The Universe's Indifference

Early in Dickens' Great Expectations, the young narrator Pip is thinking about the escaped convict Magwich whom he has encountered earlier that day and who is now on the run somewhere out on the marshes on a cold winter's night:

And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful if would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude

Pip's epiphany -- that the universe ("the stars") is indifferent to man's fate -- has this brutally stark quality to it. The stars care little about any one individual's fate. What makes this little vignette so remarkable to me is that, at this point in the novel, Pip is still a little boy.

I have had a similar epiphany when looking out at the ocean. The vast expanse of water tends to naturally propel my thoughts away from the trivial and mundane and toward the more philosophical and profound. To the question "What was I put on this planet to do?" the Pacific responds with a resounding, "Don't care."  The waves will continue to pound the sand regardless of any action I take and long after I am gone.

Now the universe's response of overwhelming indifference can push one towards either despair -- what's the point? -- or towards a greater self-reliance -- it's on me to determine my destiny. In my case, I find myself frequently vacillating between the two poles. When I start by saying that, because the universe cares not one whit what I say or do and so it is on me to determine my own destiny, the slapping waves remind me that, when all is said and done, nothing I say or do will make much of a difference one way or the other.

These are age-old questions -- they have been around since Marcus Aurelius and probably long before he wrote -- but there is something about being down at the ocean that brings out the armchair philosopher in me and stimulates deep thoughts. For just as I realize that the universe indifferent to the fate of man or even of mankind, looking at the ocean makes me realize also how insignificant I am in the cosmos. As a grain of sand to me, so I am a grain of sand to the cosmos.

The quote from Great Expectations acquires an even more ironic flavor as the novel continues, because the story is really a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age narrative of a Victorian 'gentleman' who becomes that only by virtue of having a secret benefactor (the convict Magwich who, after having been transported to Australia, becomes incredibly wealthy and uses the attorney Jaggers to become Pip's 'benefactor'). As Pip grows into adulthood and decadent gentrification -- he's the first Yuppie in Anglo literature -- his essential aloneness and isolation become all the more evident. The stars gaze down on Pip with no help or pity. And only Joe, simple Joe, continues to love Pip even after his essential human vacuity has revealed itself.

When we look to the cosmos to validate our existence, we look in vain.

Barefoot in the Sand in November

As it happened, the weather cleared up enough on Saturday and yesterday so that Alma and I could walk on the beach rather than return to the Westside Pavillion. I vastly prefer walking on the beach to walking inside a mall, so I am afraid my follow-up weekend report on the Pavillion may have to wait until the next weekend we have inclement weather.

The weather both days was cool and windy. These are steady winds blowing in from the northwest (off the Pacific) or from the northeast (the so-called Santa Ana winds). And, when the sun goes behind the clouds, it can get quite chilly. A portion of the western sky fills up with long cigar-shaped cumulous clouds. However, the clouds do not solidly fill in the sky so there are occasional breakages in the sky when the sun shines.

Watching the play of light and shadow on the waves and on the sand as these clouds move across the sun's face is but one subtle sign of beauty for those with eyes to see. When the clouds obscure the sun, the air grows noticeably cooler and the sea wind seems to bite a little more deeply. Ah, but when the sun emerges from the clouds, the renewed warmth hitting the skin feels doubly good for having replaced the chill.

Alma typically wears a long-sleeve shirt, light sweater and hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants. In one of our trips to the mall, we bought her a new pair of boots at Old Navy and she has taken to walking the sand in those. I started with a short-sleeve t-shirt and sweatshirt and sweatpants. But it has become so chilly that I have now upgraded to a long-sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt and light jacket (and sweatpants). I usually wear sneakers or walking shoes.

Well, yesterday, the sun had been out for an extended enough period that Alma decided to try walking without her shoes. She tested the waters (or the sands) first by putting her hand down onto the sand and discovering that it felt warm to her touch. So she took off her boots and, placing the socks inside them, gave them to me to carry in the recycling bag.

