angeles - Campeche... and now, Antigua, Guatemala. Hearts on Holiday in El Corazon del Mundo Maya.

We Dogs are at our best On The Road. I've written about this before, but when I am traveling, I can completely let go. Nothing has to be a certain way. Nothing upsets me much -- snags, misunderstandings, even more sinister things just become part of the fun of being on the move. It's much the same for Big Dog. When he has to be in charge (i.e., in control) he can be a pain in the ass. Especially when he begins feeling that control slipping away one way or another.

On the road, we both just laugh. So what better way to spend our Heart Holiday: on the road and in some new place every year.

Love Day 2013 found us in the heart of the Mayan World, as so many travel posters reminded us.

We left LAX on Tuesday, after a cold, rainy weekend and a chilly but clear Monday. Loads of friends and former colleagues from Tokyo were in town for the Grammys during its coldest.

"At least you got a bit of our famous sunshine on your last day," I said to a small group of close friends, mostly former and current radio personalities. Some had relocated to LA while others were here from Tokyo and London.

The cold front must have been moving south because when we arrived in Guatemala, it was grayer and chillier than I had expected.

For Big Dog, it was a long-awaited return. Close to 40 years had gone by since his first visit. For me, it was a first and initially, it was a bit of a let down. Big Dog had really built it up and I'm not sure what I had expected, but the outskirts of Guatemala City just seemed like a more polluted, conjested, chaotic version of the outskirts of Guadalajara (or any other giant Mexican city.)

Antigua looked a lot like a smaller version of San Cristobal de Las Casas in many ways, except for the myriad of hostels, posadas, hospetajes, B&Bs, boutique hotels and luxury accoms. Like San Cristobal, there were no high rises and most of the architecture felt authentic.

"Jesus, it's become Katmandu!" sighed Big Dog. "The Gringo Trail is well paved now."

Every other place was either lodging, a travel agency or a Spanish school. In between were restaurants catering to visitors who HAD to have a non-Guatemalan meal. You would think that a touristy place like this would have more restaurants featuring Guatemalan cuisine, but I'm starting to think Guatemalan cuisine is like Swiss cuisine -- they both nervously glance towards their neighbors.

"They didn't used to allow cars in here," Big Dog complained again.

"Wish they hadn't. The exhaust fumes are horrid on these narrow streets."

Another van belching black exhaust that you can TASTE drove by, punctuating my statement.

With the cloud cover, haze and (most likely) smog, I had not been able to see that famous sight of the quaint streets of Antigua with the volcano is the background.

Yet, I was liking Guatemala and its people more and more.

I've been wondering about this and have come to the conclusion that it's LOVE. There is love in the air. Not so much a ROMANTIC kind of love, but a sort of UNIVERSAL love.

These people have seen the worst sort of violence, human rights violations, all sorts of atrocities -- it's hard to believe that we're only a little over a decade removed from all of this -- and yet they are the sweetest, kindest people. If smiles were currency, Guatemala might be the wealthiest country in the world.

While other couples have champagne and roses and candlelight tonight, it seemed perfect for us to be sharing pupusas and a Gallo beer in a hold-in-the-wall eatery festooned with glittery red paper and plastic hearts and surrounded by smiley people. Guatemala is the ♥ of El Mundo Maya if not the ♥ of the whole darn Mundo.

 Pretty flowers in our hostel garden.

 Wedding photo shoot in Antigua.

 Like so many Latin American countries, Number One Priority is Family.

 Sexy fountain in the middle of town.

Street food is always good.

Dulce

She was very attractive. Long and slender, with big eyes ringed in kohl like some Egyptian beauty but not at all aloof. No, she was frisky and playful. And heartbreakingly affectionate. She knew how to win over hearts.

"Shall I call you Cleo?" I laughed as she ran after some sand crabs.

"Or do you like Nefertiti better?"

The Tattooed One wasn't answering. Just splashing in the waves, running up ahead to chase a booby or two, digging in the sand to expose a hidden crab.

"I know you're thirsty," I kept rattling. "But we'll get to that sweet, sweet water soon. Aguadulce...aguadulce...."

