John Steinbeck

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Pearson Sharp

Ever since I read East of Eden in like grade 11 it’s been one of my favourite books. I’ve never read anything else by Steinbeck, I’ve always meant to, but he’s remained someone to whom I ascribe brilliant writing to.

In any case, the other night I went to visit a relative just up the coast about half an hour and after dinner we got to talking books. Being a writer, I think I naturally have the instinct to steer all conversations in this direction—much as a boxer or engineer might direct the focus towards the latest matches or innovations in airframe technology or the sturdiest rivets or something. I don’t know. I’m not an engineer. In any case, they mentioned that my maternal grandfather was a friend of John Steinbeck.

Apparently the two of them used to go boating and fishing together, and had a good friendship that lasted many years. A trophy of this friendship happened to be a book, Sweet Thursday, that Steinbeck had autographed for my grandfather.

I was thrilled to hold such a valuable little artefact in my hands. Simply knowing that one of my favourite authors had been a friend of the family was thrilling enough, but to actually have a relic of those days was enormously exciting. It reminds me of the associations of Hemingway with Gertrude Stein and Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald and all the others.

I wonder if someday I’ll be friends with a famous author or artist and can simply call on them for tea or a drive up the coast to our favourite cafe. Or perhaps, better yet, people will speak with reverence as they hold a book by Pearson Sharp, autographed to their grandfather, and they try to imagine what it might have been like to know me. An author can dream.

Oddjob

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Pearson Sharp

So I went up to Newport Beach yesterday to help a buddy set up his store. He’s got a pretty cool shop that he’s preparing to become an exotic car dealership. I know he already has forty-something cars, Ferraris and Mercedes and probably some Lamborghinis or something, I don’t even know. In any case, I spent the afternoon arranging little toy cars in display cases around the front desk. Apparently those cars are worth a ton of money. These are little Hot Wheels sized cars that were upwards of a thousand freaking dollars. Just for a little tiny piece of plastic! I guess they’re part of the pastiche of collectordom and depending on who drove the real car and when, their value is determined.

Well I found a car I really liked, the Aston Martin DB5 from the James Bond movie Goldfinger, and I got to take it home. I’m not sure how much it’s worth, but you can completely take it apart and it has an ejector seat and machine guns behind the tail lights and a bulletproof shield that springs up at the push of a button behind the rear window. I’m not sure if that was a standard feature on all Aston Martins at the time, but it should have been. Maybe someday I’ll own a DB5 for reals, but even if I don’t, I couldn’t park it on my desk and imagine beefy Chinamen throwing bowler hats at me all day.

Another Likely Story

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Pearson Sharp

I don’t always choose musical titles, but when I do, I think they’re appropriate. I had the day off work yesterday so I went down to the beach to see if the water was ready for snorkelling again. It turns out it wasn’t ready. Not even close. But I went anyways. Growing up in Ohio, I had the perception of California that it was an ocean paradise, warm waters and surfers hanging ten left and right. As it happens, it is. But you must bring a wetsuit, or you will freeze.

down by the cove

I usually like to go snorkelling at the Cove in La Jolla, a small underwater preserve that has some amazing places to explore, as well as a seal colony to offer the occasional surprise swimming companion. Setting my mask and fins on the beach, I decided that instead of just jumping in right away and becoming a soprano, that I’d slowly wade in and take my time getting used to the water. After twenty minutes of gingerly creeping up through the frigid waves and trying to make my spasms look natural, three girls ran past me and dove right in, giggling and splashing. Some quick mental calculations followed this spectacle, and I decided that I was ready to go all in, or I would be forced to hand in my Man Card.

seals at the cove

I consider myself someone capable of “roughing it” without complaint. But that water was cold. I mean cold. Painfully cold, it felt like a vice grip made of ice cubes had clamped down on my head. You get used to the temperature pretty quick, but it never stops being cold, and you can never forget about it. It’s always there. But yesterday the water was incredibly clear, and as I swam through fields of swirling green seaweed and into rocky canyons on the sandy bottom, it was worth it.

