Sparkling Footprints

Footprints to the sun, at the tip of the pier in San Clemente, California.  Who has gone before and who still swims below?

These are the things that dreamers want to know.

Hello Up There!

Fashion Island Shopping Center, Newport Beach, CA

Things are looking up!  High spirits and happiness seem linked, somehow, to altitude.  We jump for joy.  We rise above troubles.  We hold our heads high when we are proud.  We go over the moon with happiness.

One can only imagine how happy and proud these sculpture figures at Newport Beach's Fashion Island must have been to rise to such heights ...

Or maybe they just had an exceptionally successful day of shopping for holiday gifts? 

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!

The Bells Are Ringing

Basilica, Mission San Juan Capistrano, California

What a beautiful sound, those ringing bells in the tower of this church in San Juan Capistrano!  The surrounding city is not filled with high-rise buildings, so the music moves well over the rooftops.  Yet inside the church, and if the doors are closed, the music of the bells seems somewhat distant.  

But isn't that part and parcel of churches?  A place that is away from everyday life, a sense that peaceful respite is possible for some moments of our lives, a belief that refuge can be found?

Maybe, as I have, you bought into that whole concept so widely used in television programs, especially police stories, that someone fleeing from the authorities may claim sanctuary -- protection from arrest -- as long as they remain inside a church.  But have you ever Googled that idea?  

I did that for you, earlier today.  And the answer is no.  Sanctuary in a church does not protect one from criminal arrest.  Of course, for the purposes of someone writing a story, a character may assume that refuge is still to be found there.  And act upon that assumption.  Simply requires another plot twist to resolve!

At least while inside, that character may enjoy some lovely bell-enabled musical interludes!

On the High Seas

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Every time that I see this replica of the sailing ship The Pilgrim in Dana Point, these famous pirating words are always the first to come to mind.  Maybe it means that I am a worrier.  Something bad is likely to happen.  Or that I have visited Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland once too often!

Become a merchant seaman, face bad weather, churning seas, backbreaking labor?  As was true for the workers on The Pilgrim?  Many did, making trading voyages on vessels like this one that sailed from the east coast to the west coast of the United States during the 19th century.  But face pirates?  Now that is a different story entirely!  

 Adventurers may always have been drawn to the seas, to their inherent risks, to their unknown dangers.  And to their breathtaking beauty.  We likely are little different today, with recreation taking the lead over backbreaking labor in placing us gliding or racing over the waves.  We even hear of modern-day pirate action, from time to time.  

Are bandits drawn to the sea -- or does the deep anonymity of the sea beget bandits?  For that answer, I suppose we must search for some vestige of inner-bandit that may be found in each of us.  

The spirit of Halloween may typify my inner-bandit.  "Ahoy there!  Hand over all of your chocolate!"  Those would likely be my pirating commands upon boarding a vessel.  And then, I'd probably add, "Please" just for good measure!

San Clemente Observations

Things look quite calm from this hillside vantage point, high above the beach and pier at San Clemente.  Now and then, a train rushes by, filled with passengers headed to parts beyond.  Or not so filled with passengers, but faithfully making its appointed rounds, just in case.

Are things always -- or ever -- what they appear on the surface?  Are things really as calm as they appear from this view?  Who can tell what dramas are playing out, nearby.  

The birds that fly past gaze at me knowingly.  Perhaps they have flown near windows and observed those dramas unfolding.  Better still, maybe they gravitate toward the sounds of happiness, swooping in a for a closer look at the pleasures of time spent at the beach.  Picking up the transforming vibes of joys shared among families and friends.

Several small birds land elegantly, then flutter in the bushes behind my head.  Will they whisper little secrets of sights they have seen so that I can enhance this birds-eye view?  Or will they simply drop some whitewash on my head ...

Fascinated by Harbors

Sailing ship leaving the port of Le Havre, 1851, photograph by Louis-Cyrus Macaire
Source: Gallica, Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Used with permission

I am fascinated by harbors.  

Can we imagine all of that exciting moments that have happened there.  All of the tender goodbye caresses.  All of the ebullient welcome hugs and kisses.  All of the life decisions that will be made by voyagers as a result of these voyages.

As for me, I love to imagine those life-events.  In some cases, I need to search through my knowledge of past times, distant places.  The picture above, from the mid 1800s, shows the Port of Le Havre, in northwest France.  

Many Americans may not realize it, but their immigrant ancestors from several countries in western Europe may well have departed their homelands, headed for America, via Le Havre.  These brave people boarded ships and, undoubtedly, gazed intently at the shoreline as they departed to a distant land.  For many, they would never see these shores, or their continent of birth, again.

At the same time, the exhilaration of the adventure upon which they embarked must have helped to crowd out their wistfulness.  A new world awaited them.

Each voyage, in essence, takes sailors and voyagers to new worlds.  Embarking upon new ventures, testing new waters, setting sail for adventures to come -- writing a book and sending it into navigable, though uncharted, waters is similar.

And so, we begin.  Alex Adam, Author.

Imagine that!