She walked with us all the way up the beach to the north end where there a spring poured fresh water into the bay and we all refreshed ourselves in the cool water. By then, I was calling the caramel-colored girl Dulce, for her personality was as sweet.

"Are you coming with us, Dulce?"

We turned around to walk the 4km back home and Dulce didn't hesitate for a moment. Sometimes ahead of us, sometimes behind, but never too far away. When Big Dog stopped to take a photo, Dulce would look up, walk over to me and lean against my leg. Even Big Dog was impressed.

"Not only is she clean and good-looking, she's smart and so well-mannered! Wish our ranch dogs were more like her!" and we talked about how we would NOT adopt her. We had to. We had to give each other reasons why that was a Bad Idea.

Back at the trailer, I got a tub of water for her. When she whimpered, Big Dog let her into the trailer! (That was a surprised even to me!) But Dulce didn't start pouncing on the sofas, or chewing on stuff. It was as if she already knew what kind of behavior would allow her to stay with us and what wouldn't. She found herself a cool spot on the tiled floor and lay down until it was time for us to go and try to find some food. ("Which taco stand shall we go to tonight?")

Dulce came with us to the taco stand, got a few tidbits, then came back home with us for more chow.

"Do you remember Teo? That gay boy who followed D.?"

"Yeah. I can't believe D took him to our island," said Big Dog. "I don't think D knew Teo was gay. He probably thought, oh, good, a houseboy."

Teo was a good kid. Girly and giggly but very sweet, he looked after D like a girlfriend even though D was Very Not Gay. Funny how we both remembered Teo after more than 30 years.

"Maybe Dulce's like that. Maybe she finds a new 'friend' each season to love in return for food and shelter," I wondered.

Dulce slept on our porch last night as I dreamt of taking her home with me. And when I woke, I was practicing how to say "where does one buy dogfood in this town" in Spanish.

But by then, Dulce was gone. Gone, with a tiny little piece of my heart.

You Heartbreaker!

Love Triangle

Just when I thought things were really peaceful on the ranch again...

Everyone and everything seemed to be settling in nicely after the big ranch resident turnover this summer. K and P were in their groove, K's furry pal Jackson was transitioning smoothly from a sweet little terrier into a coyote-chasing, burr-covered, rough and tumble beast and even P's adoptee Enzo seemed to be getting over his trouble-making puppy days. This black lab was known as Devil Dog for a while, crashing wedding parties held at the event space at a neighboring ranch, eating the lunches of all the nursery workers next door. (They had to start hanging them on trees and even then, the first time, they didn't hang them high enough. "I'm surprised they didn't hang Enzo!" I thought.) Finally, P decided Enzo couldn't be left alone unsupervised and closed off the orchard next to their house.

The H Brothers at the back of the ranch were having fun shooting guns (oh, no!), building tree platforms, kennels... And their Maddie, , a gentle blue-nosed pitbull, was often left in the front orchard with Enzo. It made me smile to see the two of them lying side by side on Enzo's bed.

Kody and Bingo, K's two horses, were keeping the pastures nice and tidy, too!

The average age of the ranch residents had been lowered drastically, bringing with it a youthful energy. All was good.

Then, a week or so ago, Maggie shows up.

"Kody and Maggie were together all the time at Kody's last boarding place," explained K.

"Yeah, they're real attached to each other," added her friend M, Maggie's "person."

"I'm afraid that if I put Bingo in the same pasture, Kody will try to kill him!"

Kody and Maggie (right) together again.

Maggie and Kody went up to the front pasture, while Bingo was left in the back. He was NOT a happy camper. Why do horses get such separation anxiety? And why are they so vocal about it?

Bingo places himself at the far end of the pasture to be closer to the others.

Last week, some tree trimmers were here, cutting limbs near power lines and they needed to get into the front pasture so Maggie and Kody moved to the back with Bingo for a while. And what do you know, before long, Bingo has taken Kody's place right next to Maggie.

Maggie nuzzling up to Bingo.

That's Kody, by himself on the right.

"You're a wuss, Kody," I whispered to him.

