Nine: Asilomar, May 1st through 3rd, 2009

Asilomar May 1 2009

I have visited this refuge since I was little, when my father discovered it as a social worker attending a conference in the 1960s, and we began going as a family with him in the summer, and later discovered their Thanksgiving buffet and winter in the Monterey Bay area, usually crisp and clear. My father's mood always improved there, so he was more easy going.

I introduced Dan to Asilomar the winter after we met in 2005—our first real vacation together, the first place we shared that didn’t belong to either of us. He found it a perfect mix of camping and comfort, because of the rustic accommodations. We really needed this respite, and even though we hadn’t gotten in to see Doctor Varma, the appointments, consultations, research, and stress of making life-changing decisions warranted a getaway.

This time, instead of one of the “historical units,” built by Julia Morgan, we got one of the “modern units,” built by John Carl Warnecke in the 1970s. Having come here my whole life, I prided myself on knowing about the architecture and features about the place. The modern units had their own fireplace (the historic had small rooms with a shared living room and fireplace), and here, with the large living room / bedroom, and porch looking out onto the dunes, scrub, and pines, it felt luxurious. None of the rooms have TV nor phone, no computer access. You have to go to the “Social Hall” (Administration building) for those purposes. Dan played his guitar like he hadn’t in months. Then we walked out to Asilomar State Beach and along the boardwalk, and then back along Asilomar Blvd, making a movie with the new camera. The rain came, more as a drizzle.

We rounded the turn where the state beach ends, with its restored dunes with native plants, and the rest of the coast opens up, with ice plant and barren rock. A camper parked along the road. People tended to park here to run down to the tidepools and look at the seals.

Dan stopped. “Look,” he said.

In the front cab window of the camper, sat a cat. I walked around to the side. 


A woman came to the open doorway and stepped down one step, hovering over us. Wiry and petite, appearing old and young at once, she spoke. “Good morning. “

“We noticed your cat,” I said.

“Oh, that’s Amber. Amber, come here. I have two more in back, but they’re shy. She’s the greeter.” She motioned to the inside of the vehicle.

Cat carriers and food bowls lined what was like a hallway leading to the back, where the bedroom must have been.

“Here she is,” said the woman, coaxing the cat out.

Amber was a tortoiseshell unlike I had ever seen, with hair like a bottle brush, thick and brisk, a golden color. Obviously, one parent had been an orange cat. The cat had lived all its lives already, it seemed, from the torn ears, rough coat, and one milky eye.

The woman explained that she had left Wisconsin when she lost her house, and decided to go on the road with her cats. She had been doing this for years on no money.

“I let the cats out when they want—I can’t stop them, and they always come back. We communicate silently... I just know,” she said.

I wondered when was the last time she had seen a doctor. My awareness of health concerns had heightened with Dan’s condition. Was her glasses prescription up to date? When did she last have a regular check up, a pap smear? What do the homeless do? I had assigned my classes readings on the homeless recently, and here it was. She didn’t consider herself homeless, it seemed, like a turtle, trolling around wherever she liked, enjoying meeting people.

Dan and I looked at each other after a point, thinking we had enough of listening to her, not because she wasn’t interesting, but because we are both listeners, and tend to find ourselves in situations where people talk at us until we're exhausted.

It started raining for real and I opened my umbrella. Dan had his hood on.

“Well, we should be going,” I said.

“Nice meeting you,” she said, pushing her purple tinted glasses up on her nose. She then held out her hand. “My name is Tricia.”

The hand turned into a hug for both of us. I didn’t expect it. This was what I needed.

“I channel St. Francis, Jesus, and my higher power,” she said.

“Um, really?” I responded.

She disappeared into the vehicle for a minute before reappearing.

“Here—this came to me one morning through my personal higher power. And here, this is a prayer of St. Francis.”

One was a few 8 ½ x 11 purple sheets of paper stapled together with the writing, and the other was an oversized post card with the prayer on it, against a picture of angels.

She explained. “It’s called automatic writing.” Then she popped back inside before reappearing with an envelope for both.

I thanked her and we slipped off into the rain, stopping to look at the seals before our walk back to Asilomar.

Most times, I would have dismissed her as a nut. Perhaps it was my concern for her health and welfare, a woman on her own in a country that did not support a person unaffiliated, or perhaps it was because for months I had cared for and emotionally supported Dan, who had a health condition, so my understanding for her situation simply existed. She chose to do this and said she enjoyed the freedom, respected her cat’s freedom, communicated with her cats and the world beyond. But she was alone and I wondered what end she would meet, let alone her cats.