Late Sunday evening in Palm Beach Gardens...
Tomorrow, we turn around this jet plane and head to JFK to exit the US after 3+ precious weeks with friends and family. We've had sweet reunions and visits in New York, Boulder, Colorado, Deep Springs College, Portland, Oregon and now with Mom and Claudia in Southern Florida.
Yet, all good things must pass, as George Harrison sang... which reminds me that his exquisite, soulful song, 'My Sweet Lord', came on the radio as we were heading into the final lap of darkness just approaching Deep Springs College (DSC) about 9 pm after driving five hours straight from Reno along the magnificent Eastern Sierra to celebrate Ezi's 19th birthday the next day, June 28th, with two bottles of champagne, two birthday cakes and one cow card from Carson City.
Another precious memory from this joyful, event-filled three+ weeks in America.
That interlude, the DSC saga, was Shakun and Leah's first opportunity to see the ranch college where Ezi will spend two years of his impressionable young life. We had three nights there in the guest room off the main admin building. Two full days of wandering the DSC oasis, driving down to the salt lake a few miles off the ranch, watching Ez and some students prepare for a day's branding of the calves, strolling up to the reservoir amid the boulders overlooking the ranch for an afternoon swim, eating meals w/ the students, hearing of their lives and studies, with much of the food grown or butchered by the students themselves, having a glass of wine w/ the president and a MacArthur Fellow professor of anthropology, driving up to Bristlecone National Forest at 10,000' in the White Mountains overlooking the DSC valley with the oldest (3,200 years) trees in the world...
Tucked perfectly b/n Devi's June wedding near Denver and Iris' July bat mitzvah in Portland, those few days at DSC were one of the many highlights of this 2011 family vacation to America. Since DSC has a tradition of keeping the graduation for the students themselves, this was the chance to be together at a school which will surely define Ezi's college education in America. A seriously unusual place on the edge of the world. An academic monastery or intellectual ranch, however one wants to put a thumbnail on it, DSC is a remarkable institution that has lasted since 1917 managed by the students themselves with committed professors and an infrastructure of adult supervision based on a firm moral standard, self-reliance, hard work and a vision of independence that can teach us all a lesson or two in life.
Whereas Devi's wedding, the weekend earlier, was an exquisite validation of the even older and hard-earned institution of marriage. Two young souls committing their abiding love in public in state park surrounded by their admiring family and friends. A chance, as well, for me to toast my dearest friend Scott and his wonderful Leiper family who have offered me so much over the decades, not to mention made their own deep-seated family commitment to bringing the best of America to the world outside for four generations. A chance, too, to reunite with Scott and Sochua's beautiful family, Devi, Thida and Malika -- three lovely, impressive, sophisticated young women with their own form of noble ambition, maturity and aesthetic to grace the world.
All of us sitted around Dan Glick's kitchen table near Boulder for five days+ sharing stories, drinking a delicious California rose, catching up on the missing years, laughing, cooking, eating, cleaning, telling stories and walking the flaxen fields in the back that seemed to stretch all the way from the Mississippi to the Rockies. Dan and I hadn't been together since our epic Mustang Chortenistan trek in the summer of 2005 to celebrate the near-end of my Save the Children years. Devi's wedding gave us the opportunity to bring his, Scott's and my worlds together for a rare week-long celebration. With Leslie, Dan's warm, smart, lovely girlfriend, his handsome, world-wise, soccer playing son Kolya and those gentle, good-hearted, compassionate souls, Davis and Catherine in from Oakland with us, that week brought us all even closer together and reunited our adventuresome spirits for the new decade ahead.
Afterwards, Shakun, Leah and I took the 24 hour California Zephyr train from Denver to Reno -- only seven hours delayed in Amtrak time, but a gracious, relaxing way to traverse Colorado, Utah and Nevada with meals ready in the dining car and plenty of time to read and watch the vast American countryside pass outside our window.
From Reno, we had our long day's journey into night to find Ezra's world out on the California-Nevada border. Then, after those 2+ days at DSC, we enjoyed a full day in Yosemite National park on our drive back to Reno. After lunch at a diner where we met a Sherpa from Taplejung cooking our burgers, we took a side trip to June Lake. One 'shuff' of a waterfall coming off those Eastern Sierra and we decided to change our plans and head into Yosemite for the night rather than continue up to Tahoe. Whoosh!!
