*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
July 17th, Yes Meet Day 7
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
let us be
together in the morning light
let us be
together in the dawning light
I opened my eyes and mused,
confused, in that spark of first consciousness when you become aware
you are traveling and might be anywhere: where am i? I gazed at the
ceiling and in my periphery a figure glided by. "Dawn?" The question
penetrated the fog of sleep. "Was that you?" It was and it was great
to greet her in the welcoming, warm confines of Curt and Wendy's. We
began with coffee and Wendy offering tea to me, but I declined and
went for the high-octane Joe, to jolt me from the stupor of a sweet,
soporific state that had ended too soon.
Curt was a cut-up. He would quietly
watch the direction of the conversation and pounce with some
unexpectedly hilarious instant comment, propelling the conversation
into a round of laughter while he kept a straight face. When Chris
awoke and arose he managed to arouse some amusement without the need
for Curt's rejoinder by merely standing there and displaying the
shape of his mohawk-like morning hair. In his more lucid moments,
Chris, sharp, but kind, was also a constant source of keen
observations, as was Dawn, for that matter. In the presence of this
wittily well-endowed company not a single event went without some
funny muttered remark.
We tried to restrain ourselves from
having too much fun until Yann had returned to the fold. We intended
to phone his motel and I wanted to sing again. We all began to search
our memories of Yes lyrics to find where Jon sings:
I'll be
there
to bring you
this love in the morning
I'll be there
to bring you the
stars at night
For some reason, none of us could
remember where to find these words. In the course of poring over
lyric sheets, a couple other ideas jumped out at me and I managed to
persuade the others instead to help me sing the a capella
introduction to "Rhythm of Love." We couldn't manage it on our own.
The plan was to cue up Trevor Rabin and his overdubs, then play kazoo
(Dawn always keeps a couple handy for just such occasions) and sing
in silly voices over the top of the noise and music. We were right in
the middle of rehearsing our first "oh's" and "ah's" and "bzzzzes"
when the phone rang. It was, of course, Yann, catching us all off
guard and without the recording cued to the beginning. Wendy held up
the phone and we just sang:
I'll be
there
to bring you
this love in the morning
I'll be there
to bring you the
stars at night
Wendy and I went to get Yann and
when we returned I offered to orchestrate the making of huevos
rancheros. We needed some ingredients, so a few of us went out again,
to the grocery store: Dawn, Wendy and I. A bunch of tortillas, hunks
of cheese, cilantro and a couple jalapeños later we were at
the check-out. When the cashier noticed the similar blonde tones to
all of our hairs and the air of geniality between us, he asked if we
were sisters. "Sisters in time," we told him. It was amazing to me
how automatically close I felt to these women and to the men in our
party alike. A mystic kinship was clear. I had suspected it would be
fun and comfortable to be in this crowd, but the speed and ease with
which we became a caring community was a happy surprise, further
reinforcing the already friendliness.
Back "home" I noticed an unsettling
segregation going on between the men and women. Why it should be that
the men get to chat or smoke or watch football or even music videos,
while the women slave away in the kitchen, has always been a bone of
contention with me in social gatherings. I actively sought out the
guys and ordered, um, invited, them into the kitchen to be part of
the wonderful, creative happening there. Chris grated cheese, Dawn
chopped veggies and Yann flipped the corn tortillas until they were
warm and soft. Wendy located all manner of utensils for us and Curt
offered to wash dishes afterwards. I conducted the symphony of eager,
helpful, culinary talents and had Chris tally orders for egg
specifications (five scrambled, 2 over-easy). Thanks to the willing
spirit of cooperation, in no time a whole tray piled with eggs, salsa
and grated cheese went under the broiler and it's savory aroma filled
the air.
Wendy took one portion to the
neighbor who'd donated an onion to the cause, and the rest of us
settled on the deck which Wendy had decorated the night before with
paper rainbow spheres, now twirling festively in the warm, bright
air. (The night before the Vigs had been concerned the decorations
might blow away in the in the sudden gust of frigid wind that
accompanied our arrival. Wendy had wished, you see, for cooler air to
condition our time together, and her petition to the powers that be
was so effective we had to don coats for the first time on the Trek.)
The slightly spicy repast was soon history. I was left satisfied, but
mostly from a feeling for the part I'd played in providing breakfast.
I was thankful for the selfless contributions of time offered by my
friends in a grand gesture of communion. I felt we'd stirred the soul
of togetherness, the giving thing within. Later the neighbor we'd fed
approached me at the van to say thank you and I assured her that the
pleasure was all mine.
The Curt and Wendy pets, Duke Dog
and Chooch Cat, seemed very at ease with the invasion of their
territory, so long as someone was willing to scratch their heads and
address them with silly pet talk. Dawn was the Mistress of this, fan
of flora and fauna that she is. She would become completely undone in
the presence of whichever pet, never ceasing to amuse us all, human,
canine and feline alike, with animated
pritty-kitty-witty-doggy-woggy-woofy-goofy outbursts.
Yann, Chris and I reclined to look
through the prototype of Wendy's poetry book, "Fountains of Gold."