For the most part, walking barefoot in the sand worked perfectly for her and she did not complain about her ankles bothering her. However, on the return walk from the Villa Marina jetty, the sun slid behind a cloud for a fairly lengthy time and Alma was at the point of putting her boots back on. But, as has been the case so often these past few days, the sun slid out from behind the cloud and we finished the walk in glorious warm sunshine.

Writer's Block

Today I cannot come up with any subject which engages or inspires me.Typical case of writer's block. Alma has made two great suggestions (messages left in the sand and the Southern California phenomenon of flakes), but each of these leaves me uninspired for the moment. I am the type of writer who must allow time for subjects to germinate before I can harvest their fruits. So you shall see writing at some point about sand messages and about flakes. But not quite yet.

I have also tried circling back to Thoreau's Walden. But I must confess that this time around I have begun to find Thoreau's flowery style a bit tiresome. For some reason, the charm I so fondly associated with the book from my undergraduate days seems sorely lacking this time around. So, needless to say, I have not found any topics in Thoreau recently that compel me to write or serve as a springboard to my search for a suitable topic.

The weather has again turned cold and cloudy, so I think there is a fairly good chance Alma and I will eschew the beach today and return to the Westside Pavillion for our daily walk. I want to compare the WP mall today with what I saw earlier this week during the week. This is also the first Saturday following Thanksgiving, so I will be curious to see how frenzied the activity is there.

But writer's block is a serious matter for me. I know there are many things I could be writing about, but no subject agitates me to the point where I feel I must write about it.

Thanksgiving at the Beach

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday. Alma and I made the customary feast (rotisserie chicken, au gratin potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes cranberry sayce and chocolate pecan pie). More accurately, I made the potates and stuffing, Alma made the green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and we bought a pre-rotiseried chicken from Ralph's Grocery Store. Yum. But we had to do penance for our over-indulgence, so it was off to the beach for us.

The windy weather I wrote about last week has for the most part abated and, while the chilly temperatures remain, we were blessed today with an absolutely cloudless sky and exceptionally clear skies. The Santa Monica bay is framed by the Santa Monica mountains to the north and north west. Directly east and at a greater distance lie the Sierra Nevada mountains. Today the skies and air were so clear that one could face to the northwest and then rotate all the way around to the southeast and see nothing but mountains.

The cold temperatures mean that snows have already begun to fall in the Sierra Nevada mountains and at lower elevations than customary. I could actually see the snows on the tops of some of the mountains in the Sierra and pointed it out to Alma while we were walking.

It being Thanksgiving, I gave some thought to what I had to be thankful about. I came up with three specifics: I'm thankful that I'm married to Alma. If you have taken the time to visit her website (http://www.almasartasylum.com/), you have seen the beauty she has created where none existed before. I actually get to live with that beauty every day. It's like waking up each day in the Louvre Museum. I am so blessed.

I am also thankful that we had saved enough money that this most recent bout of unemployment has not really meant any serious dislocation for us. At least not yet. When I think about how bad some of my fellow Californians have it, I am again truly blessed that Alma and I continue to enjoy a high degree of financial security.

But the thing I was most thankful for, as I walked along the beach, was that I had all five of my senses. Today, I valued most highly smell and taste at home and sight at the beach. But really, I shudder to think how much poorer I would be if I lacked any of the five senses.

I am thankful that I have the beach to walk on every day the weather allows.

The Decline and Fall of American Consumerism: The View from the Trenches (Part III)

The weather remaining cold and windy yesterday, Alma and I decided to venture a little further afield to the Westside Pavillion at the intersection of Pico and Westwood Boulevards. The WP is quite a bit more upscale than the Westfield Culver City mall I described initially. For one thing, there is no Target, no Old Navy and no Best Buy at the WP. Instead, the WP is anchored by a Nordstrom's and, in lieu of Old Navy, has a Banana Republic (the upscale relative to Old Navy and the Gap).

Likewise, the WP is connected by a so-called Sky Bridge to a Barnes & Noble and multiplex cinema. So the WP has a few more cultural connections than the purely consumer-driven Westfield CC mall. And, given is proximity to the main UCLA campus at the other end of Westwood Boulevard, the WP would seem to attract a mix of middle class academics, students and Westwood residents.

