Sometimes the magic works...

So, I had this idea.

Before Palm Springs, before Sarasota, I spent three years on the road, most of the time in Asia. I fell in love with so much of Asian culture. Again and again, in China, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, I was seduced by the home furnishings I saw in markets there – fabrics, lacquerware, decorative arts, and furniture. I saw hand-made, expertly-crafted, beautiful objects that would enhance any home (and brought home what I could given my gypsy status). Everywhere I saw things that I truly believed would sell in the US, especially the west coast.

When I was teaching in Chiang Mai Thailand, I had the opportunity to explore the woodcraft villages near where I was teaching. There, local craftsman produce a range of items ranging from back scratchers to dining tables. The styles range from traditional Thai, to sleek contemporary. There is also a huge inventory of Chinese antiques that entered the country fleeing the onslaught of the Three Gorges Damn.

Made in Phuket, Thailand

When I returned to the States in 2009, I parked my memories of the markets of Asia on my hard drive. I decorated my quarters with my souvenirs, and worked on building a post-travel, post-retirement life in Sarasota Florida, an environment that was unfamiliar to me. I have written enough about that chapter for now, but when it became clear that I would be leaving Sarasota and returning to California, I revisited those Asian markets in my memory bank and was captured by the idea of starting a business importing the things I fell in love with on my travels.

I won't bore you with the iterations and mash-ups the idea went through. Looking back, I think I was envisioning  a desert cities Gumps, and I truly believed I could find a sustainable niche in the California marketplace that would provide a modest income, pay for my travel back and forth to the countries I still carry in my consciousness, and introduce hand-crafted things of beauty to the American home (well, for the higher end American homes).

After much winnowing and some research, after socializing the idea to as wide an audience as I felt I could impose upon with my pitch, I refined the idea to hand-crafted, contemporary, Asian furnishings. Pieces that would look understatedly fabulous in the mid-century and contemporary manses of the Coachella Valley. Sleek contemporary designs executed in teak, rosewood, rattan, hibiscus grass, and stainless steel. Designs that echo Russell Wright, the Knoll catalog, with a soupçon  of Michael Graves. Craftsmanship is of the highest-quality. I was energized.

Hand-crafted, Asian, Contemporary

My soul-buddy, Jot, came up with a name. I designed a logo. I identified possible locations for a to-the-trade warehouse store in the right area, I gathered images for presentations, even contacted a few of the craftsmen (who now have a web presence)  to find out if they had distribution in North America.

Fiery clouds and lots of smoke,
a most unusual Palm Springs sunset

And then,  I did the business plan. It was an onerous task. I downloaded a template from the web, wrote mission statements and marketing strategies. I revisited my corporate communicator mode. I booked an appointment with a consultant from SCORE, the organization of retired business professionals affiliated with SBA. The consultant, a woman smack-dab in the middle of my target demographic, asked tough questions, shared valuable insights, and moved from skepticism to cautious enthusiasm during the course of our meeting. She assigned me a task: do a 12-month cost/income projection, something I knew I needed to do but had been putting off.

The organic rubber met the road. The That fighting cocks came home to roost. The proof wasn't in the pudding. The idea did not hold up financially. At the end of the first year, if everything went in my favor, it might pay expenses but there would be no surplus to provide additional income for personnel, or me, or pay back an investor (which I knew I needed). Not what I had in mind. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps, in a parallel universe, I am preparing for the opening. Not important.

The move to Palm Springs still feels right. I am happy to be back in California among fruit and nuts. I am curious about what's in store for me personally and for our troubled species. I'll probably continue to blog about it.

Our Town: Preface

The San Jacinto Mountains from my balcony.

Those of you who have followed my wanderings know that I recently moved to Palm Springs after visiting here twice in the last year. Even though I had heard about 'other the desert cities' I really didn't know much about any of them except for names and decades old short visits. I knew Palm Springs only a little better.

I've been here two months now. I have come to realize, much to my surprise and so far my delight, the Coachella Valley is a rich and varied landscape. Wonderland. Oz. Candyland.  Lost boys. munchicans, amazons, and more queens and fairy princesses than you can count. And that's just Palm Springs.

It's called a cenotaph. I know why the last
three names appear on the stone,
but the others?

