The end of October, almost November, almost December. Winter is just around the corner. From what I understand Boreal is already open for business. Years ago I spent a winter in Tahoe, picking up odd jobs and snowboarding as often as humanly possible. It was the tail end of summer, a few months after I'd finished with college and grown disenchanted, for the first time, with San Diego. I moved to the mountains and scrounged work as a bus-boy in a Tahoe City restaurant. During the fall months, before the snow and ice started to accumulate, the drive from my North Shore condo into Tahoe City was no problem; it was pleasant really. After the snow fell and ice formed, the drive became treacherous – even with a four wheel drive SUV. The bad weather meant that the resorts were finally open though, and so then I was working in the rental shop, tightening bindings and grumbling about the manager – he couldn't seem to figure out how to get us out on the mountain very much, even if we were dead slow. I never could figure him out – but I suppose the 45 year old coke addict, whose seasonal job is running the rental shop at a small-time Tahoe ski resort, was probably not graced with the innate ability to generate success. Still, it was a frustrating experience, and one that ultimately ended in confrontation, followed by termination: my own. That was alright though – after the rental shop I floated into a job as a short-order cook in a restaurant that was not as fancy as the owner wanted it to be. We prepared too much of our fare in the microwave oven; but it paid, until it didn't; and then I drifted out of the mountains and down into the Bay Area. By then it was late March.
When I worked at the resort I had a season pass, but that was taken away from me when I was fired. That was no biggie, I had an extra pass because I thought I'd lost the first one. That second pass was taken away after a girlfriend of mine tried to use it. After that I hiked up Mount Rose for my boarding pleasure and it was the best. The highlight of the winter was snowboarding under the otherworldly light of a full moon on fresh powder. It must feel something like that to be on another planet. I recommend it to everyone.
It was during those first few months in Tahoe that I seriously concentrated on writing for the first time. I spent several hours every day with a notebook and a fountain pen, and I wrote non-stop. None of it was worth a damn – I was working through a process advocated by Natalie Goldberg in a book called “Writing Down the Bones.” Goldberg calls it automatic writing, and the idea is to write so fast and steadily that your conscious brain can't keep up with your pen. It generated a lot of nonsense, but it also helped me to hack out a style of writing, and to get comfortable with it. It's a process I still work on (obviously) - but those initial three months in Tahoe were a formative experience for me.
Happy Halloween
Halloween is the holiday my wife and I really celebrate. We actually decorated the house this year, with cob webs and these bizarre skeleton garlands Trish found at the $.99 Store. They are really creepy – each garland is a series of a half dozen very realistic, six inch tall skeletons, hanging from their necks on a piece of twine that stretches from one side of a window to the other. We also have a metallic life-sized card-board skeleton, spiders, a foot tall skeleton, and a series of pumpkins that volunteered in the back yard this summer.
This time of year is my favorite. It is a tenuous, delirious time; the days grow shorter, things grow weak. I've been told that this is the time of year when the worlds of the living and the dead are in their closest proximity. It is harvest time for weed, almonds, and a host of other crop. If you listen and look carefully, you can hear and see the spirits of the dead quivering in the air. Fogs will start to accumulate in the nooks and crannies of the valley floor and the light will become rich and saturated.
Right now I am looking forward to the fall and winter months.
madbob@madbob.com
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