The Garden

70 Days. 70 days that feel like 70 years. 70 days a fisherman’s Widow, a title unbefitting a 24 year-old. 70 days of gut-wrenching tears, unwanted change, rage, and depression. Seeking a few hours away, a few hours to forget, I step out of the building on Table Bluff.  Across the small field of grass, I see a stand of trees clumped together, like a group of gossiping church ladies after Sunday service.  Behind me I hear the hum of fifty chattering voices bustling about, preparing to share a common meal. The crisp ocean breeze stings my cheek and wisps my hair. The salty smell simultaneously consoles and depresses me, binding me to this sacred place.  The bright sun high overhead invites me from the shadow of the doorway. The distant lapping of ocean waves calls me to traverse the short jaunt from the cold, protective building to the mystery beyond the trees. Like a teenager hesitant to break into a new crowd, anxiety rises within me about the propriety of exploring this previously unknown territory. The warm sun and crashing waves win me over, not knowing that hallowed ground awaits me.            

 I had flown in from Arizona the day before, the end of a week-long trip spent with my Mother-in-Law; a trip that I planned especially around this Saturday event at Table Bluff's Lighthouse Ranch. The trip was as close to a disaster as I cared to encounter in those times. Poor visibility delayed the returning flight at San Francisco. Stuck there for more than five hours with a squirrely four-year-old boy and two-year-old girl, we barely slid into our beds before the day ended. The following morning, I rose early to welcome a sitter for the kids, only to learn from a message left on a voice machine that no sitter would be coming. Why… why…why? Shaking my fist at the dark clouds, the rage of grief was in full bloom. You know what I am going through! Why trial after trial? Envisioning large beds of cottonballs I cried, can You not just create a smooth, soft path for a season? This is the one thing I have wanted to do for weeks. After all You have taken from me, will You take this too? The roadblock did not impede my commitment to be there, even if I arrived late. So late I was.

A Coast Guard Station in its previous life, the Lighthouse Ranch, located on the western side of Loleta, California, was converted to a Christian Commune in the midst of the 1970’s Jesus Movement. Serving as the dorms, cafeteria, and kitchen, the one large, cinderblock building rests on a bluff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, antagonist of the North Coast fisherman, one second a friend, the next a foe.  The familiar cacophony of seagulls and multiple parked cars signal I am in the right place.  I park and enter the building. The flurry of activity and mouthwatering scents of an impending meal are sore reminders of what I have already missed: the morning session has ended.  After greeting a few familiar faces, I weave my way among tables to the back of the room, intent on surveying my new surroundings. Made of brick and stone, the structure was cold and uninviting. Outside, the rays of sun, that Humboldt County mistress, offer what the indoors fail to provide. Grateful, I oblige. 

Passing through the wall of trees, mere feet away stands a wooden cross.  White- cap waves and craggy cliffs provide a picturesque backdrop; not of the type that marks the grave of a soldier. More than a mere symbol of religion, the life-sized horizontal beams sit at eye level. Sacrificial love, peace, comfort, hope for the afterlife, the sight nearly takes my breath away as it stands in contrast to that awful, blue-green, roaring, over-sized pond of death. Sitting on an intentionally placed bench, I am overcome by the physical presence of my most recent friends turned enemies; the Pacific Ocean, provider of income and taker of life, and the Cross, life-giver and target of my most recent rampage. The words sting as I recall them. Like salt-water breaking over a levy, tears flow. Knees on the grassy knoll, mere inches from the base of that wooden mass of conviction, I double-down through hiccoughs and sobs, vocalizing my complaints. Dirt, grass, fresh air, sunlight, and water - all that a garden needs to bring a dead seed back to life - are present. No longer aware of the crashing waves and noisy birds, in that sanctuary-turned-garden, here, face to the ground, a still small voice whispers in my ear, “Have you forgotten that I love you?” 

            

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