Bingo, on the other hand, is now determined to keep Maggie for himself.

After the tree trimmers were done, Kody and Maggie moved back to the front. Things seemed to be back to normal and Kody had Maggie all to himself again. But it was not to be that way for long.

"Hey, what's Bingo doing up here?"

Coming back from town yesterday, we see Bingo up near the front of the property. He's outside the horse fence, just munching some grass growing along the sides of the dirt road.

"Maybe K's out here, doing something and we just don't see her," suggested Big Dog.

When we see Enzo outside the orchard, we decide that that is what's happening.

Later, I'm watering our newly transplanted irises and looking out...oh, no! Now Bingo's all the way up to the public road! What if he gets spooked and runs off? Or worse, hit by a vehicle? I rush out there, pockets bulging with apples.

Trying to lure Bingo down to the gate didn't work at all.

"Nope. I ain't moving away from the girl!"

I work on Maggie and she eventually follows me down to the gate, with both Kody (on the inside of the fence) and Bingo (on the outside) close behind her. Bingo does not hesitate when I open the gate, but Kody is less than thrilled and makes it vocally and physically clear. Oh well. At least they are all safe in the pasture. I hope.

When I return to the back, I see that Bingo has just busted through the electric fence. What's a little shock when there's love in the air?

The H Brothers have been wanting a second dog for a while and I just gave H the Younger the green light. But now I am having second thoughts. Enzo and Maddie were getting along so well. Do we really need ANOTHER love triangle?

Friends Feed My Soul

Here in Tokyo the skies are dark. Too much concrete and steel weigh down my spirit. Everything seems outrageously expensive. So why am I so happy?

I am surrounded by love. Love from my family, love from my friends, even love from my former radio show listeners (the fans who I have gotten to know well.) It is a humbling experience.

After decades on air, I was sick of it all. I didn't need the stress, the endless hours of work, the exposure, the fan mail... Ugh. Get me out of here. 

What an ingrate I was.

Most of the year I live in silence and isolation. I tell Big Dog, that's why I talk so loudly in my sleep. I have not found a new "tribe" to replace the one I had in Tokyo, but it was okay. I had all the great energy from nature to commune with. But now in Tokyo, reconnecting with all these people, I realize how much they mean to me, how so fortunate I am.

My wacky family and our amazing dinner conversations that can go from heated political debates to potty humor. MM who has inspired me to lighten my life in preparation for The Big Change that she/we believe is coming. Q with all her spiritual wisdom. MS who never ceases to push my creativity buttons. My oldest friend G, always making me laugh. Remember how you made me laugh even on the day of my father's wake?

I can't wait to meet up with the others.

I used to think the best part of homecoming was the fantastic food here. Now I know it's really my friends and family who so completely feed my soul.

I Have A Secret

Well, I have many secrets. but the one I'm going to share with you is.....

Japan will never be a nuclear nation again. The aftertaste of a disaster is too disgusting. They have lost their ambivalence towards the nuclear age. They have lost the will to be a nuclear nation.

(whoopee.)

I'm not shouting it. I am whispering it, under my breath. I, like millions of Japanese, can't help but feel our good future will be jinxed by... well, hubris. Wasn't over-confidence what gave us Fukushima to begin with? We are cautious. We don't rejoice prematurely. but deep inside we have this sweet (and secret) hopefulness.

Fifity three reactors down. One more to go.

Gardening Life, Planting Hope

Two months.
That's how long it's been since the Triple Disasters in Japan.

Two months of chaos, pain, despair, anger. Two months of love, generosity, pride, hope.
Two months of an emotional roller coaster ride.

For me, it's been a month in Hawaii and a month at the ranch. My month at the ranch must have been especially healing because I am a little calmer, a little more hopeful. You can't help but be affected by the miracle of nature. A frantic month of planting, planting, planting and getting my gardens ready for the summer has given me an inner peace I could not have hoped for anywhere else. Little seeds a fraction of a millimeter have germinated into nice, healthy plants. Even my asparagus seeds that weren't doing anything for weeks have all germinated, sending the tiniest of stalks up above the soil. Just when I thought my eggplant seeds were duds, here they come! The tea plants haven't germinated yet but they could take a couple of months so I'm still waiting, patiently. Gardening is not for the impatient.

