It appears to me that our news coverage in the 21st Century is close to 20% good news, 80% bad news, and virtually 0% normal news. By normal news I simply mean what you or your neighbor next door did yesterday. The interesting thing is that in our own personal lives the news is frequently 80% good, 20% bad and virtually 0% news. There in is the rub and the dichotomy.

This is written in remembrance of Charles Kuralt (1934-1997). For those too young to remember he spent the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s On the Road and provided us with the last 1% of normal news we ever got. I miss him.

February 20, 2010 / Normal / OC pg 19, © 2010 / CIP 795, Mar 21, 2010 / SHE, MXD

Today, through the magic of coordination, at 5:06 AM, Paris time, two candles will be lit. One of them will be lit close to where her ashes comingle with the earth – le Revard. It will be lit by the best friend a woman ever had, in honor of the best friend that woman ever knew. She spread those ashes just a few months ago.

The second candle will be lit by me at exactly 5:06 AM, Paris time - we are 9 hours earlier here in the Sierra Nevada. It will be lit in the place from which I journeyed forth in 1976 specifically to meet her. It is also where our two lives originally comingled in earnest in 1998. Actually it will be not 300 yards from our first home – the address is still the same.

Elsewhere, in Paris, les ptits loups will hold hands. At minimum they will hold hands in thought, and possibly they will hold hands in fact. They are now united with an unbreakable bond – together they spread her ashes into the waters of the world in les Antilles almost two years ago.

Fifty six years and half a dozen lives – Paris, le Revard, les Antilles et nous Sierra Nevada unifié. Two years ago I uttered the words: “She is at peace; and so am I. She earned her rest with a magnificent fight and an inspirational life. Her children will now carry on. At 5:06 AM on the 23rd of February a light went out on earth, and in my heart. Perhaps a star blinked on in the heavens. Its name was Minou.” Today two candles are lit. They combine the mountains, the oceans, two continents and us. Perhaps a light will go back on in my heart.

February 22, 2010 / 5:06 AM, Paris Time / OC pg 21, © 2010 / CIP 797, Feb 22, 2010 / SHE

It is around 5:00 or 5:30 Friday evening – the last cars are pulling out of the parking lot. Everyone has gone home. If it were summer, in about an hour or so, I might see a deer or two wander across the parking lot. The odds are I won’t see another human soul until about 7:00 AM Monday morning. Oh, to be sure, a few cars will drive by Saturday on the little adjacent aptly named Oakpark Way. They seldom venture into our parking lot and the street dead ends just a couple of hundred yards beyond here. On Sunday there is even less traffic. It is just me, the deer, two or three squirrels, a very occasional raccoon, and a lot of birds.

There are eight to ten trees within a few yards of my window – an oak, maybe three or four pines, a couple of others but best of all a tree, or very large shrub, whose name I could not tell you. This latter one reaches to within two or three feet of my second floor window and above. Literally, at its closest, it is about six feet from my eyeballs as I type this. From here I can reach out and touch my window and if I were the window I could reach out and touch the tree. The seemingly millions of small leaves are cinquefoil, green, and variegated – similar to Manzanita leaves but a little smaller and the wood is definitely much softer than Manzanita. Anyway its myriad intricate branches provide perfect cover for my birds.

You might have noticed in one short paragraph they have became my birds. They are of course free but most mornings I do go out and throw a couple of handfuls of seed around the base of the trees. There is on a regular basis a steller’s jay, two or three woodpeckers, a family of four or five robins and a group of around thirty to forty small birds. The latter group probably consists of sparrows, finches or thrushes but I can’t remember how you tell one from another. There are also a couple of coveys of quail that visit on a semi regular basis. I have heard an owl on occasion and once a hawk flew by. And then of course in season there are my humming birds. There are at least two but I think probably three of them. They could be Costa’s, Calliope, or Anna’s but I think it is the first. One of them has now, on at least four separate occasions, flown directly up to my window, looked in and hovered not six inches from the window for a protracted period of time.