Again, the dominant feeling I had was that activity was quite muted. Now granted, this was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the so-called 'Black Friday' stampede. But once again, in walking by Foot Locker and Lady Foot Locker (no Kids Foot Locker at WP), I was struck by a complete and total absence of customers. Same applies to most of the specialty apparel shops. Interestingly, the one shop that seemed to be having more than a few gawkers and idlers was a local shop, 'OC Design'. The WP had only one jewelry retailer, Zales, that I could see, and like the Westfield mall, this Zales had zero customers in the 90 minutes we were walking the mall and the 30 minutes that Alma went to OC Design.

Overall, though, I would have to say that I foresee a very shabby holiday season for these retailers. Alma noted that yesterday was a weekday and that tmost people tend to shop in malls on the weekends. Alma predicts the WP will be quite busy on the weekend, but I am not so sure. We may go there this coming weekend and, if so, I will supply a 'Part IV' to this running commentary.

Josey Cleans Up Our Mess

Venice Beach has always attracted more than its share of eccentrics, and I shall write in far greater detail about some of them over the coming months. But Alma and I ran into a gentleman named Josey while walking the beach on Monday who exexmplifies the best of that eccentricity.

We first encountered Josey well over a month ago while walking our stretch of the beach but, at the time, we did not know his name or anything about him. At the time, Alma and I were in full 'trash collection' mode, picking up every discarded piece of plastic we could for her found art. One day, while walking, we crossed paths with a man who carried a black plastic garbage sack. The man wore a circus top hat on his head and had long shoulder-length straight brown hair that flowed from underneath it.

I asked the man what he was doing and he replied that he was picking up trash along the beach. I told him what Alma and I did -- that we were collecting discards to use in Alma's art. I expressed my personal gratitude to him for his efforts cleaning the beach. And there the exchange ended.

However, since then, Alma and I have encountered him at least 3 other times on our same stretches of Venic Beach, most recently on Monday. Each time we encountered him previously (prior to Monday), we had exchanged courteous pleasantries and gone our separate ways, but without knowing much about one another.

On Monday, we had begun our walk northwards from the Washington Blvd. Pier to the small breakwater a half-mile north. When we reached that breakwater, a foreign tourist standing there asked Alma to take his picture. While Alma was helping the tourist, I again spotted this same man whom we had seen before.

He was picking at various kelp piles there, removing the odd piece of paper and plastic that had gotten tangled up in the kelp and again placing them in a black plastic garbage sack. I waved at him and said a hearty "hello." This time he walked over bearing something in his hands. When he reached me, I saw he carried one of those rubbery toy snakes.

"Here," he said. "I know you two collect weird stuff for your art." He proffered the rubber snake to me.

"Thanks," I replied. I put the rubber snake in my recyclying bag. "Actually, though, my wife Alma is the artist and I merely help her with the collecting of materials."

I introduced myself and asked his name and he told me it was Josey. I next explained that I was doing a blog about our walks down on the beach while I was currently unemployed.

"Are you and your wife only staying here for a year?" he asked, referring to my blog's title.

"No," I replied. "But I sure hope my unemployment doesn't last longer than that." I explained our situation and he replied that he too had lost his job . . . working in a medical marijuana dispensary that the Los Angeles District Attorney had raided and shut down.

"I've got an RV and I'm collecting food stamps," he said. "So I've decided that cleaning the beach is the most important thing I can be doing right now. Besides," he continued, "there aren't any jobs anyway."

During this conversation, I watched his face to check for any signs of delusional thinking. I could see none whatsoever. Josey's eyes looked normal and his physical comportment had an energetic but non-manic grace. Although he was dressed like a hippy in denim jeans and a denim vest, Josey was not dressed in rags like one of the homeless waifs you'll see so often on the beach, tormented by his or her own internal demons. I finally concluded that Josey, while eccentric, is not that different from Alma and me.

