THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

The lone figure emerges from the pre-dawn mist, apparition-like, rolling on silent wire spoke wheels. A strange red caravan painted like a circus wagon trails behind. It's still dark, and the only sound is the gentle splash of oars as the rowers glide in long canoes up Balona Creek, their single light glowing like an oil lamp through the fog. The stranger is usually up early, before the first signs of morning begin to compromise the dark. It's a magical time when the quiet is so rich and total that it fills up all his senses. He feels as though he has the whole planet to himself at this hour, shared only by a few other souls who pass in the darkness, wordless, on bicycle or on foot....a few other souls who know and share this secret hour. The bicycle with the painted wagon winds it's way along the bike path that meanders through the empty beach. Sounds are amplified in the stillness...the nightwind, not quite wind so much as air that creeps along over the sand and feels new and fresh as though it is being breathed in for the first time. Waves build and crash onto the beach and suffuse the air with salt spray and ocean smells. The mysterious stranger pedals slowly through the alien beach-scape, senses wide open to this nocturnal wonderland. In an hour it will be gone, the night world crowded out by the awakening of the sun. Spontaneously, he turns off the bike path and makes his way to the lagoon, finds his favorite tree and pulls the caravan under it's canopy.

The morning has broken and the sunlight reflects off the lagoon and fills the caravan with golden light. The stranger lights his stove and brews coffee, watching a small white egret patrolling the shallows. Ducks cruise by sending patterns of ripples through the mirrored surface of the water. Two pigeons walk along the sand finding morsels of breakfast at the water's edge. The small town is waking up now, dog walkers, joggers, bike riders....locals head for the cafe for breakfast and conversation over the morning paper. A squirrel comes up to beg for food while the stranger sips his coffee. It lives here in this tree that shelters the caravan...it always comes by when the caravan is parked here. The stranger says "good morning," but offers it no food. The squirrel seems to accept this and scampers off to look for his own breakfast. The day, at this point, is a blank canvas. The man in the caravan views each day much as he views the abstract paintings he creates...without a preconceived plan, at least not a fixed one, except for the coffee. Coffee is always part of the plan. He approaches the promise of the day with openness, but soon, a definite direction will take over, as it does on canvas, and the day will unfold. The parallels between life and art seem very close together...inseparable, actually. Life is an art project waiting to be created...each day an empty canvas with endless possibilities.

 

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