I am almost never lonely. I have the perfect space to contemplate space and our place in it. I can consider temperature and time, and anything else that catches my fancy. I have the serenity of memory. I love my weekends.

February 20, 2010 / Weekends / OC pg 20, © 2010 / CIP 796, Feb 23, 2010 / SHE

Two years on is coming up on the 23rd at 5: 06 A.M. She is at rest, but she visits me every time a hummingbird comes up to my window. Undoubtedly she visits others in different ways.

Three years on it becomes apparent to me that it never was and never will be done any better by a mortal soul. There are presumably a few – very, very few – who may have equaled her grace, strength and bravery in meeting what we all must face. But I never met another such a person. So I honor her. Perhaps I saw her end a little clearer than some others because I participated.

In the end her mother and father were gone. Two people knew and loved the whole human being. Three people loved her as a mother. Half a dozen loved her as a sister. Many more loved her as a friend. The rest were lucky if they knew her as an acquaintance. I was the luckiest man alive.

Two years on her son produced a movie. It captured her and honors her. She will live forever.

February 17, 2010 / Two Years On / OC pg 18, © 2010 / CIP 794, Feb 23, 2010 / SHE

The year started out poorly and did nothing but improve. That’s infinitely better than the other way around. It was the second year of improvement. I think I will declare myself healed. No, the gaping hole is not gone, but at least it is not a black hole. I can still see the beauty and the light and eventually I will join her. In the meantime there is a life to live, and I am going to do it.

Part of it is the organization of a cowboy, part just being on familiar ground, but most of it is simply a matter of stepping out. It will consist of reconnecting, restoring and even relieving by reliving. It will be a short spring for an old man. Still I can’t help but express one more time my eternal gratitude for the two who managed to get me through, two more who did their utmost, and the hundred who tried to help. They all deserve some credit for getting me to the other side.

January 1, 2010 – will be a New Year and ‘normal’. Except for an occasional hibernation I will rejoin the world. It pleases me.

December 22, 2009 / Healed / OC pg 11, © 2009 / CIP 793, Dec 25, 2009 / SHE

I came across this poem recently and felt it immediately and strongly. I print it here in the hope that my first family can understand my second family, and vice versa. Even more I hope they can both understand me better. It was written at least 1600 years ago by John Chrysostom the Archbishop of Constantinople (c. 347-407). Its title is Wherever We Are:

She whom we love and lose,
Is no longer where she was before.
She is now wherever we are.

December 11, 2009 / Wherever We Are / OC pg 10, © 2009 / CIP 792, Dec 25, 2009 / SHE

Essentially it is done and the ‘die is cast’ …. I thought long and hard as I used that aphorism. A non native speaker might have difficulty understanding such an idiom. I used it because it is true in multiple ways. Since October 22nd you have been more on my mind than usual – since November 26th it has been close to constant. Slowly now the results will come into focus. So I will put this up on December 1st. That I believe is the day you are now scheduled to come home and this cowboy and his sweetheart wanted to welcome you.

It is your attitude that is your strength. Lean on your strength. Optimism always works better than pessimism. Proactive is usually best with an optimistic person. It got you to where you are today – which is where I don’t know exactly for sure right now, but I assume it is good because I know you. Lean on your loved ones and hold his hand. This paragraph is me speaking, but I know that is not the opinion you crave.

There is really little I can do for you except to tell you what I think your sister in strength would say to you now. I know that is vital for you. I believe her opinion would be quite different in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2007 I think she would have gently advised you against your current course of action. In 2008 gradually her experience would come into play. In 2009 I believe she would think you are doing the right thing – playing the odds the best you can. I also believe now she knows better than anyone else the road so many of us must travel. She is trying to tell you something. On February 23rd 2008, really within hours, you started to speak to me in her voice – I could hear it clear as a bell. Today I try to return the favor and speak to you in her voice. Vas, vas, ma belle. Her French would be better than mine.

