Shortly after my Arrival in San Francisco yesterday morning, my daughter,
Helen, drove us up the California coast.
She opted for Highway 1. Highway
1 attempts, best as it can, to follow along the rugged coastline. This makes for a narrow and winding way.
We overnighted at Timber Cove Resorts. Our rooms perch atop a windswept point overlooking
the ocean. The sea water below is
constantly convulsing against the rocky coast.
Last night, we watched the sun fall into the Pacific and then ate
a light dinner in the resort lounge. On
the table next to us, some other guests had recently completed a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle is a community project left in the
lounge for perpetuity.
“I think I am going to tear that apart,” Helen remarked while
looking over at the puzzle.
“Okay,” I said.
Helen ordered a couple cocktails and then the two of us went to
work busting apart the puzzle. Following
that, we sorted out the edge pieces and began to rebuild the frame of the
puzzle we’d just dismantled. Something
akin to Sisyphus in Hades—rolling his huge rock up the hill only to have it escape
him and roll back down every single time he reaches the top, forcing him to
start over again.
Light in the dining room dimmed considerably as the sunlight faded
into Wedgewood and then black sky.
Before long, Helen had her smartphone propped against her cocktail with
the flashlight switched on so she could better distinguish colors on the puzzle
pieces. There seems a certain oddity in
that…using a device at the cutting edge of technology for the simple purpose of
providing light once provided by a candle flame.
—Mitchell Hegman
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