The poet-author then showed me her latest painting. It was an image
of blue mountains that seemed the very portrayal of my sentiment
while driving in the Sierra Nevada the day before. Wendy GAVE me the
painting. They were *my* mountains, she said. Disbelieving as she
signed the back, "to merry, love wendy," I began to cry and then
hugged her. I walked in a dizzy spiral, down the hall, lovingly
holding out the painting at arms length, until I came to the mantle
where I set it up near Curt and Wendy's wedding kiss. The mountains
would vividly glow there for the remainder of my stay, until I was
ready to safely pack up the Wendywork and tenderly take it back home
to hang in my bedroom. Your talent and generosity are wonders to me,
Wendy -- thank you!
wendy
Wendy invited us to her friend's
gallery in Benicia where her paintings had been displayed. (Most were
now sold.) We had some time to kill before owner Steve Wanzell would
be there to show us around, so Wendy went online and let me read some
of her e-mail. Again it was fun to be occupying the space of another
Yesfan's computer-based creativity. I went outside to set up my
camera for a group shot on the Vigs' lawn and when we were ready to
roll I gathered the gang and got into a photo. I then suggested the
six of us do a pyramid and to my great delight, they were willing.
Unfortunately most of the participants forgot to look up when the
shutter opened, but the endeavor was documented, anyway. Nice goin',
guys. It was a privilege to host the party of us in my van and it
made me feel responsible for seeing to the good time vibe of all.
Chris toyed with the Kalimba. I played Vangelis' L' Apocalypse Des
Animaux, the cassette my Paulfriend had given me. We coasted through
coastal mountain scenery and I sighed at every bend and vista. "When
you live here and drive this drive often," I asked Wendy beside me,
"are you always aware of the incredible beauty?" She described for me
the way the rains came in the spring and turned the now-golden hills
bright green.
At the gallery we met Steve and
wandered around looking closely at things, allowing the intrigue over
each human/divine accomplishment to capture our eyes and play with
our ideas of beauty. Dawn bought a tiny painted box with a teeny pond
and cottage inside, a path that went over a hill, and a yellow full
moon inside the blue lid! I, too, was intrigued the work of the
artist, Rebecca Livingston, who used a motif in her paintings that
once had played a part in my own artistic expressions. It was the
image of two hearts merging, point first, so that they formed a
diamond where they overlapped. Mine also had wings. Over a decade ago
I had carved this motif in copper and used it to emboss wedding
invitations for my first marriage. I decided that I would send my
strange metal device to Rebecca, because she might find a use for it.
It would hold no regrets for her and in any case she would be
surprised!
We flipped through Steve's book of
photographs from his stint as a Hollywood make-up artist. Compelling
images of sleek, made-up women, smartly-dressed children and bloody,
bruised men made for an interesting variety of utterances as we
flipped through the pages. Steve offered water all around and once
refreshed we milled around the parking lot where Steve helped me set
up another group photo, my favorite of the balmy bunch of us.
curt, steve, yann, chris
dawn
merry, wendy
We stopped at Benicia City Park,
full of exotic trees (Dawn hugged one) and we arranged ourselves on
the lawn beside a California Redwood, to play Frisbee. Yann wandered
off, presumably to partake of smoke and partly, perhaps, to avoid my
pleas to learn to throw a Frisbee -- these were relentless. Yann?
It's easy if you remember: flat flip flies straight; tilted flip
curves. While Wendy and Dawn conversed at a picnic table, Curt, Chris
and I spun the disc and tried to impress one another with our moves.
Curt taught me his from-behind throw and I finally, after many failed
attempts, demonstrated a successful "arriving UFO" catch, bowing and
using my back as a landing pad. Yann eventually returned from his
wanderings and our play was interrupted by the clock. We had to get
back for a barbecued dinner date with Sandy and Darrel Boyd, a most
personable couple, half of which were or was a Yesfanatic the likes
of us or we. Sandy is a follower of the sound that abounds in the
Wake left behind by blur of the flying fingers of her precious
Rickey-poo. She and Wendy had met on the 'net. They found out they'd
been to the same Yes concert together and didn't know it, ABWH. It
was Sandy's very first Yes concert. She made a tape of the show for
Wendy, brought it up to Vacaville, and so began their history as
friends.
We returned to begin another evening
of music, libations and dinner conversations. Food was the first
order of business, one successfully conducted thanks to Wendy's and
Sandy's fearless womanly efforts in the kitchen and Curt's proficient
ability to remember to turn the chicken and have inordinate amounts
of musical fun at the same time. A clamorous parade of percussion
announced dinner and everything was sumptuous. We teetered at the
edge of the deck to see the planet Mercury, which would soon
disappear behind the neighbor's roof. The local folk must surely have
wondered while the celebratory sounds of singing and belching
emanated from the yard of the Vigs, who were normally more
conformingly quiet in their habits. The dogs next door had to have
fought off the urge to howl along with us during the course of the
evening.
Curt this night chose to wield his
acoustic guitar with the keen green patina on the strings. His memory
for chords and riffs was less rusty, though, and his fingertips were
more calloused than the rest of ours, Chris' being a close second.
Chris was completely thrilled to learn from him the chords to
"Würm" and he also practiced the bar chords I showed him for
"Your Move/All Good People" and he taught them to Curt. Whenever Curt
would strum something I knew lyrics to I would begin singing. We
would be suddenly performing together, which I found fun and the rest
politely tolerated, a couple brave souls even venturing to shake
percussion and sing along in inspired moments. David Bowie's "Rebel
Rebel" was a surprise to us both because I knew words he could never
figure out and he could play it all. Deep into the evening beneath
the clear night sky in which Wendy had delicately hung the big moon,
a couple planets and many shining stars, we all joined voices in a
singalong of "And You and I."
Sandy and Darrel were staying in the
same motel as Yann and conducted him there around the time our
tongues ceased to wag and eyelids began to close. Wendy and I stayed
up and steeped chamomile tea (from my box of fresh flowers) and
talked well into the wee hours.
my
merry tale ****
Day
8