Brilliant orange garabaldi and colourful little fish I can’t name darted past in silver flecks as I swam by. You can definitely see a lot floating on the surface, and there’s something serenely peaceful just floating there and rolling with the waves. But for me the best part of snorkelling is taking a huge gulp of air and diving down to the bottom, plugging your nose and blowing out to pop your ears, and swimming through the ocean carved rock channels to explore hidden places.

After about six minutes I’d had about as much of the freezing water as I could handle, and was trying to talk myself into staying longer, when I peeked around a coral ledge about fifteen feet down and came face to face with a little octopus! He was hiding in a patch of red seaweed and I’m not sure which of us was more surprised. I’ve probably gone snorkelling in the Cove two or three dozen times since I moved here, and spent many afternoons looking for new diving grounds. But I’d never seen an octopus! It was amazing to see him just sitting there in the kelp. When he spotted me he shrunk back and turned a deeper red, curling his little tentacles up around him, watching me warily. I went back up for air and dove down to see him five or six more times, but I don’t think he was as amused by this encounter and so he crawled into a dark crevice in the rocks. Octopus, the celebrities of the reef.

I was thrilled! I couldn’t believe I’d found a real octopus! I decided I’d do the snorkelling equivalent of a victory lap and swam out a bit farther. As I was diving down to the bottom, lo and behold, what did I see? Another octopus! I was dumbstruck. This was a little purple fellow, clinging to a bit of exposed rock on the bottom. When I came closer he leapt up and spurted away, tentacles trailing gracefully behind him, into a thick clump of seaweed. I was ecstatic, I didn’t think I’d ever get that lucky again, but to see two octopus in as many minutes?

I powered back to the shore wishing I had someone to share my discoveries with, but it’s difficult to share that you’ve just seen two marine cephalopod mollusks with strangers.

So I’m sharing it with you! Next time, and from now on, I’m bringing an underwater camera. It’s a beautiful place to visit, and definitely worth recording. However, until the water warms up or I get my hands on a wetsuit, I don’t think I’ll be testing my manliness anytime before June. But what a rush. There’s nothing quite like the flush of excitement that comes with finding something beautiful and wondrous in nature. When we have the power to build skyscrapers that soar into the cloudy heavens, land on another planet, and share information instantaneously with someone on the other side of the world, chancing upon one of nature’s random little wonders can be breathtaking.

Have Farm, Will Wander

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Pearson Sharp

I have a very diverse background as far as places I’ve lived. I think I mentioned this once before, so I won’t go back into it. Suffice it to say, I was raised in a small farming community in southern California near the Mexican border. If you didn’t farm, you sold farming equipment. It was kind of a nice place to grow up, but didn’t really lend itself to a broader world perspective.

Coming back to live there after I’d been around the world a few times seemed like quite a step backwards. I got out as soon as I could and moved to San Diego where I’m living now, and haven’t really looked back since. I’ve only been here a few months, but already the change has been dramatic—being next to the ocean does wonders for the soul.

Horsey had to work for her treat

Yet my family still lives down in the desert, so about once a month I head down to visit them. I usually only stay for the afternoon and then head back, having my fill of small town life for the month. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s nice to live in a place where your neighbours are separated from you by several fields, and you still know all of them by name. I drove down with Mary yesterday and went for my routine walk down the ditch bank beside the canal out back behind my grandparent’s house.

The sun was low in the sky over the mountains and the sheep in the next field were kicking up dirt. In the haze it looked like mist, and you could see their little black shadows jumping up and down as they ran. Our neighbour keeps farm animals in a big corral behind his house, and when I was younger they used to have a little brown filly I named Lucy, and in the mornings before the sun came up I would go for walks to see her and pick the grass that grew outside her pen, just beyond her reach.That was probably five or six years ago. Well, the man has kept his horses and though I don’t go for walks down his way very often, I was very happy to see that he had added a few new young horses to his herd.