When humans, or the things they create, destroy, there is only destruction. But while nature destroys, she also rebuilds.

Lettuces sparkling in the afternoon sun...

Chamomile growing on all our driveways!

Not from The Ranch but the butterfly sanctuary in Angangueo, Mexico. I am praying that the narco violence does not destroy their habitat.

Still Speechless

Why I can't blog for a while

I am sorry.

I was working on my post about slack key guitar (I love it!) and Hawaiian music and Makana, a slack key whiz and a beautiful soul who I got to know more on this trip to the Island... then I get an email from my best friend in Tokyo about her mom passing away. Then the next day, another email from a client/friend whose father passed away... and then I flew to LA where I couldn't get online anywhere and just when I got the problem solved, receive another email from my friend's niece telling me he may have weeks, MAYBE DAYS before his body shuts down from the effects of cancer.

He was only supposed to be suffering from back pain! or neck pain! or whatever it was! Now, he's been rescued by his nieces (people with children can not imagine how much we childless adults love our nieces and nephews) and is in a care facility in Berkeley.

I've never been into organized anything in general and organized religion in particular, but a large part of faith is also cultural and so beyond my belief in a "life force" (which I believe is both Divine and divine) I am probably a very good Buddhist who ultimately believes that life is an illusion and all things must pass. We are supposed to experience death and parting stoically, but right now, I just want to hit somebody. I want to break windows. Maybe smash my laptop. Didn't they used to kill messengers of bad news?

I just need some space.

And time.

Happy!!! New Year

Just spent a week of tree pruning at The Ranch.

"You know, it's a strange thing about this place," I commented to Big Dog. "When I'm here, I am totally in its grip. There's some strange seductive power here -- like a siren song you can't resist."
"I know what you mean!" he agreed.

The weather was warm, clear and fabulous and I got to climb a lot of trees. (Plus JD, our friend who lives on the property was there to teach me some knife-throwing basics!) Some trees are more fun to climb than others, but I don't think there is any tree that's NOT fun to climb, so the little bits of leaf and Spanish moss and maybe a bug or two in my hair is all worth it.

"Why do people stop doing what they enjoyed as children?" I emailed friends. "Jumping on trampolines, making sand castles, climbing trees... I'm so happy to be doing all of these things again."

Well, today, I know why people stop doing what they did as kids.
My upper body is completely sore.

But here's what I think: I'm just not doing it enough!

Secret

Big Dog and I are not good gift givers. We're terribly shoppers, so trying to get a gift really stresses us out. Plus, being a non-consumer, I can imagine what stuff other people would like to receive. I enjoy handcrafted gifts -- a poem, a drawing, cookies -- and feel guilty making a happy face and raving about some gadget or clothes others may give me. I know a lot of thought went into it and I am grateful for their kindness, but the truth is, I would be way happier if they had kept their money and made their own lives more pleasant because there is really nothing material I need.

(Okay. My digital camera died this spring and I would love a new one, but I've started sketching interesting scenes now and I keep thinking that I never would have done this if I still had that camera, so...)

Big Dog and I rarely give each other gifts. We don't do special things on special days, either. We do special things when it's convenient.

This year, though, I've decided on a little experiment. I am going to be Big Dog's Number One Fan for the rest of the year. From the 15th of December, until the end of the year, he will have his Fan Club of One. I'm going to do everything he wants to do, wholeheartedly. I'm not going to make my druthers known. I will laugh at his jokes as if he were the Maestro of Humor and I hadn't heard them a million times already. I will be thrilled to be with him.

Big Dog won't know about this. It's a secret, so don't tell him. I'm not even sure I'll tell him after the fact. (Will he even notice??)

This experiment/present began yesterday. I never thought of myself as being especially willful or selfish and I always think of myself as being extremely undemanding, so why is this experiment turning out to be so much harder than imagined?

Smile!

