Tijuana 2023, Part One

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

The author describes his experiences at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, his flight to San Diego, and his initial impressions of the city. He vividly details his observations of the people and environment at Ocean Beach, recounting encounters with surfers, bums, and musicians. The narrative then shifts to the author's preparations for a camp venture in Tijuana, concluding with reflections on border crossing and the group's arrival at camp...
Click here for the first installment of my Tijuana 2023 Travelogue...

Memorial

~ johnbrandall

Somewhere in the 
    lamp-lit dark of
this hospital parking lot
    aye, yes, the hospital I was
born at, a killdeer
    beseeches the night.
It’s got a nest to protect
    a shallow scrape, it’ll
break a wing if it must.

Ambulances come & go.
    For a moment, leaf smoke wafts
while LEDs burn bright
    and it’s quiet, even peaceful.
The beer helps, engines idle.
    A wind sock lit in orange
dangles lazily on the
    hospital roof in a 
mild November breeze.

The night shift leaving in threes
    makes me nostalgic for exit.
Leaves litter the grass below a
    healthy-looking ash.  
The ash gleams leafless
    in this blue-white 
hospital parking lot light.

The first time I was here I
    arrived safe in my mother’s belly.  
Dad had just finished mowing the grass.
    Now I remember.  Even when I can see forward
that forward is never enough.

I awake at two-something in a 
    start.  Is that Mom, coming out?
A tall woman in boots, headed this way,
    unmistakable, alone.  Dad
on a bed somewhere inside.  I rifle through
    my pockets in search of keys;
she is only getting closer.  I find 
    them under me, hit the button,
clamber out of the back seat to greet her and

take her away along empty streets
    to the place we all called home.

63 Ingredients from the Frontier

~ johnbrandall

1

When a place changes your life you need to sing about it.  And you ought to.  You can’t allow anyone, anything, or any other place to get in your way. 

2

Most of my packing is done.  I’ll be leaving headquarters and heading out to the frontier.  I’ve had to pack a little earlier than expected because someone else will be moving into my room here first thing tomorrow.

I still need to roll up my air mat, do some grocery shopping, pack the cooler, slice up some cheese, make a couple bags of beans ‘n’ rice, fill the big water container, fill the solar shower, and make detailed records bit-by-bit as the hour of departure draws more near.

3

Impeachment coverage on public radio.  Highway 100 headed out of town, headed to the frontier.  Look out Mr. President, look out cedars.  Missouri ground white with snow, the sun not strong enough to melt it...


Read the full short story here...

Lucky You a Pen

~ johnbrandall

In 1986 my dad’s favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, lost the World Series in heartbreaking fashion to the New York Mets.  The Red Sox had twice led the Mets late in Game Six, repeatedly coming within one strike of winning the game and thereby the Series.  But bad relief pitching and an infamous miscue by the Boston first baseman allowed New York to prevail in extra innings.  

I was seven years old so I don’t remember the game well, but I do remember my dad moving from one room of the house to another, depending on how the game was going, believing superstitiously that how and where he watched the game could affect the outcome. 

The next spring my mom bought me some clothes from an erstwhile store called Venture.  Or it could have been Glik’s.  What I remember is that among those clothes was an orange t-shirt that I really liked.  The Mets wore uniforms with orange trim and their logo is orange on blue.  The t-shirt disappeared.  I asked my mom what happened to it.  Apparently my dad had banned the t-shirt on the basis of orange being a “gang color” but I suspect that the shirt reminded him of the Mets.  

~

You can’t make your bed while you’re on it.  That’s what my mom would say to me as I tried to straighten the covers atop my bunk bed, the higher of two bunks in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother.   At the end of the bunk was a window that looked out over our driveway, toward the house next door where Domino the German Shepherd lived, along with the couple who owned the house.  I could lie prone on the end of my bunk and look out the window, high above our driveway.  

