Above and Beyond

Laguna Beach, California

Every now and then, I remind myself to look up!  It is so easy to just look straight ahead, as one barrels through life, always on the way to or from somewhere.  

Some places simply beckon our eyes to rove up, up and away from the usual path.  Standing at Main Beach in Laguna Beach, it is beautiful to gaze out over the ocean.  We will do that in an upcoming photo, you may be sure.

But turn around to look inland, and our eyes are naturally drawn to the upward views.  Of those hillsides above and beyond.  Surely there are stories to be told up there as well?

Richard Henry Dana's Gap Year

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Statue, Dana Point, CA

The gap year has overtones of adventure today.  A time for young adults to see some of the world, to get in touch with their goals for the future, before continuing their studies.

In the mid 1800s, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. took a gap year of sorts from his studies at Harvard.  He signed on as a deck hand for the trading ship Pilgrim, setting off for parts unknown.  Finally arriving at California's west coast, after a long journey from Boston, he experienced plenty of adventurous times.  And he thought deeply about them, writing his epic Two Years Before the Mast in the process.  

Did this adventure shape his future life, his goals, his subsequent attitudes?  It would seem so, as he returned to his studies at Harvard, completed his degree in law, then applied his learning to advance the rights of the working man throughout his career as a lawyer and politician.  

A bit of hands-on experience worked its magic, yet again.  It set the direction for his life.  And produced a book that endures because he wrote what he knew.  

And doesn't that always ring true ... 

Aiming For These Shelves

Library, San Juan Capistrano, California

There are wonders to be found in libraries.  Shelves and shelves of books.  Today, abundant choices await us in other media as well.  And if we can't actually visit the library, libraries offer e-book collections, as close as our favorite electronic device.  

The library in San Juan Capistrano is well-visited by locals and tourists alike.  Designed by Michael Graves, the structure itself is a work of art.  You may have marveled at Disney park attractions that feature his work.  Or maybe you have admired his collection of housewares at department stores.  His post-modern style work is known, and award-winning, around the world.

Function meets form in his works.  In this library, an inner courtyard hosts cultural events.  A rambling hallway exhibits the works of local artists.  Cozy reading areas lure book-lovers to sit down and begin reading, right this very minute.

Little wonder, is it, that would-be writers hope to add their books to the shelves in these fabulous surroundings?    

Enthusiast or Obsessive?

Mustard, gotta have mustard!  

Better yet, make it an import, from a place that speaks to me, for some reason.  Maybe I've visited there, or have friends and family there, or have read about in my favorite books or seen it on my favorite cooking shows.  Or maybe that location is, in fact, renowned for the mustard that it produces.

Or is it something else that drives this inexplicable interest?  It's one thing to become an enthusiast about something, surely.  Upon introduction to that item or topic, we recognize its appeal to us.  We want to know more and more and more about it.  Or acquire lots and lots and lots of it.

And when does that interest-turned-enthusiasm progress to obsession?  When is that definitive corner rounded, when is there little likelihood of turning back, when does the exigency spring forth?

Each person, as ever, is different.  Maybe there is such a thing as the obsessive personality, hard-coded into our genetic DNA strands.  Alternatively, maybe there is just something that plucks at our heart strings, for some cosmic reason-beyond-reason and we fall in love with the topic or the idea or the object.

Are enthusiasts and obsessives in stories the ones we call quirky and eccentric?  Or is there something darker at play?  Ah, that can often be the question!