000 Buddhas

Field Trip Friday (Memory Lane Edition)—The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas

September 18, 2020



Like most people, I’ve been staying close to home this year. I haven’t visited my mom in California, or met up with my friend Kerri for a road trip…and I miss it. 


At home, it’s been too hot to explore outdoors, and it hasn’t felt safe or appropriate to explore anywhere indoors. I’m getting a little stir crazy! So I decided to take Field Trip Friday into the realm of memory—surely there were some places I’ve visited during the past few years that I haven’t fully savored or written about here on Catching Happiness.
 
And indeed there were. The first one I want to share with you is the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, the first large Buddhist monastic community in the United States. Kerri and I stopped briefly at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas during our California road trip in 2018. We didn’t have a lot of time there, but the atmosphere made an impression. I had not heard of it before, even though it’s been around since the 1970s, and was officially inaugurated in 1982. Just goes to show how many interesting, out-of-the-way places are out there if we only look. 


The monastic complex lies on 80 acres of a 700-acre property nestled into a valley near Ukiah, California. There are 13 buildings, including the monastery, a dining hall, elementary and secondary schools, a gift and bookstore, a vegetarian restaurant, as well as an organic garden, fields, and woods. 


Here are a few photos:


The Hall of 10,000 Buddhas:






One of the resident peacocks:


I love this peaceful-looking statue:


Under normal circumstances, the monastery offers in-person classes and events, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the complex is temporarily closed to visitors and events are being held online.

 

We only had a short time to wander the peaceful grounds, unfortunately, but it would be an excellent place to sketch, read, or simply relax with your thoughts. 

Since I’m not ready to travel again yet, I am going to take some time to go through my photos from the trips I’ve been fortunate enough to take, and I’m going to pull out my trip journals, too. It’s not a bad thing to have time to reflect on the past travels. It lifts my spirits to relieve happy memories, and even the bumps and inconveniences of travel become funny memories over time. This is one of the (few) gifts of the pandemic: an opportunity to slow down and appreciate what I have without always pushing forward to the next bright, shiny thing.
 
Has the pandemic offered you any unexpected gifts? Please share in the comments below. 






Dad

One More Little Good-Bye

June 14, 2019

At the harness races--one of my favorite photos of us

Seven and a half months ago, my father died. This year, on Father’s Day, for the first time, I won’t have a father.

This feels strange. Something I have always had, and taken for granted, is missing. The months since his death have been filled with little goodbyes. Realizations that I won’t be able to share certain things with him, and vice versa. For example, when it was time to plant tomatoes this year, I decided not to—not only did I not feel up to battling the bugs and the squirrels for the fruit, gardening was something my dad and I liked to talk about—his tiny backyard plot produced tomatoes and cucumbers galore. We liked to compare harvests (he always had more) and compare what we had planted.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad. Coming to terms with losing a parent isn’t easy, even when you’re all grown up and have a child of your own. I decided to jot down some memories and thoughts about him in his honor this Father’s Day.

Even though my dad had his flaws (as we all do), he was a loving and kind man. My dad loved animals, especially cats. In addition to gardening, he was an excellent golfer, and loved fishing, and going to the horse races. He was in the Navy and served during the Korean War. He was a Baptist, and loved his church.

At his best, he was charming and charismatic, full of zest, humor, and mischief. He worked hard all his life—at 84, until his last illness, he still worked part time doing marketing for a Servpro franchise.

He was born and grew up in Virginia, moving to California as a young man looking for work.

He was extremely lucky, winning often at the horse races or casino, even finding money lying on the ground!

He loved his grandson, my son Nick, deeply. Dad smoked for many years, and after trying unsuccessfully to quit several times, stopped cold turkey when he saw his toddler grandson imitating him smoking.

Dad and Nick

I always asked him to make his special salad when I came to visit. I technically know how to make it myself, but it’s not the same. But perhaps I will try making it in his honor now and then, trying to perfect what he did so well.

The chef at work

My parents divorced when I was three, and I didn’t have much contact with my dad in my earliest years. The circumstances of my parents’ divorce were unusual, and without going into detail, let’s just say it was no one’s fault. I know it was devastating to him when my mom and I left, and I don’t think he ever quite got over it. It shadowed our relationship for years. Once I was old enough to stay with him, I spent part of summer vacation at his house, and either Christmas or Thanksgiving break. My stepmother had always wanted a daughter, and she embraced me as her own immediately. At the time of his death, they had been married 42 years.