I'm told the cathedral in Cathedral City next door is a reference to the San Jacinto mountains. There's no cathedral, but there's Trader Joe's and Target and it's only 10 minutes from where I live on the edge of Warm Sands (subject of future posts). It has a lot of good local restaurants and uni-culture and box stores. Long-time locals call it Cat City. Depending on who you ask it's either short for cathedral or an acknowledgement of its reputation as a den of iniquity in the 19th century, and as a haven for speakeasies in the 1920s. Several entertainment celebrities are buried in two cemeteries here.

Rancho Mirage, the next town East on Palm Canyon Drive, would feel familiar to people who have lived or visited the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles. Upper middle-class strip and outdoor malls. There's more to it than that, but I haven't done much in those parts yet. There's a Cheesecake Factory. I've actually eaten there twice. Those of you who know my history know that I enjoyed a special time there in a past life and lived to not write about it.

White Water Preserve. an honest-to-god oasis
twenty minutes from downtown.

The desert city that intrigues me the most, aside from Palm Springs, is Indian Wells. Have you ever driven down an avenue in a strange city and known instantly you are in "that" part of town? River Oaks in Houston, Bronxville NY, Sea Cliff in San Francisco.

No stores, no advertising, no mac-mansions – driving through Indian Wells on route 111 all you really see are walls and manicured palm trees punctuated by conspicuously understated gated entrances. The road is noticeably better-paved, the trees better tended, the walls pristine and luxuriantly planted. Bill Gates has a place here and "lots of other famous people," or so I'm told. I doubt I'll be attending many dinners there.

★★★

It's taken me a week to get this much down in a post. I've been wrestling with a decision and haven't been inspired to do much blogging. It's little more than a Trip Advisor review. I'll try to do better in future posts. I may also be inspired to write more about the decision.

The windmills of my mind have been working
overtime lately

For now, I'll share that, like most people who have reached the so-called retirement years, I've been looking for a hook for this next act. I'm sixty-seven now. I haven't found the idiot's guide to subsistance retirement living yet, so I'm trying to get in touch with what I want to manifest for this next stage. I've been putting a fair amount of energy into trying to manifest an idea I had for an import business. Unfortunately, the numbers just don't add up. So, unless deus ex machinas with a direct order and a check, I have decided it's time to explore other possibilities.

The photos included have only peripheral relationship to the text.

There and Back

Marta Cormier with granddaughters Sophia (c)
and Bea at Betty's Take out in Berkeley

It's been a month since the last post. I didn't blog because I wasn't traveling. On this last trip however, I realized that I am now living in a very distinctive place that deserves to be written about. First, a few words about this last trip.

The day before my birthday I drove to the east bay area of San Francisco on a partially planned road trip. I lived in the Walnut Creek - Lafayette area for a total of 13 years. It's familiar turf, but as with everything else these days, unexpected things happened when I went back to visit. A serendipitous invitation from a dear friend in Tarzana added an additional two-day stopover on may way back to Palm Springs at a paradisiacal oasis in the Dantean inferno of Los Angeles. But I am getting ahead of myself.

At the Temescal Street Festival

After a scenic drive through the high desert, I hit Interstate 5 at Gorman near the peak of the grapevine. From there it was a straight, not very visual, shot to the Tracy exit where I took 580 and then 680 to Walnut Creek.

I spent my 67th birthday eve and day wallowing in blissful companionship with long-time friends. I'd say old friends, but I don't think any of us know what to do with the word "old," much less the age demographic. We ate good, delicious food (a lot healthier than the sybaritic feasts of our younger days), drank vintage wine (a lot less than the sybaritic feasts of our younger days), and engaged in the kind of conversation you have with people you've shared peak experiences with. Past memories mingle with current events and conjectures about the future. Even though our paths have diverged in the woods of life somewhat, we share a spiritual grounding and genuine heart connection.

Escott Jones, cabinet maker, designer,
egg carver, renaissance man.

The actual birth anniversary day was a moveable feast  of friends and food culminating in fireworks in honor of the country with which I share the tradition.

