(no subject)
As many of you know, I do not have internet connection home. Consequently, all my electronic-communication is done during my day job. What does this say about my day job? This says that I don't have much of a job to do during the day. I'm left alone for hours at a time, left to fight the urge to get up and leave, left to (lately) address Christmas cards. Thousands of Christmas cards.
I remember living in Chino after a return from Washington Square Park with my tail between my legs. My Aunt Martha had lined up a temporary receptionist position for me in Claremont, at an accountant's office. I was left to my own devices there too, but there I had such a view. I worked on the third floor of an office building on Foothill Boulevard and looked out over a parking lot and the thoroughfare. You may be wondering what sort of view I could have possibly had - being in a suburb of the Inland Empire/Los Angeles, and overlooking a busy street. I had a spectacular view.
The building I worked in was separated from the street by its parking lot and that parking lot was full of willow trees interspersed between the rows. Looking out my wall of window, to my left was a hotel and restaurant, covered not only by the shade of more willows, but also with vines and trellises. To my right I saw only cypress, oak, jacaranda and willow and between the leaves the red tile of roofs. Across from my building was a residential neighborhood and an empty lot. I worked at this office beginning in late summer and running through perhaps February, if I'm remembering correctly. The winter and the Christmas season really took on a new face for me thanks to how that neighborhood unfolded under my watch.
The first thing I noticed, naturally, was the sooner sunset. During the summer months I would drive the 20 minutes home in lovely and strong afternoon sunlight (affected as always by the haze of big city pollution). As November began, the sky became darker and less pronounced as I made my way home. I'd read many an essay about the particular light that comes with that part of the country and I'd never been certain of what they were talking about until I spent my time in Claremont during the end of that year. It's difficult to picture if you've never noticed or experienced it, but I knew something was special from the first early winter sun ray. It's thicker, more golden, and it bathes the streets and sidewalks in this sultry, confident glow. Someone, I think it may have been John Gregory Dunne, asserted it is the smog in the air that diffuses the light rays into countless streams that consequently soften the things they illuminate. Personally, I think it's the proximity to the ocean that gives the sunlight its distinctive hue. At any rate, I came to look forward solely to the end of the afternoon and solely for how the city would look in that hour or so. I remember specifically thinking how lovely, how thick, how colorful the afternoon was and writing about that light in the many poems I pounded out on the accountant's typewriter.
And then Christmas began to come around. First, the hotel next door wound hundreds (thousands?) of tiny white lights around the red tile roof, the willows' branches and the many trellises that graced the property. Then, across the street on the empty lot, they started selling Christmas trees. This was a joy to behold not just because I'm a fan of the Christmas tree, but because they chose to illuminate the lot with large, regular light bulb size lights. They were strung from corner to corner in a perfect rectangle and then came from each corner and the middle of each straight line to the middle of the lot - creating a roof of unabashed light. I was enamored. I still am. Gradually the houses that faced my building were clothed in more Christmas lights and Nativity scenes and snowmen and other Christmas paraphernalia, as were the other businesses along my route home and I came to find a true, peaceful, this-is-where-I-was-meant-to-live-and-die realization.
That feeling has morphed over the years, it's expanded, but I still savor the memory of that first Christmas I spent in that accountant's office on the third floor in Claremont. What a wonderful gift to be given - the simple pleasure of the physical beauty of your current location. My boss is back in the office, so I must say goodbye to both my revelry and my break and return to looking up addresses. However, you know what I will be thinking about. Here's to the hope that your holiday (and mine) will be filled with just that sort of glow.
I remember living in Chino after a return from Washington Square Park with my tail between my legs. My Aunt Martha had lined up a temporary receptionist position for me in Claremont, at an accountant's office. I was left to my own devices there too, but there I had such a view. I worked on the third floor of an office building on Foothill Boulevard and looked out over a parking lot and the thoroughfare. You may be wondering what sort of view I could have possibly had - being in a suburb of the Inland Empire/Los Angeles, and overlooking a busy street. I had a spectacular view.
The building I worked in was separated from the street by its parking lot and that parking lot was full of willow trees interspersed between the rows. Looking out my wall of window, to my left was a hotel and restaurant, covered not only by the shade of more willows, but also with vines and trellises. To my right I saw only cypress, oak, jacaranda and willow and between the leaves the red tile of roofs. Across from my building was a residential neighborhood and an empty lot. I worked at this office beginning in late summer and running through perhaps February, if I'm remembering correctly. The winter and the Christmas season really took on a new face for me thanks to how that neighborhood unfolded under my watch.
The first thing I noticed, naturally, was the sooner sunset. During the summer months I would drive the 20 minutes home in lovely and strong afternoon sunlight (affected as always by the haze of big city pollution). As November began, the sky became darker and less pronounced as I made my way home. I'd read many an essay about the particular light that comes with that part of the country and I'd never been certain of what they were talking about until I spent my time in Claremont during the end of that year. It's difficult to picture if you've never noticed or experienced it, but I knew something was special from the first early winter sun ray. It's thicker, more golden, and it bathes the streets and sidewalks in this sultry, confident glow. Someone, I think it may have been John Gregory Dunne, asserted it is the smog in the air that diffuses the light rays into countless streams that consequently soften the things they illuminate. Personally, I think it's the proximity to the ocean that gives the sunlight its distinctive hue. At any rate, I came to look forward solely to the end of the afternoon and solely for how the city would look in that hour or so. I remember specifically thinking how lovely, how thick, how colorful the afternoon was and writing about that light in the many poems I pounded out on the accountant's typewriter.
And then Christmas began to come around. First, the hotel next door wound hundreds (thousands?) of tiny white lights around the red tile roof, the willows' branches and the many trellises that graced the property. Then, across the street on the empty lot, they started selling Christmas trees. This was a joy to behold not just because I'm a fan of the Christmas tree, but because they chose to illuminate the lot with large, regular light bulb size lights. They were strung from corner to corner in a perfect rectangle and then came from each corner and the middle of each straight line to the middle of the lot - creating a roof of unabashed light. I was enamored. I still am. Gradually the houses that faced my building were clothed in more Christmas lights and Nativity scenes and snowmen and other Christmas paraphernalia, as were the other businesses along my route home and I came to find a true, peaceful, this-is-where-I-was-meant-to-live-and-die realization.
That feeling has morphed over the years, it's expanded, but I still savor the memory of that first Christmas I spent in that accountant's office on the third floor in Claremont. What a wonderful gift to be given - the simple pleasure of the physical beauty of your current location. My boss is back in the office, so I must say goodbye to both my revelry and my break and return to looking up addresses. However, you know what I will be thinking about. Here's to the hope that your holiday (and mine) will be filled with just that sort of glow.