DACMan

Each of the thousand sunsets I’ve seen reflected on the same old granite mountain captures my heart.  A primal urge must kick in, and I’m helpless in the face of this sunset’s ever-changing, yet eternal beauty.  I can’t wait for the color shift to happen.  The mountain first turns from full light, to gold, to pink, to gray, and back to pink and gold again during the afterglow.

For 25 years, we have packed our food, books, and clothes and headed for Idyllwild in a race to catch the sunset before our evening meal.  Two hours away by car is The Sunset, My Sunset.  It’s rarely easy to leave work early if I’m going out of town.  Last minute customers and staff questions, and my own obsessions with things being “right,” lead to inevitable delays, but I’m always eager to get on the road.  Once packed and driving, arrival time is mostly in the hands of the gods.  Even catching the afterglow is ok if the traffic is bad or the gods veto my full sunset plan.

My incessant quest for beauty leads me all over the globe.  I dream, plan and seek.  I am reminded of our oft-repeated 7-1/2 hour dash to Zion National Park, timed to miss LA/Riverside rush hour traffic, Las Vegas traffic, and catch a late lunch at the Lodge.  I love the quest, the challenge, but even more, the shocking beauty of each of those special places we have come to love.

On this weeks NPR comedy show, “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” the Buick Regal was referred to as an “old people’s car.”  I was vaguely insulted. These days I’m driving a brown 2004 Buick Regal.  My Aunt Ruth died a year ago and I inherited her Buick.  The odometer reads 25,000 miles and it runs like new.  She was an old person I guess.  She was in her late 70′s when she bought it new.  What do I care if I drive an old persons car?  Half the time I don’t really notice what I’m driving.  It works or it doesn’t.  A smooth ride, lights, power steering and brakes, adjustable seats, plus heat and A/C.  Not that different from my new Lexus 350 SUV.

One evening, I stopped by Pep Boys, a large auto supply store, to pick up chains for the Lexus.  We were driving from San Diego to Glacier National Park, Montana in mid-February and knew carrying chains would be required whether or not I knew how to put them on.  Usually the highway patrol let’s you through a winter/snow checkpoint if you have four-wheel drive and all terrain tires, but sometimes they actually want to see the chains.  Not worth being turned back at a snowy pass and told to get chains at the previous town, some 100 miles back.  I know it’s not worth it.  It cost me half a day and $200 some fifteen years ago to get into a Colorado ski area.  I walked into Pep Boys and asked for chains for my new Lexus SUV.  In the official chains catalog, there were three possible sets of chains.  The salesman asked me to check the tire size, so I borrowed a flashlight and went out to the dark parking lot and wrote down every word, letter and number on the tires and headed back in to find the salesman.  He leafed through the catalog, but my tire sizes weren’t even close to what they should be, so he went out with me this time to get the correct info.  We walked toward my car but he stopped a few yards short with a confused look on his face.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.  “Where’s the Lexus?” he asked.  I turned back to look at the “Lexus” from which I’d ten minutes earlier taken the tire measurements.  Damn, all this time I’d been driving the brown, 2004 Buick Regal, the old person’s car!  I really want you all to know that doesn’t make me old.  I was glow-in-the-dark red with embarrassment.  We returned to the store and I told the salesman, “We are leaving tomorrow morning at 4am.  I’ll take one of each of the possible chains and figure out which one is right when I get home or somewhere on the way to Montana.”

Lindu is truly one of my favorite human spirits on earth. Alive and playful, he’s overflowing with out-of-the-box creativity. Delightfully twisted, the unexpected is his norm. A bicycle seat magically become ears, a door handle, a mouth of a sculpture. Soon a mystical or goofy creature takes shape. His latest creation for me is a monster, a comical spider with plow handle legs and a pair of rear view mirrors to keep an eye on the suspended kite he’s pulling along behind. Beautiful madness. If I’d ever be jealous of someone, it would be of him and the brilliant vision, fun, and soul he brings to each piece he creates.

Tonight I attended the opening of Lindu’s exhibition at the Four Seasons, Jimbaran; Bali’s quintessential tropical resort. It was perfect in all ways. Lindu has grown leaps artistically in the years I’ve known him. I feel pride in him and joy in his accomplishment. When he saw me walk in, he jumped up and hugged me. His first words were, “This happened only because of you. You believed in me for years before I believed in myself. Thank you!” This was his night, but his acknowledgment was for me. I was stunned by his generosity of spirit and sweetness. My biggest surprise of that moment, however, was that he speaks good English. I had no idea that we would eventually be able to talk directly to each other! We’d always used translators! He was previously simply too shy to speak English to me. I have actually mentioned to friends in America that my largest frustration of not knowing Indonesian is that I cannot speak with Lindu. Even this wish is now fulfilled.