The week past with people and things left for next time, always a good sign. I enjoyed some quality city time, and discovered  a new (to me) restaurant in Rockridge, Sommerset's. Two serendipitous events were an unexpected bonus.  I had dinner with a young woman I've know since she was twelve who is now a successful rep for a distinguished furniture line with a showroom in the SF Design Center. She was a fountain of constructive feedback and ideas about the viability of the idea. And she is as lively and engaging as he was at twelve, only more so.

Outside these gardens are the seven circles
of hell, but inside it's Il Paradiso

I also met a true bohemian craftsman-artist-radio engineer who restores carousels and carves eggs among many other fascinating activities. He too was helpful about the business idea when we weren't sidetracked by shared recollections of our salad days.

My drive to Tarzana was smooth, punctuated by my nearly traditional lunch at Harris Ranch. I spent four days in the home of a dear firend who has created a paradisiacal oasis in the Los Angelian dystopia. Imagine a Souzhou garden designed by Frida Kahlo and you might have some idea what a special place this is. We ventured out for a few meals and to catch Moonrise Kingdom (highly recommended), but mostly we luxuriated in the garden, in the pool, or on the verands playing Scrabble.

Imagine a Chinese garden designed by Frida Kahlo

After ten days out, I was actually starting to miss Palm Springs, even with the triple digit temperature. The longer I am here in the desert cities, the more I realize what a fascinating and diverse place it is. I'll write more about that in future posts, but now I have to get back to slogging through creating a business plan. There are more pictures from my trip on my Facebook page if you are interested.

Settling in – 2

Spoiler alert: no photos.

Spoiler alert: introspection and rambling.

I was going to title this post "Coping," but I reconsidered. Although coping appears to be the human condition at the moment. Many people around me are dealing with loss – terrible, painful issues concerning health, finances, loved ones, all of the above, some of the above. Others are dealing with the problems of excess: the Palm Desert house still isn't finished. The remodel is over budget. The Mercedes is on back order (there is a lot of money in he Coachella Valley). The kind of problems we all say we wish we had.

I would be a hopeless kvetch to describe my current situation as coping. A more apt description – and more challenging for me personally – is "being patient."

At the invitation of dear friends I drove to Los Angeles on Thursday to house sit their lovely mansionette in Chatsworth, a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It was a perfect opportunity for me to do some research on my business idea. As an added bonus, I was going to reward myself with a visit to the Getty Museum for yet more stunning blog photos. (I have low expectations for the art in the museum. It is the Getty, after all, but the building and grounds are reputed to be muy photo worthy.)

Friday morning, after seeing off my hosts who were driving to Santa Cruz to see their son graduate magna cum laude and cum laude – in a double major, no less – I took off in my car. My plan was to check out shops in Santa Monica and go the Getty.

It was 9:30 in the morning. Even with Friday rush hour, I gave myself until 2:30 PM to get to The Getty to wait out rush hour. Life was an adventure. I was revisiting old territory with a new perspective. I lived here for six years from 1988 to 1994. Banished was my conviction that LA is all seven circles of Dante's Inferno.

For about 15 minutes, I was able to maintain that illusion. And then I hit traffic. And stayed in traffic. Clogged traffic. On the freeway. On side streets. Everywhere. By the time I had finished in Santa Monica it was already 2:30 and I had done about an hour of shopping against 4 hours of sitting in traffic. It turned out I couldn't get to the Getty because both the main off ramp and the detour they directed me to were blocked. I made the twenty minute drive back to where I was staying in a little over an hour, stopped by Trader Joe's for dinner fixings, and retreated back to the pool and garden of the mansionette. Vowing not to venture over the hill again.

Saturday, I luxuriated in the lushness of the garden, went to a movie ("Rock of Ages" a guilty pleasure) and came back for more garden luxuriating. I got a text from a guy I had been communicating with and we agreed to meet for lunch the next day. My hosts got back that evening. We had a newsy visit before they hauled their tired bodies off to bed.

Sunday was the money shot. My hosts and I had a scrumptious and insanely healthy breakfast, I did a load of laundry (I am in-suite laundry deprived in Palm Springs), then took off to meet my potential new  acquaintance. We had lunch at Rive Gauche Cafe on Ventura Blvd (highly recommended) and talked. Turns out he worked for many years as a furniture salesman in Los Angeles. He was a font of useful information, and a nice guy as well. After lunch we sought out an Asian import store further down the boulevard where my hosts had purchased a buddha for their garden. The owner is a Thai-Chinese man from Korat, Thailand. He imports the southeast Asian equivalent of cottage furniture. Rustic, even whimsical statues, chests and tables that work very well as accent pieces in mega-mansion decor. Between him and my new acquaintance,  I got some valuable feedback about my idea.