Tuolomne Meadows was full of snow with swollen rivulets overflowing and as much ice in some of the lakes as if the glaciers had just recently receded. We took a late afternoon stroll amid the meadows with the deer and the granite glistening before the long ride down to the valley floor. There, in g-d's country, Bridelveil and Yosemite Falls were awe-inspiring! There was so much mist coming off those falls, rushing ponderous with the heavy melted snow of winter, that it seemed like rain as we walked closer. A sighting of a bear near the road created a small traffic jam before we finally went looking for a place to stay at the height of the summer season. Fortunately, the nature g-ds were with us, so when the plush and overdone Awanhee Hotel reminded us that they are booked a year in advance, a Curry cabin for four with an attached bath opened just for us as I called. Definitely much more accomodating and attractive than proverbial Jonah's whale, we accepted immediately, then went off for avocado burgers and margaritas in Curry Village before calling it a very good night (and day...).
Portland, OR: as they say, 'where young people go to retire...' has been a generous and gracious host to the Leslie-chans for many years now. Settled originally by our dearest friends, Dave and Lisa Ellenberg, of Brown, DC, Istanbul, Kathmandu, Tokyo, Berkeley and many famous compass points in between, many other Kathmandu-ites have come since to this verdant land.
Once we realized that Scott's daughter Devi was getting married near Boulder just a week before Iris, Dave n Lisa's daughter, was being bat mitzvahed in Portland, it was nearly impossible to resist making these events the center-piece of our summer vacation. Wise, indeed -- especially for someone who has missed so many family and friends' events due to the undeniable distance of Kathmandu from the rest of the known universe (especially the Western half of that universe...).
As much as Devi's wedding was for the immediate family and Devi and Derek's friends, Iris' bat mitzvah was a veritable tableau of Dave and Lisa's friends from around the globe. Of course, the Leslie-chans from Kathmandu and Scott from Phnom Penh broadened the horizons, but the best part was truly the depth and breadth of these friendships that have lasted for three+ decades from high school, college and our 1970s travels around the world.
Although it was a short July 4th w/end, as many had to return to their homes on Sunday, for a reunion of much loved distant friends, this had to be one of the most affectionate gathering in a long time (at least a among us...). Eduardo and Helena from San Rafael, Jeffoi and Maggie from Maine, Steve and Betty from Oakland, Seth and Vicki from Berkeley, Allen and his wife from Seattle, Randy and Cynda from LA with Davis and Catherine, Scott and us regrouping from Boulder, along with many wonderful, warm-hearted local friends of Dave and Lisa's among us (or us among them...).
In so many ways, Scott and Dave are the Alpha and Omega of my own life, two exceptional, lifelong friends from our madcap yet stimulating college years who have helped guide, teach and protect me during my own route through the wadis, passes and peaks of life. I owe them both huge debts of trust and kindness over the years. Their friendship, their devotion, their love and generosity of spirit have been gracious companions over the past forty years... from 1972 to 2011... our lives have been intertwined, our wives have become friends, our children have grown up playing and caring for each other, our broader families have known each other, our homes have been a refuge from the storms full of laughter, food and joy since we have nestled separately in Cambodia, Oregon and Nepal while never being that far apart from each other.
Since meeting, we have never really parted...
Such, I guess, is the purpose and, in truth, life's deeper meaning for these secular and sacred events, the chance and meaning for old friends and family to gather, hug each other, share their lives, promise to see each other again soon, plan new occasions to reunite, wistfully remember past stories and adventures, take plenty of photos, meet each other's children who have become tender youth or near-adults, tell affectionately of our parents and siblings, tease each other on the years passed and passing, and think thoughtfully of the years to come...
Et voila, poof, it all disappears so quickly, so remorselessly, more tender mercies and memories added to the piles of joys and affections that make our lives and lighten our days...
Til we call the taxi in the morning to throw the bags in back, say, once again, "airport!" to whisk ourselves into the future of our own creation.
Last stop: Palm Beach Gardens, time with Mom, Claudia and Baxter ("bark twice if you're in Florida!")... the joys of family embrace that last a lifetime... or more... generations, actually... in this case three generations...
To be continued...
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