There's a girl.....no, young woman, who lives on the other side of the canal. We stumbled upon her last week when we were wandering through the brush. I think she was washing clothes. Or maybe vegetables. I don't remember. I scarcely remember the details of her shack -- it seemed like all the others. Corrugated tin, slabs of wood, rags hanging on a line. She was squatting between the footpath and the shack, engrossed in whatever she was doing until we walked by.

She looked up, so I smiled. I've gotten into the habit. They usually give me a little smile back and maybe an "hola" or a "buenos dias" or whatever, but not this girl-woman. What I got was the most amazing, radiant, beam-me-up-scotty, transfix you, siren song, magic potion kind of smile back. If smiles were currency (and who hasn't talked about someone's Million Dollar Smile?) she would be a veritable Fort Knox.

I went back through that footpath the other day and there she was, again. (Of course she was there! It's her house, isn't it?) She was in an "outbuilding" if I can call it that: a structure with one wall and a tin roof. And there it was again! That...smile.

So you're thinking, big deal. Everyone smiles. Some smile big time.

But this was different. Outside of our family, I have only seen that smile once or twice before. That no-holds-barred smile. A smile with full abandon. And I'm sure it's not even proportionate to the emotion behind it, because I DO believe we share similar emotions. It's just that some people have the ability to really, really, really let go when they smile. And there are the rare few who can do this casually, to people they don't even know, only provoked by another smile.

I want to tell her how beautiful her smile is. How it really does light up the world. How it makes me want to get to know her. How it makes me want to walk by her house every day. How I think of it when other things threaten to bring me down. Damn my shyness! Damn my inability to speak the language! Damn me for even thinking of language!

Melancholy

Some days are too sad for words.

Bye-bye Bamba

La Bamba left us.
She was Big Dog's old 1975 Volvo that he kept in the garage here in Arcata for the last 15 years. It was a bomb of a car, but ran well and when he had it in LA, was the perfect Urban Camouflage Vehicle. It was originally a maroon color, but I've only known it to be a tri-colored monstrosity, with exploded seats and an actual working eight track. Friends laughed at first. Then, when their nice Mercedes and Beemers kept getting stolen right from their driveways, they began to make offers on La Bamba.

When people panhandled Big Dog, he'd tell them, "Yeah, I've got a quarter. And it's going into a piggybank when I get home. See that car over there? When I've saved enough money, I'm going to get a paint job." Sometimes, the panhandlers would actually give him some change "for the cause." That's how crazy people are about their cars in LA!

We thought she'd eventually come to The Ranch. It would have been the perfect place for her to spend the twilight of her days. But this year, Big Dog finally got sick of her taking up so much space -- excruciatingly valuable space -- in the garage and even after he was able to start her up by dropping in a new battery, he put her up for adoption (i.e., he tried to give her away to a Charitable Cause.) After too many hours of negotiating with towing companies and red tape, he gave up and called a local tow operation.

A giant ramped truck arrived (their motto, "We don't want an arm and a leg; just your tows" painted on the cab in beautiful script) and in no time at all, La Bamba was pushed onto the truck. Big Dog only had the Volvo hood ornament and an old, sun-bleached Sensoji amulet that had been hanging inside. The amulet's already inside our Tacoma. Maybe I'll weld the Volvo ornament onto my bike.

People have relationships with their cars the way they don't with, say, their washing machine. I've never owned a car, so I can only imagine, but it was still sad to see her rolling away from us. Big Dog didn't appear to be too torn up about it, though. There is certainly something new and different in the air. Not only did BD off La Bamba, he's been in the process of trying to sell the first piece of property he bought, when he was still in university.

I might have written about it before, but Big Dog collects real estate the way others collect cars. He's not into real estate the way many people are -- he doesn't buy anything to "flip" and these are not really investments. It's like the guy who loves fine art and pays a bundle for a Picasso and justifies it by telling people about its investment value even though he has no intention of ever selling it. So this new move is a Big Deal. What is going on here?

"I'm finally moving on," he says, but he's usually way more tied to the past than I am. So why now?

When you start letting go, interesting things can happen. We might be coming upon some exciting times...