Edges of my Life.

Flying high over Baja, the desert and the mountains, barren bony yellow spines. meeting the blue Pacific Ocean along the southern edge of Mexico's Baja California.  AJ is waiting and we drive in this dirty old Ford truck through Los Cabos on the road to the Yuca Inn. It’s all familiar though I’ve never been here before, it’s like Central America, the black smoke diesel and dust and concrete block and steel beside the Breadfruit, Mangos and Papaya. We arrive at the hotel and check in; the small swimming pool surrounded by grass and tropical plants, a few plastic chairs, nice and quiet. And its cheap. Across the highway is the Pacific ocean and a green lagoon fluttering with wildlife. Our room has no air conditioning but a ceiling fan and the windows are shutters and invite the sea breeze. That noise you hear are the birds nesting and the frogs around the lagoon and night is falling. There are many grander hotels lining the ocean shore and you can see the lights now but the Yuca Inn...

It's four-thirty and eighteen degrees when I awaken. Today I’m leaving snow covered Hancock in the western Catskills and the frozen headwaters of the Delaware River, for sunny California for a new job. My bag packed and ready to go rests by the front door downstairs. My neighbor Stanley is driving me to the Greater Binghamton Airport for a six AM flight. It’s still dark outside and I see the yellow light shining dimly in the window of his house next door. I dump my bag in his truck and walk carefully up the gravel path. It’s a sheet of black ice. It’s no joke this black ice. One slip and there goes a hip. "Stanley!” "Yeah".  He's sitting at the head of his dinning room table where he always sits sipping his coffee and smoking a cigarette. The house is warm and the wood stove glows. He's wearing a tee shirt. I'm dressed in layers – tee shirt, black roll-neck under my green wool sweater clasped at the neck, scarf and my black Calvin Kline woolen pea coat...