One summer my friend Kirk came out to visit. We grew up together and had maintained our friendship despite living on opposite coasts. For years we had talked of taking a trip together, finally the opportunity came, and Kirk flew out west. The night that he arrived we took out maps, talked about sites to see in San Francisco, and read guide books about the California coast. As we talked he soon noticed I was distant and uninterested.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“I don’t know. I'm bored. I’m tired. I actually don’t care what we do.” Kirk looked at me a moment then shrugged his shoulders, “Alright, no plan. Tomorrow we drive.” The next morning we loaded the car, “Let’s head north, back toward the Siskiyous,” Kirk said, referring to the mountains where we grew up. I had no opinion.
I drove as Kirk took out a CD, “Listen to this,” he instructed. He put in the Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan and the Band working with ancient American folk tunes. He rolled down the windows and turned up the music. “Listen to this stuff…murderers, lovers, hobos, moonshiners, drug addicts…they’re singing about America. The one we live in but don’t talk about.”
I listened as we drove across the dry farm fields of the Central Valley. The day was heating up, we rolled the windows down. “We need beer and tacos,” Kirk announced and then directed me to a stand he knew just outside of U.C. Davis. There were coyotes painted on the windows with students, homeless men, and suburban mom’s standing in line. “Go get some of that salsa,” he told me. “The orange stuff.” I did as I was told, found a table and sat down. Kirk returned with grilled shrimp, carnitas, and a plate of corn tortillas. “I’m going to get beer. You want one?”
“I’m driving.”
“So what, we’ll wait it out. This is medicine.”
Kirk returned and stuffed sliced limes down the golden bottle necks. “Try the habeneros. They’re hot as hell. You know that peppers release oxcitosin in your brain? It’s the same thing as runner’s high. Here get some more of this on you shrimp, but don’t touch it or you’ll burn your fingers.” He smiled and drank half his beer in one lift. I ate and drank mechanically, my mind empty, my mouth burning. We went out and dozed beside a patio table, our faces toward the sun, then headed north into the mountains.
Kirk lowered the window to breath the air steamed with pine sap, forest loam, and lake algea, “Listen to this music!” The vocals muffled, the microphone far from Dylan’s mouth. The drums heavy and slow. “You hear that tempo!” Kirk yelled to the trees, the passing cars, over the motor, over the radio and the air brakes, “That’s hump tempo, brother. Hump tempo!”
We saw signs to the Trinity wilderness, “Turn here.” Kirk pointed. We left the interstate and took the highway along the Salmon river. The mountains were steep and soon the sun was buried by the trees, leaving the sky propane blue. We wound along the river until a yellow bulb appeared, screwed to a wooden sign that read “Carl’s Fishing Cabin’s.” We woke the manager and paid for a night stay.
“Any place we can get some food?” I asked.
“Nope,” the manager said, half-turned toward bed. “I got a bag of pretzels.”
We paid two bucks for the pretzels, and Kirk found an orange in his back pack and quartered it. We set kitchen chairs in a clearing behind the cabins and looked up at the moonless night.
“I’m going to read something to you. Wait here. Kirk went indoors and came out with a night table. He rummaged inside then returned with a handful of candlesticks which he placed in a series of coffee cups and juice glasses. He lit the tilting candles, pulled a chair into their glow and opened a book. “This is Whitman. Now listen. Just feel the rhythm of this thing.”
We had no food for dinner, no plan for the next day, no television, or cell phone connection for distraction, so I sat outside and watched the stars spin and listened to Whitman mourn:
Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with the voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer,
I listened to Whitman’s song, felt his grief rhythms, breathed the warm night scent of the cedars and pines, pulled a blanket up to my neck, and quietly fell asleep.
The next morning we discovered the manager rented inflatable kayaks. We put on shorts and suntan lotion. We found two smashed peanut-butter granola bars in the trunk for breakfast. We filled water bottles, rented boats, life jackets, and paddles and had the manager shuttle us up river.
The day was bright and the river refreshingly cool and white. For the morning hours we stayed quiet, each of us navigating the rapids beneath the August sun, but towards the early afternoon the river skirt spread wide and heavy and eventually we found our kayaks spinning gently in an eddy shaded by young willow trees. Our skin burned red, our bodies tired from paddling, our stomachs empty, we each lay back in our kayaks and fell asleep. It was a half hour, maybe longer, before we rose and paddled the final half-mile to the fishing cabins while Kirk gave me his thoughts, "Buddhism is ancient psychology. They got a system to freedom. All we got is stories. Abraham trying to kill his son. Noah drunk and naked, sleeping with his daughters. That woman who puts a tent stake through a guys head. You see? We're just stories you and me. That's all we got." We pulled our kayaks up the river bank, returned them to the manager, and headed out on the highway mad with hunger.
As we drove out I remembered a restaurant my sister had once worked at. It was run by an Italian, a woman named Madelena from the island of Sardinia. The story was that Madelena was a celebrated five star chef in San Francisco. She married a wealthy, retired stockbroker and they built a vacation home up in Dunsmuir, a poor mountain town along the headwaters of the Sacramento River. After a couple of years, the marriage ended and Madelena kept the house in Dunsmuir, bought the abandoned train depot in town and turned it into a restaurant. From September through May she served dinner two nights a week, Friday and Saturday.
“That’s where we’re going.” Kirk announced. Once we got in cell range I called information and they put me through to Madelena’s. “We have one table at 9:00pm.”
“We’ll take it.” I told them.
