Carmel By the Sea

We found this inviting doorway in Carmel. Two days ago we left behind our regular schedules and our Southern California home. Like Alice, we are down the rabbit hole and now exploring places we enjoy immensely but rarely get to visit unless we are vacationing.

Today we also visited Tor House, made famous by American poet Robin Jeffers, and his wife Una. He loved her more than life. Their story was not without dark threads, but certainly some fairy tale chapters. He built her a stone home and a tower. In his poem "Tor House" he wrote: "My fingers had the art / To make stone love stone." In his essay, "Poetry, Gongorism and a Thousand Years" he wrote, "Permanent things or things forever renewed, like the grass and human passions, are the material for poetry . . . "

Mr. Fun and I both like best the Jeffers' poety about the people and things he loved: his wife, his home, his granddaughter and many others.

The Tor House website gives a bit of history, but oh you should have seen that beautiful place in today's gray mist and January moisture. The site's photos don't do it justice, but please look at the structures he built for her.

Good night from Monterey, California.
Rosie, aka Carol

P.S. Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, writes, "Great literature combines enlightenment with enchantment."