Sunstruck
Moonstruck is a whimsical name that has the right elements of frivolity, craziness and enlightenment. I like the thought of being moonstruck. But if I were inclined to be accurate about this house on the hilltop here in Northern San Diego, I should have called it Casa Sunstruck. This is certainly a place of great sunshine and that season is just now beginning. Whatever rainy season there was just skipped on by us and we got thrust into the summer sun. Not being in Phoenix or Las Vegas, this is not the sizzling heat of the desert, but there is lots of sunshine almost each and every day. I just spent yesterday on a motorcycle ride up to Mt. Palomar and out into the Anza Borego Desert and I did not prepare properly. The last time I did that was much stupider and it was a few years ago when we went into Death Valley. It only took one day to fry my nose and lower lip to a red blistered crisp. I should have learned, but apparently I didn’t because I failed to take adequate precautions with my nose and lips yesterday. I suppose my excuse was that it was just a day trip of some four hours or so, but in this Southern California sun, four hours is plenty to do a number on my nose and lip. As I sit here writing I can actually feel my lip throbbing slightly. Of course, having a few salty potato chips isn’t helping the comfort cause, but the damage was done with my open-faced helmet and my failure to slop on the goo.
I like to say that I am a risk-taker, but the truth is that I just don’t pay enough attention to many of the sensible lessons of life. I know people who overdo that, but there is no excuse for not heeding some precaution. It would probably take more than this to make my nose feel bad enough to bother myself with more care, but the lip does a good job of making me feel and feel like I look, which is stupid.
The sunburn will pass and I will be more prudent the next time I go out for the day on the motorcycle. In fact, just today when I had some yard work to do in the heat of the afternoon sun, I thought for a moment and decided to put on my straw hat. That is not my cap, that is my sun hat. It is as close to a resignation to the power of the sun as I can imagine. It says that I know I live in sunny Southern California and that the sun is more powerful than I am. Compared to some, I am fortunate…at least so far. I have had no melanoma and I have had no serious consequences from too much sun. In fact, I enjoy more than dread the sun. While I am not a sun-worshiper by beach-goer standards, I have spent my time in the sun. Back during the fifteen years I owned a home in the Hamptons (Quiogue to be precise), I would spend many weekend hours out at the pool just sunning until I was hot enough to swim…and then sunning more from morning to evening. I am half Italian and that has given me just enough olive skin to tan well. I am way beyond the general vanity of wanting to be well-tanned, but I still feel that I always look healthier with some sun. I am in a constant state of looking healthy these days (assuming my nose and lower lip do not get overdone like they are at the moment.).
That seems to me to be one of life’s great ironies that it is unhealthy in terms of skin damage and cancer to get too much sun even though the absence of sun makes you look pale and unhealthy…which you are not unless you are measuring health as a function of the level of Vitamin D in your system.
Now that the sun seems to be here to stay for the season, I have been going from one spot on our property to another, making sure I have all the shade I need to protect me from the sun. The patio has the big palapa and now that I have removed the umbrella cover, afternoons in the hot tub are wonderfully cool and shady. The games area has been activated with Lennie’s arrival (he has already threatened to hit the mini-golf links) so while replacing the sun-faded benches (they used to be red and now they are sort of mauve rose) with new dark green benches in high-impact plastic, I also removed the umbrella covers so that anyone who wants to sit and watch the games can do so in the shade. And then there is our newly recovered deck where the palapa continues to protect us in the afternoon while the positioning on the West side of the house, give it natural shade in the mornings. There’s the Cecil Garden, where I have opted for natural shade by adding a large Irish Strawberry tree specifically to throw shade on the Asian teak bench and the bonsai collection I have gathered. The tree has very dark leaves and a strawberry red bark on its trunk and branches that creates a stark contrast and does a great job of shielding my bonsai from the harshness of the sun. And last but not least, there is the biggest shade-maker of them all. It covers the extent of Tortilla Flats out there on the driveway.
Casa Moonstruck is 3,800 sf and as it turns out, the rose-colored driveway and parking area is 4,000 sf. That seems somehow fitting for a home in California with its car culture. We have a three-car garage that we keep the Tesla and two motorcycles in. The rest of it, with its new epoxy floor and custom grey cabinets on either side and stainless steel shelving across the back, is dedicated to our outdoor shady life. We have a sofa and two folding chairs and even a small fridge and actually enjoy sitting in the garage and looking out at the shaded expanse of parking area of Tortilla Flats adorned by the massive shadesail we installed. If someone asked me what improvement I have made to this house that makes the place most livable, I would have to say the shadesail. We are constantly in and out of the house either to the cars, the motorcycles or into the garage. Our life revolves around the large 1,500 sf of space created by the shade of the shadesail.
Back during my freshman year at Cornell we all had to take a freshman writing seminar. I have no idea what ever happened to the teacher I had for that first semester seminar in a small basement room of Goldwyn Smith Hall, but he may have done more to change my life than anyone I ever casually met. Our very first assignment was to analyze the space between Olin Library and Uris Hall (the emblematic undergraduate library from which the Cornell tower rises). That was a space that we all travelled through each and every day, but probably never stopped to think of as something that meant anything. Analyzing a space like that had far-reaching implications. It forced me to think out of the box and assess something that I had never considered particularly worthy of assessment or even consideration. Once I sat on a bench in the space and watched others passing through and really looked at it from the perspective of it being something rather than just a way from here to there, I became very attached to the space. I wrote my paper and in good “knock ‘em down to build them up right” form, I got a D on the paper and it forced me to work harder to become a better writer. By the end of term I was asked to go buy an item in the Campus Store for less than $1 and to write about why it was so valuable. I got an A on that paper so I guess the course taught me a few things. What it really taught me was to appreciate space, time and all the little things we all assume away in life…and to write.
So, I am sunstruck by my home out here on this hilltop and no place makes me feel the pleasure and the warmth of that sun better than the space between my house and my garage.