In the morning, in bed, with our coffee we watched the sky – clouds grey/slate blue like deep ice and rain and fog below in the near distance over Marin and The Gate but clear above the clouds and here, then some white
Chorus and onlookers at Sather Gate, UC Berkeley
and pink clouds at the upper margins, then larger white clouds and blue skies above. The door was open, the room cold, and the bed warm. We were talking of puppies, skies, clouds, love. We made love and when we opened our eyes to something other than one another we were in a light rain cloud and there was a rainbow! Now another! Double rainbow!
We had the usual breakfast of fruit, yogurt, toast, almond butter. I did some laundry, Jean went to Oakland, and I took the 7 bus to the west/downtown side of the UC campus. I walked across the beautiful campus, students everywhere, through Sather Gate into Sproul Plaza (where the Free Speech Movement was born), and now, listen to the music! There is a chorus by the gate, singing beautifully. What song, I don’t know, but I, along with others, was enchanted.
Chorus
At the far edge of the Plaza, in a corner by the student union there is a piano (“A Gift from People’s Park”) and an older black man was playing… more beauty.
David and I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant on campus. He told me about some of his work and we talked about what’s happening in our lives, pho in Saigon, Flagging and the upcoming Mother’s Day event, travel plans, about he’s going faster and I’m continuing to slow down, about living dangerously.
After lunch, when I was walking back past the student union, there was a skateboarder playing the piano.
In the evening we went to Vanessa’s for a glass of wine, fish tacos, and our life together.
The extravagant beauty of today.
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Indian Rock is a large rock outcropping in the Berkeley Hills. I’m guessing 60-80 feet high. There were steep steps cut into the less steep side of the rock long ago for people like us. The other sides of the rock have bouldering areas.
On Indian Rock. Punks smoking weed.
We walk to Indian Rock every few weeks, climb to the top and sit and look out on the San Francisco Bay, The City, Berkeley, Oakland, Marin… There are usually 5-20 people on top, and my enduring sense of Berkeley is leaning back on top of the rock, hearing the soft murmur of voices of people behind us, the sun going down over the bridge, maybe having a few sips of cherry cherry wine or a bowl, darkness falling, going down carefully in the dark, being in love. Oh!
I took this photo on Indian Rock the only time I’ve been when it wasn’t quiet. There were five or so punks smoking and playing something by the Ramones. Room enough for us all. Berkeley, what a place!
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In the clinic
(In Dallas) We went to North Park Mall. We stopped at a cookie vendor to get some water. While the person there was filling a cup, a customer asked me, “Are you Mr. Kemp?” “Yes.” She was a former student. We talked some about the clinical course in which we’d been together. After graduation she worked at Parkland L&D for seven years(!) and then consulting with families on obstetric matters. Yeah, that’s one of my students.
Later I told Jean that I thought one reason students took my clinical course was that they knew if they did well, I would write a good recommendation letter for critical care or emergency internships or labor and delivery at Parkland or Children’s. Some of the decision makers in those settings knew me and knew that students of mine were involved in challenging situations in my clinical course. It was a win-win-win deal: the students who were seeking the most challenging careers were working with me and doing their best to excel in my clinical setting (Agape Clinic) and receive one of the coveted internships and have the greatest possible impact on patients/families lives. About a year ago I was thinking, with pride, about the many students who passed through the Agape Clinic on their way to some of the most extreme healthcare environments in America.
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We had dinner with someone who works at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas (CMC is a premier pediatric hospital). One of the things she does is help parents get oriented to clinics, which is a big deal in that setting. I’ve spent a lot of time at CMC and it has long seemed to me that they’re doing an extraordinary human mission in disease, hope, suffering, healing, science, greatness, and all that.
Nary with her Mom and siblings
Big Love to all of you.
I thought about a time when Leslie and I were in the Cambodian refugee community seven days a week – desperate times for sure. Leslie did social services and women’s issues and I did health things. Along with health things, I drove through the neighborhood 1-2 times/day just to know what was happening at different times of the day. One morning I was driving on Carroll near San Jacinto and a woman was on the corner waving me down, holding her limp toddler. I pulled her into the truck and drove fast to Children’s Medical Center. When we got there we were somehow in a business office and a woman who worked there in an administrative job saw how sick the girl was and fast-tracked us through the back door of the ER. She was treated and admitted and then they did the business part. I never forgot that woman.
I’ve always thought that Parkland and Children’s are a nexus of humanity’s suffering and hope.
I would walk out of Parkland – sometimes in the evening, sometimes in the morning – and outside would be like entering a whole other reality than the intense realities of the medical center. In addition to many, many, many hours spent taking people to Parkland clinics and so on (and often going through the whole very lengthy process with them), I supervised students for several years in the psychiatric ER, the in-patient psychiatric unit, and the Mental Diagnostic Center. I was an undergraduate and graduate student at both Children’s and Parkland. I would walk out and become almost a part of the outside world, too.
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The very short story of Chili Boy
…he was ahead of us going through security and something in his carry-on triggered a further inspection by TSA. Our bags were also flagged, so there we all were, momentarily captured, waiting for TSA to screen us. Jean made some friendly remark to the man ahead of us (the soon-to-be Chili Boy), but he just looked at her, then looked away. The TSA person started going through the man’s luggage and pulled out two Tupperware type containers full of, you guessed it: chili. I don’t know what happened to Chili Boy after that because another TSA person started going through my stuff. “What’s this?” she asked, holding up a plastic bag. “Peppercorns. Some are from Hanoi and some from Saigon.” She’s holding the bag up, looking suspiciously at it. “And some are from Hue,” I added helpfully. “Hmmph.” She puts the peppercorns back in the suitcase and tells me I can go.
And that’s the end of the Chili Boy story, except to say, fuck off, mate.
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CK, Jeff, Jean
Jeff and I started hanging out at weapons school in 1965. He was in rockets (like bazookas) and I was in machine guns. After weapons, we went to a holding company at Camp Pendleton. From there we went to the newly (re)formed 26th Marines. Our infantry company trained together as part of a battalion landing force. It was hard training for several months. Sometimes we’d have a few days off, but no money. We’d take up a collection to send someone to Oceanside, the nearest town to buy a few gallons of Red Mountain vin rose. “Not a great wine,” we’d say, “But a good wine.” We liked to sit on some concrete slabs fairly near our barracks and get prodigiously drunk. Jeff and I fought together in Vietnam. He helped me. He was wounded at Khe Sanh; I in the Hill Fights near Khe Sanh. We did it and we survived. After the war we lived together off and on in Dallas and Carson City. We loved Leslie. We were psychedelic together. We fell apart. Among other manifestations he followed the holy man path much of his life while I did the service scene in hospice and with refugees. We came back together. We went trekking in Texas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. He and David and I backpacked for two months in Southeast Asia. We went to psytrance festivals together – psychedelic again, after so many years! Rolling! Jeff stayed with me for a few days after Leslie passed and he spoke at Leslie’s memorial service…
And now here we are: Jeff, Jean, me. Jean has always reminded me of Jeff – quick minds, big minds, sometimes a little scary. He stayed two nights and like that line in Dylan’s Song for Woody…
“Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men,
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.”
He was gone when we got up.
If Jack Kerouac had not lost his integrity, he might have been like Jeff.