We drove north, into the winding Siskiyous and came into Dunsmuir around 8 pm. We found the small depot and waited outside. The building was freshly painted--yellow marigold with blood red trim. Alongside the building was a large herb garden that smelled of marjoram and rosemary. We waited hungry and dehydrated. Finally our hour came and we took our seats. Madelena cooked in the middle of the room, surrounded by a wooden counter-top that came just below her shoulders. She wore a white summer dress with a white apron, her black hair pulled back with a bright red bandana. She was in her mid-50’s, and was startlingly beautiful, like a middle-aged Sofia Loren, dark hair, her eyes large and fierce, her skin browned by the sun. She worked confidently among the fry pans, and steaming pots, barking quick orders to her sue chef. She served the food on white plates then slammed her hand on the counter, causing the wait staff to leave their tasks to deliver the food fresh from the fire.
We were the last to be seated and as we perused the menu the restaurant began to empty out. The sight and smell of food made me delirious and I found myself breaking out in lust as I read descriptions of sliced tomatoes, avocadoes, salmon and swordfish. We made our selections, ordered a bottle of Chianti and waited. The appetizers arrived first. Two tender half moons of avocado filled with tiny squares of mozzarella, dressed in basil leaves, sliced cherry tomatoes, spring green chunks of avocado, all dressed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was exquisite. Soft and rich, the food melted in our mouths. I looked at Kirk and watched his eyes fill with tears. The waiter brought warm slices of pugliese, little plates of Sicilian olives covered in light green oil and sea salt. We dipped the warm crusted bread, ate the dark olives and drank our Chianti and began to laugh with a childlike pleasure at the taste of good food, the pleasure of hunger answered.
The salads arrived, crisp palms of endive covered in paper ribbons of parmesan cheese. Then plates of fresh green beans, crisp and sugary, pan-fired with toasted walnuts. Slowly, sacramentaly, we ate the green beans, now both of us silent, wiping tears from our faces. The smoky walnuts, the sweet green stems, it was like eating summer itself.
Then came the main course. Halibut grilled, covered in toasted fennel seeds. ribeye steak cooked in green peppercorns and olive oil. Warm summer vegetables, crook neck and zucchini. I remember my first taste of the fish she had prepared. It was like eating God, eating love, it was like tasting food for the first time. Through tears I said to my friend, “This is communion! No one can eat this and not feel one with God.”
The restaurant almost empty, emboldened by the wine, we began to cry out, “Madelana we worship you!” “Madelena, you are breaking our hearts!” “Madelena, you must come home with us!” We motherless men ate and drank and called to Madelena, our cook, our lover, our mother, the divine feminine incarnate. But Madelena, not unaware of her powers and the effect they had on men, ignored our cries of praise. She did not acknowledge us, nor the three or four men who lingered at her counter. Instead she stayed busy at her art, her large eyes attentive to her handiwork, her red lips even, without expression.
We ate and laughed and cried and shared our plates until Kirk pushed himself back from the table, and looked at me. I returned his smile, my senses awake, my heart alive, my head full of wonder. Kirk looked at me, and loved me, and called out into the half empty room, “More wine! More wine ! My friend is himself again. My friend has returned!”
I laughed, suddenly hearing the truth in his words. I had been lost, disconnected, stuck someplace within myself, outside of myself. Overwork, repressed feelings, overthinking, I had become detached, distant, stuck. But the movement of the river, the sun burning on my skin, the fasting from food, the smell of the woods, the throbbing music, the poetry of grief, the woman with ancient beauty, the culinary love-making, the care of a good friend had brought me home to myself.
Without thought, I stood upon my chair and called to Madelena. “Madelena you have healed me!” I raised my glass to her and she gave me a small smile and a quick nod.
The waiter returned with our check, we were now the only patrons left in the room. “But we’re still hungry,” I protested. “We’ve traveled far, the night is young, we’re not ready to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, “but the kitchen is closed.”
“That’s not possible,” I protested.
“Don’t you see,” Kirk interrupted. “We are two pilgrim souls. We alone can appreciate her gifts.”
The young waiter looked confused and embarrassed. “Let me talk to her.” We clinked our glasses and waited, in full confidence, that she could not turn away such devotion.
The waiter returned, “She wants to know what you want from her.”
“What we want?” I shouted, my heart now burning within. “We want her to feed us. We want everything! All of it! Until we are satisfied.” I stood and looked past the waiter, I looked at Madelena standing at the center of the room. “We want everything, the whole meal, repeated. The appetizers, the bread, the salads, the vegetables, the main courses, everything, everything, everything, all over again.”
At this my friend rose immediately to his feet. “Yes, yes! Exactly! Whatever the price! All of it!” We stood and watched and waited while Madelena studied us without expression. It was nearing eleven at night, the front door was locked, the tables had been cleared and set for the next day. We waited in confidence, with full hearts, with my desires returned and intact, we waited.
Then slowly, her face broke open, she looked at us, felt our hearts and smiled and said, “Sit down.”
“Hurray!” We shouted, like boys on a playground. We sat, our table was wiped clean, fresh napkins and silverware were placed in front of us, a new candle was lit and brought to our table, with new glassware, a fresh bottle of wine. We sat and we ate, slowly, gratefully, until long after midnight we ate and laughed and cried at the flavors and talked of past love, broken dreams, and sorrows. We ate and Kirk quoted poetry to Madelena, we drank and sang songs to Madelena. And later, as she ushered us out the front door, she kissed our cheeks goodnight and we walked across the street and found a room and slept the deep sleep of full-hearted men.
We slept until noon then awoke, refreshed, without hangovers or heaviness, and began the drive home. “Do you want breakfast?” Kirk asked. “Yes.” I told him, “I want pancakes and eggs, bacon, dark coffee and a beautiful waitress.”
“My friend is back.” Kirk smiled. And we headed for home.