At times, my dad and I hurt each other deeply in ways that only family can, each of us making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, convinced the other person was wrong or just did not understand. Now that I’m a parent, I better understand some of our exchanges. I regret that we didn’t have the lifelong closeness I’ve observed in other fathers and daughters. Over the years, I’ve grieved for what was denied us, but now grieve for what we did have that is now lost. Sometimes it hits me anew that he’s gone, taking me by painful surprise.

Now I can choose to remember the fun we had , letting go the old hurts. He did the best he knew how, and so did I, and sometimes we came up short. There was never any doubt that we loved each other, fiercely.

He always called me his favorite daughter (I’m his ONLY daughter), so last Father’s Day, I sent him a sweatshirt with the words, “My favorite daughter gave me this shirt” printed on the chest. He loved it, and since he was always cold (even when the thermostat said 85), he wore it proudly.

I have a voice mail on my phone—my dad’s last message to me from April 2018 when I was getting ready to come to California. He sounds excited about the upcoming visit. I can’t quite get my head around the fact that there will be no more visits, and that when I said good-bye to him last year, it was the final time I’d see him in person.

Last visit

We spoke on the phone many times after that, and I sent him a message on his 84th birthday, which he celebrated while I was in France last October. Only a few days after I returned home he was gone. I knew his health had been failing, but I thought we would have more time. I guess we all think that—or hope that—about the people we love.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I miss you.

Family

Summer Rerun--Sweet Summers

August 05, 2013

Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010.

With days growing longer—and hotter—and the kids about to be out of school, I find myself remembering sweet summers of my childhood, when I ran wild and free at my grandma’s house in Cottonwood, California.

My mom and I spent many vacations at Grandma’s together, but from the time I was about 8, during summer vacation I spent at least two weeks, sometimes a month or more, at her house on my own, without my mom. (Strangely, even when Grandpa was living, I always thought of the Cottonwood place as “Grandma’s house.”)

To get to Grandma’s house, we drove for at least eight hours, winding through flat farmland from our home in Southern California, to Cottonwood, population 3000-plus. I opened my car window to smell the alfalfa fields and watched the road signs eagerly, counting down the miles until our exit. Once I saw the Bowman Road sign, I could barely contain my anticipation. It would only be a matter of minutes until we reached Grandma’s house.

The tires crunched on the gravel driveway where we parked to unload. I would jump out of the car eagerly, running through a gate in the white picket fence. The little white house, trimmed in barn red, nestled there, like a hen sitting on her nest.

At home, I had only a tiny yard to play in. At Grandma’s house, I had 22 acres in which to roam freely. For a city girl, the cows, chickens, dog and cats held deep fascination. Accompanied by my grandparents’ dog, Taffy, I explored nearly every inch of the property, from the straw-yellow hills behind the house to the sweet-smelling cow barn, to the irrigated cow pasture where I tried to make friends with my grandparents’ beef cattle. Though I could never convince Grandma to get me a horse, I pretended to ride one—or pretended to be one—while exploring.


When I tired of galloping through the pasture, I swam in the irrigation ditch that ran behind Grandma’s house like my own personal river, caught frogs for frog swimming races, or stretched out on a beach towel on the wooden bridge that crossed the ditch, baking myself in the summer sun. Or I would read in a lawn chair under the huge oak in the front yard, listening to the soothing sound of chickens softly clucking while they searched a flower bed for tasty bugs. Occasionally, the rooster’s crow broke the quiet of the afternoon.


Grandma was a great cook and I ate slabs of her homemade bread covered in fresh butter or homemade jam all day long. I reveled in peaches and watermelon purchased from local produce stands, or plums picked right off the tree. For a special treat, sometimes Grandma would make boysenberry cobbler, the purple berries oozing juices through the crumbly top crust.

Grandma’s mother, Great Gram, lived across the street in a tiny, pink house and many evenings I’d go play Rummy with her. (One of my first lessons in sportsmanship came at the card table: You can’t play cards with the grown ups if you cry when you lose.) I loved to play cards with her, but I admit to an ulterior motive as well. She made the best milkshakes I’ve ever had. She’d pour canned Hershey’s syrup over several scoops of chocolate chip ice cream and icy milk, then mush up the whole concoction with an old-fashioned egg beater. It was so thick, I had to eat it with a spoon.