The wheat field next to the horse corral.

They were all mares and one young filly, pictured above. Yet now they were accompanied by an army of curious goats, who crowded around the fence to see who we were. I couldn’t resist the urge and gathered up thick handfuls of long green grass. The filly approached me, curious, and was rewarded with a mouthful of luxuriant grass, which she gobbled down happily.

After that I made her work for it, and would keep it just out of her reach so that I could scratch her neck and ears. The goats were eager to get in on some of that action and tried to snatch strands of grass from her mouth, catching the clumps that fell. Goats are tenacious animals, if you’ve never been around them. Even though the horse kept her head well above them, the goats managed to get a pretty decent share of the bounty. After that I patted her down and washed my hands in the nearby canal. The field crickets chirped as the sun finally set, and we walked home with a warm westerly breeze in the air. I don’t miss living there, and given the chance I would stay here without hesitation. The summers there are unbearably hot, and there is absolutely nothing to do. Nothing.

San Diego is a much happier, healthier place for me to live. But I won’t deny for a moment that I do love the country, and that I often miss the tranquillity there. It’s easy for a writer to appreciate the kind of rustic beauty found in endless acres of farmland that rolls out like carpet towards the distant purple mountains. I may not be a rough farmhand like my father and grandfather were, but I definitely feel a sense of balance in being close to the earth and seeing green things planted and growing out from neat black rows of tilled soil.

I used to go for long runs in the country, with no one to disturb me but the wind in the old cedar trees. You can’t do that here. There are intersections and traffic and people, buildings and cars and roads and everyone is going somewhere and has something to do, and aren’t really fussed if you’d rather they weren’t there. Maybe there are places to live at times in your life. It’s often said that change is what makes life interesting. So perhaps at this time in my life, I need to live in a city, and do what city folk do. Then, when the time is right, who knows? Perhaps there will be a house in the country where I can walk beside a burbling canal in the evening and play with horses.

Living La Vida Jolla

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Pearson Sharp

I’ve lived in a lot of places in my life: China, England, even Canada for a little while. All across the US, as well, from Ohio to Arizona, Colorado, California. Right now I’m living in La Jolla, California, about five minutes away from the beach. I’ve been here since August, and I have to say, my world view and disposition have significantly improved every day I’ve been here. The average January day is 60 degrees, and right now, early March, we’re sitting pretty with 75 the past few days. I wake up with palm trees and blue skies every day, and drive past the ocean on my way to work every single morning.

Last night I headed down to the beach to catch the sunset with Mary. We went to Black’s Beach, which is famous for being a nudist beach. Of course, the nudists are never the people you’d like them to be, but I’m happy seeing people out there enjoying themselves anyways. You’ll never catch me in my birthday suit out there, but hey, I’m down for whatever makes you happy baby. Just, you know. Dangle your fish bait over there.

If you’re not familiar with the area, Black’s is situated at the base of an enormous sandstone cliff. There are some pretty impressive views from the top, along with some pretty impressive real estate. We were feeling adventurous so we climbed down the long flight of natural and man-made steps to reach the bottom. The sun was just beginning to set, and we got some gorgeous photos before it peeked below the horizon on its way to Australia. It glimmered red for a long time after it actually set, I’m sure it was an optical illusion based on the curvature of the earth and reflection on the ocean and what-not.

In any case, it was well appreciated. After a hearty climb back up, we put the top down in her car, and drove down the coast for a ways, just enjoying the evening. It’s times like these that it really strikes me: all things human are of little importance. Plato said that, and I have to agree. I don’t know what it is about the beach and the ocean that turns everyone philosophic, but it works every time.

Out of all the places I’ve lived, I have to say it’s honestly pretty hard to have a depressing day here. Everything is just as it should be, day after day, and I can’t help but smile when I wake up in the morning. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel pretty grateful to be living here.