I drove back to Palm Springs today and will continue doing research here. Clearly this business, if it is to be, is not going to spring full blown, Athena-like, from my head. It's going to take patience, persistence, and diligence (not my strongest suits).

Interestingly, my brief visit to LA (which is still all seven circles of hell, by the way) raised a few ghosts that will probably never be completely exorcised. They are less troubling now, but their spirits still cast a shroud over the city for me. I know I'll be going back, and it's fine for a visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Palm Springs Aerial Tram Ride and Hike to Round Valley

A Swiss-built rotating tramcar gives up to 80 people a 360° view as they ride up the mountain.

From Wikipedia's entry on The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway:

 The twelve-and-a-half minute ride begins at the Valley Station at 2,643 ft (806 m) and passes up North America's sheerest mountain face through five life zones on its way to the Mountain Station at 8,516 ft (2,596 m) above mean sea level. Travelers start in the Sonoran Desert and arrive at an alpine forest.

View from the trail head

Actually, by the time you get to the tram parking lot you've already climbed 2,643ft from the valley floor. From the top station, it's another 1,500 ft and a six-mile hike to the top of Mt. San Jacinto which is at just over 10,000 ft. The temperature in Palm Spring was 89° at 7:30 am – heading toward the very high 90s. At the top of the tramway, the temperature was 65.° All of this within an hour, if your timing is good, from where I'm living.

Rock formations near the base station

If you end the journey at the mountain station, is enough drama for most people. The ride up in itself begs the use of spectacular and breath taking. There are panoramic views of the Coachella Valley and the desert cities from the deck of the top station. A short, but aerobic, and very vertical half mile walk out the back sets you in the middle of a tribe of rock formations jutting out of the bedrock like the emerging life forms they are.

Rush hour on the trail

But I didn't stop there.

My companion was a local man I met who enjoys hiking. Since I'd never managed to do it on previous visits, I wanted to be able to say I've taken the tram at least once. I would never have done the hike without company, and Jose was a perfect guide. I'm not used to level 3 hikes at 8,500 ft so we agreed to do the hike to Round Valley campsite – a 4.5 mile round trip. Joining us were at least a hundred other hikers in groups ranging from two to twenty we passed along the trail coming and going. ALmost everyone we passed said hello. I think the lack of oxygen makes people friendlier. Ages ranged from pre-teens to old farts like myself. Jose and I made the trek out in about an hour and a half, our pace slowed somewhat by my picture taking. Jose was very patient. I know I slowed him down, but by a half-mile into the hike I knew I was going to get my exercise for the day and made the wise decision to pace myself.

Why is this man smiling?

Up and back, we were on the trail almost three hours. It was visual overload. The air was intoxicatingly clean (and thin). I was pleased I didn't have a heart attack or just give out and need to be helicoptered out. The last half mile up that nearly vertical concrete path back to the station was the unkindest cut. By the end, my feet were providing an object lesson in not wearing old hiking shoes for the first time in 5 years on your first alpine hike is three years (My last mountain hike was more of a hill climb through the jungle. My (hyperbole warning) near death experience on that jaunt is recounted in an earlier blog that will disappear at the end of this month as part of the transformation of mac.com to iCloud.

Round Valley campsite.
No vacancy for the weekend

This hike was a walk in the park compared to that one. But jeezus, I was tired, and my feet ached, and the next day my legs felt like concrete, and my knees kept screaming at me, "you are not a young man any more."

I did it, and I'm glad. There are more photos on my Facebook page if you are curious.

Last night, as part of my recovery, I went to see "Snow White and the Huntsman." It is rich visually. The performances are energetic. The story a mythic melding of the brothers Grimm and Jean d'Arc. Another in a compelling string of female heroines. But why do our myths still offer up resolution as redemption through violence? I know it's viscerally exciting, but is it really an evolutionary step forward to portray women behaving like men? Is our new mythic hero Victor Victoria on steroids and in need of anger management counseling? I wonder.