Early fall is the best of times, and it is the worst of times. The best of times because it’s amazing. The worst because the pool is going to close soon--where the hell am I supposed to get $2 MGD drafts and $1 microwaved hottogs between now and May 1st?
Also, a house on my street burned down. Not good.
Also, we got hammered with an early season winter swell. Good.
Also, it rained. Weird, as it hasn’t done this for a few years, as far as I can remember.
In his oft-quoted poem The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats wrote, 'the center cannot hold,' in reference to some kind of global event (his interpretation of a global event is not a rosy one). Over the years, I've repositioned my thinking on this one. Not to challenge Yeats, but I think the center is the thing that holds us in difficult times. The center is, well, the center. The core. The strongest part of our selves. The outside may crumble off like decaying bark, but inside, at the core, there’s still bright, fresh wood.
This morning I woke up my five-year-old, who was in the throes of a dream. “You were in my dream,” she said, sleepily. “Only it was just half you.”
“What was my other half?” I asked.
“You were half man, half strawberry,” she stated.
“You were half man, half strawberry,” she stated.
"Which half was strawberry?" I asked solemnly.
"Whatever," she said, then rolled over and fell back asleep.
I liked her response. It was correct: it didn’t matter if I was a strawberry with arms and legs and a human head, or if I was a human torso with a strawberry head, or whatever. The point was that it was me but not me, but underneath it it was me.
There’s an essence to things, an inside we can feel but not see. The center, and it is strong. It can hold. The details aren’t important—arms, legs, seeds, a stem, whatever.
What’s this got to do with Woodworker Dan’s new 5’4 MiniSims? Not a goddamn thing, that’s what. But not everything has to connect. Sometimes the great world spins and it lands us on a pair of snake eyes and we get the prize. Sometimes the great world spins and our neighbor’s house burns down and a long-period groundswell graces our shores and your boss gets a new car.
Sometimes it spins and spins and we tuck into a clean section of wave on a freshly-minted slab of foam with two fins and suddenly we’re spinning, too, and when we stop we’re half strawberry and could use a strong cup of coffee.
What I’m saying is: we lost our third hockey game of the season 7-0 last night, and I’m sad this morning.
Know who’s not sad?
Woodworker Dan! He’s got some fresh foam and a new punch on his sandwich card. He's got a great wife and a great kid and is the source of many of the tailblock woods you've been admiring for years. He's got two earrings in his left ear (!), so you know he shreds.
Speaking of sandwich cards, I would like to take this moment to remind you that I care about you. Because of this, I’m offering yet ANOTHER choice on your punch card. In addition to Ike’s incredible lunch sandwiches, and Devil’s Teeth incredible breakfast sandwiches, you now have the choice of redeeming your punch card at Fruta, Sonoma County's own Michoacan-style ice cream shop (Michoacana palateria y neveria), after a mere five punches.
!Dios mio!
Because of the incontestable goodness of Fruta, I can no longer say the following words in my house, lest my girls go apeshit: Fruta, fruta, Fruit, Froot, Ice cream, Michoacan, neveria, Phineas and Ferb, Taylor Swift, dessert.