But Josey is a "heroic eccentric," forged in the same mould as Henry David Thoreau. You may look at him and think "He's crazy." But I look at him and say to myself, "He's cleaning up the messes that others make and preserving and protecting our common patrimony."

And, for all I know, Josey looks upon Alma and me as harmless eccentrics too, if he thinks of us now. If so, I cannot say Josey's perception is entirely incorrect.

Ugly Foamlets, Strange Beauty

Here's an ugly truth. Sometimes walking on the beach feels like a chore. Not every walk down at the beach produces sweetness and light. And not every vista one sees is beautiful, as last night's walk demonstrates.
The rain having stopped, Alma and I returned to the beach yesterday afternoon for our customary walk. We only made about 2/3 of our normal three-mile walk on the beach itself because, while the rain had stopped, the temperatures had also fallen by a good 20-25 degrees. Compounding the drop in temperatures, strong northwesterly winds off the ocean blew the entire time we walked. Neither of us had dressed warmly enough for the cold and windy conditions.

The day began like many of the others I have described heretofore, sun shining brighly through scattered clouds in the westernmost quadrant of the sky. We could find no parking near Strongs Rd, but managed to find a spot on Pacific Ave. close to Venice Boulevard (mid-way between Strongs Rd. and Abbot Kinney Boulevard). So we were ideally positioned about 2 blocks from the beach.

When we arrived at the beach, the first image I had was of a thin sheet of sand blowing across the surface of the beach, such was the effect of the wind. There was no place to hide from it and the strong winds yesterday were sustained and not occasional gusts. Even though we began by walking southward, the winds were coming equally out of the west as from the north and so, as Alma constantly reminds me, that "big cold wet thing" out there made for a cold walk even walking southward.

While we walked southward toward the Villa Marina jetty, Alma and I noticed little foamlets on the sand, almost as if the Pacific had held a giant bubble bath and the bubble patches on the shore remained. I almost want to say that these foamlets were unnatural, the scummy by-product of pollution. The foamlets seem to hang around inordinately long, almost as if they have some chemical component. And they appear slightly dis-colored with a slightly off-white tint. The wind would push these foamlets across the surf and, when I noticed them, I mentioned to Alma that I thought these foamlets were singularly ugly. Alma disagreed. 

Now I admit that watching these foamlets dance across the sand had a certain grace, a certain sprezzatura. And I'll grant that perhaps my aesthetic judgment was somewhat clouded by the cold winds that were blowing yesterday. But I think that the reason I saw these foamlets as ugly is that they diverged so radicallhy from my picture of what a beach should be, the Platonic essence of 'beach-dom,' if you will.

Ironically, Venice Beach usually comes nowhere close to matching that Platonic beach ideal under even the most idyllic of circumstances. The water at Venice Beach is not blue and is often too cold for swimming or even wading. Often you find black globules of tar washed up on the beach from the offshore tar vents the area is famous for. And, as often as not, rotting kelp dots the shore. So asking Venice Beach to meet some Platonic ideal is asking a bit much. Even so, in no Platonic vision of beachiness do I find little commas of foam that stay on the beach long enough for the wind to push them around.

Alma said that the foamlets reflected what was going on in the sky and their blowing across the sand reflected the clouds blowing across the sky. Not literally, of course. To Alma, though, it looked like the clouds blowing across the sky were "a reiteration of what was occurring in Nature." And, it's true as Alma noticed, that in the wet sand itself, you could see reflections of the actual clouds themselves.

Alma took several pictures and so I will let you decide for yourself whether these foamlets are beautiful or ugly:

The sun sets at 5 p.m. or even earlier now. We finished our southward leg and arrived at the Villa Marina jetty at about 4:40 p.m. and had only about five minutes of direct sunshine left before the sun finally dipped beneath the western horizon. The wind continued to blow harshly but now, with no direct sunshine, the temperature and effort required began to feel unbearable to Alma and to me. So, after about 15 minutes of trudging northward back towards the Washington Boulevard Pier, we decided to get off the sand quickly and did so, returning to the car via surface streets.