My mom and step dad live in the house with the red trim now. Sadly, we don’t get to visit very often, since we live 2500 miles away. But when we do make the trip to Cottonwood, I’m reminded that I was once a girl with no cares, running wild through a cow pasture and slurping up milkshakes without a thought of their calorie count.

Holidays

'Tis the Season

December 20, 2010

...for making merry and making memories. As I write this, our Christmas tree flickers and glows in the corner of the family room. Presents are starting to appear beneath it, and plans are being made for a family get together at our house this weekend. We have a few traditions we observe every year: the baking of molasses sugar cookies, watching A Christmas Story on TV, gag gifts in the Christmas stockings, a fire in the fireplace on Christmas day, even if we have to run the air conditioning!


What are your favorite holiday traditions? Do they involve special foods, or the scents of pine, balsam or simmering spiced cider? Are you planning a new tradition this year? Whatever your holiday plans, make sure you take time to recall memories from the past—and create new ones—this holiday season.


Happiness

Sweet Summers

June 07, 2010

With days growing longer—and hotter—and the kids about to be out of school, I find myself remembering sweet summers of my childhood, when I ran wild and free at my grandma’s house in Cottonwood, California.

My mom and I spent many vacations at Grandma’s together, but from the time I was about 8, during summer vacation I spent at least two weeks, sometimes a month or more, at her house on my own, without my mom. (Strangely, even when Grandpa was living, I always thought of the Cottonwood place as “Grandma’s house.”)

To get to Grandma’s house, we drove for at least eight hours, winding through flat farmland from our home in Southern California, to Cottonwood, population 3000-plus. I opened my car window to smell the alfalfa fields and watched the road signs eagerly, counting down the miles until our exit. Once I saw the Bowman Road sign, I could barely contain my anticipation. It would only be a matter of minutes until we reached Grandma’s house.

The tires crunched on the gravel driveway where we parked to unload. I would jump out of the car eagerly, running through a gate in the white picket fence. The little white house, trimmed in barn red, nestled there, like a hen sitting on her nest.

At home, I had only a tiny yard to play in. At Grandma’s house, I had 22 acres in which to roam freely. For a city girl, the cows, chickens, dog and cats held deep fascination. Accompanied by my grandparents’ dog, Taffy, I explored nearly every inch of the property, from the straw-yellow hills behind the house to the sweet-smelling cow barn, to the irrigated cow pasture where I tried to make friends with my grandparents’ beef cattle. Though I could never convince Grandma to get me a horse, I pretended to ride one—or pretended to be one—while exploring.


When I tired of galloping through the pasture, I swam in the irrigation ditch that ran behind Grandma’s house like my own personal river, caught frogs for frog swimming races, or stretched out on a beach towel on the wooden bridge that crossed the ditch, baking myself in the summer sun. Or I would read in a lawn chair under the huge oak in the front yard, listening to the soothing sound of chickens softly clucking while they searched a flower bed for tasty bugs. Occasionally, the rooster’s crow broke the quiet of the afternoon.


Grandma was a great cook and I ate slabs of her homemade bread covered in fresh butter or homemade jam all day long. I reveled in peaches and watermelon purchased from local produce stands, or plums picked right off the tree. For a special treat, sometimes Grandma would make boysenberry cobbler, the purple berries oozing juices through the crumbly top crust.

Grandma’s mother, Great Gram, lived across the street in a tiny, pink house and many evenings I’d go play Rummy with her. (One of my first lessons in sportsmanship came at the card table: You can’t play cards with the grown ups if you cry when you lose.) I loved to play cards with her, but I admit to an ulterior motive as well. She made the best milkshakes I’ve ever had. She’d pour canned Hershey’s syrup over several scoops of chocolate chip ice cream and icy milk, then mush up the whole concoction with an old-fashioned egg beater. It was so thick, I had to eat it with a spoon.

My mom and step dad live in the house with the red trim now. Sadly, we don’t get to visit very often, since we live 2500 miles away. But when we do make the trip to Cottonwood, I’m reminded that I was once a girl with no cares, running wild through a cow pasture and slurping up milkshakes without a thought of their calorie count.