One final note on ‘the die is cast.’ Remember that 7 is a lucky number. Adding the 30 you want to the 47 you have (your words, and your wishes, back on the 22nd) now it is doubly lucky! Let’s drink to time in a bottle.

November 29, 2009 / Time in a Bottle / AFW pg 123 © 2009 / CIP # 790, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

There is tangible proof on my bookcase this morning. It arrived by secured mail yesterday. The Livret de Famille is home, where it should be – with me. I am content and it speaks of completions.

Through February 21st, 2008 my life was an ascending plane. There were 65 years of almost pure ascension. Most weeks and months, certainly almost every year and guaranteed every decade – there was progress. The last decade was close to heaven. I was a very, very lucky man. I had known it for a long time.

All things end – even universes. Twenty months ensued. The process was not pleasant. The revelations and comprehensions were disquieting. Still everything was probably par for the passage. Death is part of life. With a lot of help that chapter has been survived.

I have found my roots again. I am back in a world I understand. I am back where we started. I have my photos and my Livret. I have my memories and my pride. I am content. Simplicity, and the complexity of physics, will be my life. I know my course and in the end I will join my Sweetheart’s Spirit. Nothing could be better than that. I am content and there is completion. The Livret sits atop my bookcase.

October 15, 2009 / AFW pg 110 © 2009 / CIP # 782, October 16, 2009 / SHE

Love consists in this; that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. – Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

This then can be our epitaph. I protected you right up till 30 hours before the end. Your friend Christine and your son Jérôme took you the last mile. Unconscious to me before, and well known to me after, you continue to protect me. We touched and greeted each other daily for a decade. We held hands. We knew, every single day, real love.

September 1, 2009 / AFW pg 105 © 2009 / CIP # 781, October 16, 2009 / SHE

This morning Wednesday July 29, 2009 The Sporting News announced the award recognizing the Greatest Coach in Sports History: John Wooden – from a list of very, very impressive coaches. That the world and I agree completely is, in and of itself, a singular event. It encourages me to reprint an article I wrote here January 5, 2009:

My Kind of Hero

Once in a blue moon you read an article that says exactly, almost word for word, exactly what you feel. On an even rarer day it might express exactly what you feel 10 years from today. Almost never does it express exactly what you hope you will feel on the day you die. I just read such an article. Its title was: ‘I’m not afraid of death,’ John Wooden says. The article started out:

The little condo on Margate Street in Encino, Calif., wouldn't pass many eyeball tests, not that the old man who has lived there since 1972 has any intention to sell it. If you want it, you're simply going to have to wait for John Wooden to die. Sadly — and beautifully — you wouldn't be the only one. Wooden, perhaps the greatest American coach in any sport, never thought he'd live to the age of 98. And he never thought living without his beloved wife, Nell, whom he lost in 1985, would be so hard for so long. Of all the love in his heart — for the three generations of family who surround him and the dozens of former players who keep him as close as ever — most of it still belongs to her. All he wants is to see his Nellie again. The article apparently just appeared in The Sporting News, but I read it on MSNBC. Of course it was the hook that you just read (underlined) that hooked me, but it was a fairly long article and every single word spoke to me!

John Wooden has always been one of my greatest heroes. Now I more fully realize why. The article spoke of his heroes Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa, both of whom I greatly admire. It spoke of his character and convictions, many of which I have tried to emulate. It spoke of his success which everyone would like to copy. It spoke of his love and passions much of which I could identify with. His Nell was my Minou. I felt exactly the same way!

Don’t misunderstand me. Long ago, actually just shortly after my days at UCLA when John Wooden was there, I realized I was a B+ sort of guy. I got lots of A’s at school, and throughout my life, but I usually averaged out somewhere around B+. I was proud of that and I enjoyed life. John Wooden was an A+. No question about that, but he loved his wife exactly the way I loved mine. He lived his life after her death almost exactly the way I would like to live mine. I’m fairly sure our last thoughts on this earth will be nearly identical.

July 29, 2009 / Finally the World Agrees With Me / AFW pg 102 © 2009 / CIP # 780, July 30, 2009 / SHE