Love story | Sausalito | California | Harry Hogg

Sausalito and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

It takes time to embrace a new start.

I came to California in 1999, landing in San Fransisco on a one-way ticket. I was met by the woman I hoped to marry.

Happiness, I remember a poet telling me, lies in the clear ideas of what you want and can achieve. That’s one interesting point of view. It didn’t work for me, probably because I learned that when one person wakes up to sunshine, another wakes to fog. Nothing in life is ever wholly harmonious.

It’s the middle of the day in this lovely place The Sausalito sun shining upon my face My heart asking if it will work out right Crossing a continent on a United flight

I came, not to wed my first love, I was fifty years old, with a son, but to begin a new life in a vast country, most of which I knew nothing about. It hadn’t been an impetuous move; I knew the perils of romance; I knew the first man whoever loved was surely made of marble, tough but prone to cracks. I was old enough to understand that being in love is something people have tried for thousands of years — with varying degrees of success.

Did she see me, I wonder, hiding my fears? Or that the smiles she saw were hiding my tears We walk together past towering yacht masts At a table for two, we were romantically cast

That first day together in Sausalito, the poetry in her movement, the dance of her shoulder blades, and a smile that stayed longer than any I’d known told me she was a woman at ease with elegance, the kind of woman for whom a man wants private moonlight, a beach, and a table for two.

Love, like a wave, breaking on the shore Covering our ankles, flooding our heart’s door She ran up the beach carrying the warmth of her smile I hoped she’d come back and love me awhile.

Sausalito, thick with tourists, and the air filled with the fragrance of mint chocolate chip ice cream, is across the Bay from San Francisco and North Beach, where memories of Neal Cassidy, the Journeymen, and Guaraldi played at the Hungry I. Some say if you ventured down the alleyways, or sit outside bohemian cafes, you’d hear the ghosts of Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, and Ginsberg.

I wake in a sweat, has it all been a dream Would she melt away like a vanilla ice-cream I’m stronger now, and it’s been a long time Will she ever walk with me, her hand in mine

But Sausalito felt like my land, my place, a ferry town. It was more difficult to leave than anticipated. I remember we enjoyed coffee at Cibo and lunch at the Trident, where Chet Baker used to play. I came to her from a different world, it was the world of my imagination, and it held me the way a mother holds a spiteful child.

In Sausalito’s embrace, our love did unfold Where the masts swayed gently, and secrets were told Golden Gate Bridge spans widely the Bay But out of sight to us as we walked on Broadway

We were still together come winter. Was this it? Was this that love for which every person is looking? Was this why we were never closed to the idea of being found, even after living a life of transparent failings. How would I make the time to learn about her? My life was already battered into submission, with all its scars and false perceptions.

I’ve been pushing my way against the chill Fighting the wind on the shoreline still I scraped trawler hulls for my father’s smile When a boy can dream of a girl for a while

I found my first love in the prime of my life, my work all before me, all a boy’s dreams intact, a young man caught up in love’s drowsiness and worn-out ideas of a life lived together ever after. They were momentary hallucinations because the world is a cruel place for one who needs romance, poetry, and the safety of a well-loved face across the table. She wasn’t there.

It’s hard to write about the magic of Sausalito — having been raised to run on cobbled streets, swim in the rainbow harbor, or bracing the Tobermory wind that passed through the thickest of Jackets.

I never thought I’d see the day A mermaid in Sausalito Bay But she is there, and others too They swim deep in the water’s blue

But summer’s nearly over, and we need a family home, so we are looking in Petaluma and Bodega for a while. Finding the one that fit our two dogs, two horses, and two children, one a teen, seemed hopeless. Winter came, and with no house bought, we rented a large home in Occidental. It would suit us until spring. Getting to the children, two California children, and trying not to be a new authority in their lives is an unenviable task. A stranger who, from their viewpoint, was going to trap their wings and hold their flight in some far out-of-the-way place, leaving their friends.

I ruined their lives about once a day Clipped their wings taking them far away Not in need of a father figure, they set a new course Showing their stubbornness with youthful force

Their world had somehow changed its course, heading north to Mendocino. Hours away from friends, new schools and colleges. The children’s hearts were unsure, not open wide to the experience. I learned it’s the hardest thing for a mother to see her children upset, angry, and unforgiving. What were we to do? The purchase of a home went ahead, and navigating the different emotions, trust me, it was hard; we were fragmented by our hopes and fears. We listened to the children’s stories, understood their pain, and built bridges when we could, but emotions were rare for some months.

It takes time to embrace a new start I, too, was trying to play the right part But with patience and love, a family can grow To be a tapestry of love and which we all did sew

I don’t know what day it changed, when life felt good again. It might have been a Wednesday; it is still mysterious to me. Something naturally flowing passed pebbles and not crashing over rocks. One day I’ll find an island, a think place. I’ll go there with a mess of songs and do some thinking about the women; about the towns I left behind before Sausalito.

I didn’t know, was convinced I would not fill a space that a kiss once filled. I’ve talked about in my poetry and stories, talking about a brief moment in time or a lifetime missed for one brief moment.

Older now, looking out over the waves, shallow and shouldered in linen, I can turn away and not have to think about anything. But then, standing here, I remember how much I loved the sea when I was young; something about its aloneness, wildness, its hugeness, its mystery and how my young life dwelt on its shoreline, and wondered if my heart would only live in its depths.

The bravery of love, it’s really something else. Knowing the night must first couple with the day, skin on skin, till eventually one fades from the other having first coupled in the hills above Sausalito, lain in its clefts, fallen down its back into the gully of want. My fiancé’s beauty challenged me in the way beauty has every right to do.

For those who lie alone this night, a prayer, that whoever you are waiting for comes soon and brings along a pocketful of stars to scatter in your heavenly path. Don’t move from the hillside of hope, anyone who knows you, knows where you’ll be.

Love continues to sedate me. I truly don’t want to wake anywhere else but in this space a kiss fills.

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