Even though my bedroom was on the first floor it felt like a second-floor view because our driveway sloped down as it ran from the street to the back of our house.  On our side of the driveway was a lovely terraced rock garden that my mom looked after.  On the other side of the driveway was a steeply slanted hedge of unruly ivy and honeysuckle that my dad sometimes clipped.  The valley-like feel of the driveway put our yard at a remove from our neighbors’ yard even though they weren’t but twenty feet apart...  


To read the rest of this essay, click here...

Baja Notes (2022 edition)

~ johnbrandall

As I sit on the balcony and look east/southeast, I can see a few of the tall buildings downtown.  And I can see the masts of dozens and dozens of sailboats.  No water is visible but it is implied.  Seagulls huff and squeal.

Two guys, four rods between them.  Getting ready to cross the street by foot, from the Landing side.  One is wheeling a small suitcase.  One carries an over-the-shoulder bag, the other has a backpack.  Both sport galoshes.  One is carrying a double-sack that looks heavy.  Ice and fish.

I could write more about these fisherman but not today.  Maybe I should have planned to stay right here again on the back-end of my excursion to Tijuana?  I love this balcony.  I could sit here all week.  I don’t need to go downtown.  I can get a good burrito and beer over here.  Hashtag regret.  Next time.  Or on some future vacation.  It’s expensive but when Comic-Con is in town, what’s not?  

It’s a grey day but don’t they all start this way in San Diego?  The temperature is perfect and it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be slapping on sunscreen, reaching for my hat.  I’ve buried the lede, though.  I’ve been so engrossed in the fishing traffic that I’ve failed to mention Dan C reaching out to me by text at 4:41.  Dan is the leader of the trip I’m taking into Tijuana with Burlingame Presbyterian, my third such foray but the first in three years (COVID).  

Dan was asking me about my flight, when it gets in.  I said, “Yesterday!”  To which he replied, “Great!”  But all is not great.  One of the flights scheduled to bring in some of our group from the San Francisco airport has been flat-out canceled.  This will delay us for sure.  How long, that’s the question.  The plan was for everyone to meet at the San Diego airport at 10:30 when some of us, including me, would go get the rental vans before returning to the airport to pick up most of the rest of the group.  We have 15 to 20 people this year.  Once we get to Tijuana we will camp east of the city, with mountains in the distance.  This week we will build a basic 11’ x 22’ house for a family of four in the Antorcha neighborhood of Tijuana.  It is an act of charity, coordinated by a ministry called Amor....


Continue reading my account of last year's trip to San Diego and Tijuana...

One for Joey Votto

~ johnbrandall

A tight, glaring
Earring

A waxy, flippant
Moonbeam

The spot on the field
Where I place my hand

My swing is a fine piece of machinery
When it catches the late light of June

Which is why I’ve got
Two axes—
Because I knew
That the first one
Would rust.

Reunion

~ johnbrandall

You wanted to get the old band back together.
But we didn’t even have a band.

All we did was
sit around and drink
and talk
and smoke.
We played music
but it was music other people recorded
onto compact discs
and then sold to us.

Yeah, we’d go to venues.
There were crowds,
not drawn by us.
And there’d be bands there,
but not our band.

None of us wrote any songs.
None of us sang.
We didn’t even have any instruments...


Read the full poem and the slightly longer original version here...

Night Mining

~ johnbrandall

I never want to go to sleep again.  The only sleep I have any respect for is nap sleep, dog by my side, earplugs in, the rest of the world doing whatever it does all day—making noise, stirring up dust, laying out obstacles.  But then at night?  With them all asleep?  And I’m gonna put myself under?  I don’t think so.  It never gets more quiet than when everyone’s asleep.

~

It’s not that I never sleep.  I sleep plenty.  Sleep is the opposite of lust.  I feel it when I dream.  Heartbreak, heart moan, heart ruin.  Long, lost, and forlorn.  Shorn or unshorn, whichever is worse.  

~

I am just so in love with the world when I’m not hating it.  Look at all these people going by, look at the moon rise in the sky.  Let the road go by, cars like blinking ornaments.  My teeth are singing, headed in the direction of an early Christmas.

Night Mining...