Into the Mystic

I have always loved Van Morrison's 1970's song "Into the Mystic."

One time not too long ago, I heard the song on the radio on my drive up to Napa. As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed it; and as my parents and I leaned over burdened vines picking grapes for winemaking, I flippantly mentioned my love of the song. In fact, I added something way too serious, like: "if I were to die before you guys, I'd want it played at my 'ceremony.'" My dad's reaction: a hearty one-chuckle, shoulder-raising laugh to himself with his back hunched over some grapes. My mom's reaction: "Well then, I guess I better figure out what song that is."

Maybe the song resonates with me simply because it was created in the era in which I was born. More likely, it resonates because I've lived in places for which the lifelines of people and industry - at some point at least - depended upon local waterways. And when you live and breathe that kind of history, and you sail those kinds of waters, it simply seeps into your soul.

For my first 19 years, I lived exactly the same distance from the Pacific Ocean as I did from San Francisco Bay. My high school years were splattered with frequent visits to the ocean, in all kinds of weather, and for all kinds of reasons. Soccer training runs on the wet sand (stamina and strength building). BBQ's (stamina and strength building). First dates (stamina and strength building). Prom after-parties (stamina and strength - well, you get the picture). Ha ha ha! OK, I'm kidding about some of that. Nevertheless, who the hell could complain? I digress... Onto more mature revelations....

There is a taste there, at the ocean, and at other waterways. There is a smell. A feel. And for those like me, there is something centralizingly home-like. It's risk, liberty and calm all in one. It's like a secondary heartbeat. Or it's your circadian rhythm. It's. Just. There. You cannot ignore it. It draws you in. You absolutely transform with the presence of The Water.

I remember the hot August night where the sand illuminated green with every phosphorescent step of our feet, or maybe it lingered in the hope of a virgin kiss. I remember the horrible night when we all decided that, in our grand, huge 17 years of Life Experience and our 1 short year (uh, cumulative) of driving experience, it was a great idea! to drive up Highway 1 (reference: the crookedest, cliff-hanging-est, crazy-ass-iest death-highway EVER, peering over 300-foot drops to rock cliff ocean deaths...) to camp under the ocean cliffs while cozying up around bonfires at Drake's Beach... Only to be ushered fervently to the parking lot (and into our cars' back seats) by the super-high tides, fog, and bitter bitter cold. Ah, those blissful nights full of nature's education! Don't get too comfortable, because, you might get too comfortable.

Then I moved to the suffocatingly landlocked state of Colorado for university. Every chance I got, I went to lakes and glaciers. Forget snow and skiing. The warm stillness of a pontoon boat on Horsetooth Lake (with multiple kegs - stamina and strenght build- oh you know my drill...), and the cold aqua fury of a glacier in Estes Park... Both brought the same revitalizing energy. Oh, how I loved the seasons in Colorado.

Then, to the Seine. My little countryside town in Normandy hugged The Seine on both sides. Though it may have been an ugly industrial town to some, for me the concrete walls hugging the river were a breath of fresh air. It was one of the few places I could go, before mastering French, where I really felt at home. Later I figured out the people; amiable at worst, and really agreable at best were my relationships with the locals. I had some Irish friends from the only local Irish pub, and a French boyfriend who has the best fake American accent I had ever heard (and to this day the tightest buns I have ever known; woops, digressing again). I went back often, to my dirty cargo-embedded Siene river, where I would peacefully smoke disgustingly Red Marlboro Reds while my listless hair moved in time with the under-current of the river. And as I walked home, past the spot where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, I also crossed the stone-paved square where Picasso studied sunlight on the city's church spires. I would feel complete and disappear in the bliss of history. And then I'd negotiate a decent price for broccoli to have with dinner that night, from the open-air market where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and I'd forget absolutely every sense of calm derived from the past hour.

Almost a decade now since The Seine, and since then I've been in San Francisco. I don't know when I first heard Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic." But I've been back here for that long and never before, although I have always felt connected to the song, have I felt as connected to "Into the Mystic" as I do now.

I moved recently, as you [2 readers] know, from the historically historic land of psychodellia in the Haight-Ashbury (think Summer Love of '69 - uh, some of those guys are still there, by the way - I'll be happy to introduce you if you visit) to The Marina. Correction: The. Marina. Epitome of Pretention. Home of Tony Ridiculousness and Un-Necessary Fanfare About Your Little Annoying Dog. And Also Your Anorexia and Your Stupid Platinum Hair. But wait, I'm eventually trying to bring y'all back around to a song, right? OK.

OK, so. Here I am. Yes, me, Gertie,sitting in my semi-more-luxe-but-smaller-and-equally
-expensive pad in The Marina. And for hours now, and not just now, but for hours and hours that total up to days since I moved here... I hear foghorns. My new place is literally 2 faint blocks from the rocky reef of San Francisco Bay. If you do not live near a lighthouse, or a foghorn, or if you have not grown up a water-baby like myself, you cannot possibly ascertain the comfort of the foghorns. They are long, easy, deep quotation marks into the black sky, and the gentle blows envelop you like a down comforter on a cold night. Just like your sleeping bag when you were 17, in the back of your '84 Jetta, which was burrowing against the salty cold air at Drake's Beach while you huddled in the backseat, and both of you were cursing the high tide and the whipping wet wind. And then, back in the mesmorizing calm of the foghorn, in that slow and constant warning of caution which is always the same in tempo and urgence, you can close your eyes, knowing that no one, no one who hears it tonight, will perish on the rocks.

Tags:

• life
• music
• ports
• foghorns
• calm
• sfbay
• childhood
• water