Eight thirty at this time of year brings in the blue light of evening and all the birds quiet their songs and go to bed. The heat of my fire seeps into knots held deep within the wood and a sharp crackle rings out into the night air. It is just me, for I have found no need for companionship here where the mountains meet the sea.
Today, I sat high on a bluff and gazed into the churning of the azure blue water beyond the Pacific Coast Highway. There was a steady interplay of clouds and sun, and each new shift in light revealed a new side of Big Sur. A redwood creek soaking in staggered light; southern sea otters floating in lofty swells, anchored to mats of giant kelp; verdant hills of chaparral and wildflowers bathed in drifting fog.
Big Sur. This is where Henry Miller derived the inspiration to slice through conventional 20th century America and forever redefine literature. This is what drove him to first utter the word "Amen." Its divinity stems from an unseen touch of God - the touch that cloaked these ridges, valleys and cliffs in austere beauty - a beauty that strums the chord of life in every beholder.
Every moment that passes I have to remind myself that I am in Big Sur. I seek out each moment, each trail, each tide pool that this place can offer the wanderer in two days. Two days. Just two days! How can I ever run its course in two days? I suppose I can't. But what I can do is take this moment to realize I am in the heart of something magnificent. Something on the scale of profound art, where each run, patch, and sinew dances in its own peculiar way; where each object speaks the world of what surrounds it.
