TheTraveler

 

Self Absorbed in Olema -
45 years and one day...
By Thomas Schueneman

November 9 - Olema, California

Stuffed, sated, round-tummied, we shuffle through the lively dining room, full of happy, engaged diners, out onto the moonlit porch of the Olema Inn, one of the original 19th century structures in this tiny hamlet nestled in the wooded hills of west Marin county. Across the road from the Inn stands a row of tall pines, just beyond the tress open grassland rises into gently rolling hills.

Standing at the edge of the grassland, just beyond the trees, we look eastward toward the night sky to pay homage to the full moon rising. One should never tire of seeing the full moon rise up into the night sky full mystery and things just barely seen..

The moon just does things to people.

In fact, the evening previous, the moon and heavens herald the anniversary of my arrival on this mortal plane, almost to the exact time of day. 5:36 PM to be precise. Though I do not personally remember any of it, I have a reliable source. A total eclipse of the full moon is a sign from the heavens of powerful changes ahead; it is a sign from the Universe!

That I can puff myself up enough to entertain such notions - that the occasion of my birthday and the display of the natural occurrence of a full moon in eclipse could possibly bear any influence on one another is remarkable in its self-absorption.

"But why not?"

I ponder this, standing mesmerized at the edge of the clearing, looking eastward toward the rising hills beyond, radiating wispy veils of light, as if independent of both earth and sky...

"Why not?"

All things actually do influence all other things, if you want to get technical about it, even if that influence is unfathomably small.

People look at a full moon and perceive many different things; the reality of the perceived is in the mind of the perceiver. So why not if I want to believe the heavens are sending a personally delivered sign. "Happy Birthday! Big Things Ahead, My Friend!" Of course, if one has not yet died, there will always be big things ahead, but that doesn't matter; when the sky talks, you should listen.

That's just my perception of reality bouncing back and forth through the empty places in my brain, heading back "across town". Down the road a short way to the darkened little corner of Olema occupied by the "Acorn Cottage", adjacent to the main house, whimsically known as "An English Oak", a stately wood frame country manor house turned Bed and Breakfast.

The five minute walk through the hamlet ended with a last stretch along the grassy shoulder of Highway One. Just beyond the glare of Olema, the rising moon obscured by terrain, the road is dark with a blackness of night that is rare in the heart of the Emerald City of San Francisco. My mind is all jumbled with thoughts of birthdays and mortality, full moons and lunar eclipses.

The chill night air is suddenly stabbed with harsh, beaming probes of light. The headlights of an oncoming car casts the foreground in front us in sharp, angular patterns of moving shadow and light. Rolling, twisting, growing - the phantoms of light are hastened by the relentless glare of the oncoming headlight.

Then whoosh,

The car rushes by and the phantoms are gone, all is left in darkness.

A few steps further and a dark shapes take form, set against the velvet-black universe surrounding it, finally resolving into the dark silhouette of An English Oak.

A shiver runs up my spine.

One imagines that old mysterious house of childhood movies. A house that knows the secrets of generations, of long forgotten mysteries to be solved, of lives lived and died.

A mystery house.

The proprietor of An English Oak is not one to miss a marketing opportunity, actually promoting "Murder Mystery Weekends". The kind of thing where folks arrive dressed in period costume, briefed and prepared to play act a part in some sort of silly game of whodunit; helping to solve - or be accused of - a heinous murder. Also billed as a "team building" tool, it's the sort of thing that just sets my introverted sensibilities on edge.

The kind of thing that Jayne and I would never be caught dead doing...

An owl hoots as we pass through the gates onto An English Oak, otherwise the night is still. No murder mysteries this chilly evening.

Opening the door to Acorn Cottage, the only thoughts of mystery are of full moons and why it is that I should be so lucky to be right here, right now, enjoying this crisp autumn night with the one that I love. Then it finally hits me, in my self-absorbed haze; the moon was right all along - great things have already happened.

Tom Schueneman - a.k.a.The Traveler

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