Paris Charles De Gaul and Blueberry Pancakes

Sept 2nd
Though I think I return from new haven in time, I am frantically stuffing my bags at 8:15. The shuttle will pick me up at 8:30, I run outside to say goodbye in person to Michelle, then see Mark for a few minutes before the shuttle arrives. I figured I should not leave til later, but recommended travel time to JFK is 1.5 hours, and check in time is 2-3 hours, so—I am in the van and we are off—still feel I have too much stuff—not enough gifts for people, but I am recording their story, so—
The French serve bread with everything. On the plane there is a basket of bread brought out with every meal. First there is some strange shrimp and couscous thing, which is almost not terrible, but I don’t know who would eat shrimp on a plane. Breakfast however, is very nice—Pancakes or omelet? Pancakes or omelet? Because I hate pancakes, assuming they will be some horrible buttermilk stuff go for the omelet, but then I see they mean crepes, blueberry crepes!
I think of Koz, yes, pancakes for some reason make everyone happy! Why is that? Half of it must be the name. Pan-cakes. Pan- cakes. How the n rolls into the c, that soft into the hard. And its blueberry pancakes. I hold this up as one of the most beautiful words in the English language—next to "cellardoor". Cellardoor: Blueberry Pancakes.BlueberryPancakes. It sounds like an album, like "Tubular Bells". It feels good to say. I can almost taste them.

Sierra Quest with Dave Talamo

Standing with Dave Talamo breathing in the rolling stream below, the crisp air makes my vision shudder; this is NATURE, both absolute and receptive in it's ISness. And this is Dave's gift to this story as it unfolds: that everyone along the path has a gift, a magic potion, viewpoint, perspective, value, or standard that clears a way, that gives life and meaning to the path. Dave's gift is a deep care and respect for this natural world within which we stand and breathe.

Dave's emphatic wonder with these grand trees creating their own thin bed of soil upon this impenetrable rolling thunder of pure granite mountain and the dipping flight of little russet-brown birds is not just youthful joy. It is a wonder that he has cultivated into a knowledge, respect, and honor of the natural world. He is both a pilgrim here, and a part of the landscape. Watching and listening to him is a window into the most basic form of human alchemy: wonder, tempered by experience into knowledge, transforms itself into a respect and honor for this observed, experienced otherness. I wonder if in this deepening of the relationship of wonder, the observer becomes both a part of the wondering, and a witness to it?