Mt. Tam rises from sea level to over 2,200 feet just north of the Golden Gate.

From its peak you can see the entire bay area, the Pacific to the west, the beginnings of the Sacramento River to the east, and far past it to the foothills of the Sierra’s. Far to the south past San Jose. North into Sonoma County beyond Petaluma on the 101. You can follow the fine line of the north coast past Point Reyes and on.

There is a lookout at its peak: a very small building with a 360 view.

There was a time I carried Matt the 20 minutes from the parking lot to the top. Kim had scurried up next to us. I believe my brother Thomas was with us.

The watcher in the lookout at that time was someone I knew from Skywalker and he invited us in. He showed us around and the kids stared out at the vastness in amazement.

Later outside we watched as the last rays of light disappeared over the ocean. We then noticed people turning to the east and so did we. It took a few moments but then our eyes widen as the bright orangeness of a full moon appeared on the horizon. As it rose it seemed we could almost touch it.

We stayed as long as we could, until there was just enough light to see our way down.

It seems beauty can come at times when least expected. The full moon is something that’s not hard to see. But when it casts its shadow over leaves or through trees it sometimes becomes abstract in black and white.

Maybe these are times when the eye looks for something different. Or maybe it is the mind that searches for the abstract, which, it seems, would lead to thought and maybe untold understanding.

From the multitude of stars that can be seen from the tops of mountains to the stars as they disappear over the fine line of the horizon in the Northern Sahara is beauty in its grandeur.

But maybe there is beauty less easily seen. Maybe in daily life eyes become focused on daily living and lose the abstract for a while.

But it would seem to make sense that the mind never does. Maybe our minds are lying dormant as we let our eyes tell us who and what we are.

It seems we live our lives as individuals separate from each other, but maybe the opposite is true. That maybe we are all joined with some sort of invisible cord that makes us all one.

Years ago, somewhere in the southwest, in a desolate restaurant, in an almost ghost town he felt his sanity slipping away. He could feel as it started slowly, but began increasing its speed. It was as if there would be nothing left of his mind, unable to speak or have recognizable thought. It seemed he was unable to stop it and at the threshold of no return, he heard the soundless voice.

It had been many years as he had forgotten of its existence. It had spoke to him as a small boy in the tree house. Without words it told him he would be fine. It was then his heart began to slow. His sweat started to cease and his breathing started to return to normal as calmness drifted through his body.

It was the beginning of listening again. And as the years would come it would lead him to places he never knew. And even more places inside his mind. Maybe he had had to reach a place, a threshold of despair for him to let the voice come again. Maybe he didn’t think he needed it any more. Maybe his ego kept it away.

But even though the soundless voice had never left.

There were to come many nights in empty motel rooms when he would sit within his thoughts. A mirror would catch his eye and he would try to stare into his eyes. But he would look away, as if he was looking into a lie.

The road would lead him to places that lived inside of him. It was only time that kept them away. A predestination from the day he was born waiting until he was made ready. Until he made a choice that seemed so simple to him, but yet to others and some they saw it different.

It wasn't until years later when fear raced through his heart and the thought first entered that he had seen things different from others.

He had sat in the rooms and heard the scattered noises. Had first saw a bundle wrapped. A child whose heart had beat too fast and they tried to slow it, but had given too much, which they did not know. And so the bundle laid upon a child’s bed for all in the room to see. No one talked about it, but it seemed they all saw.

A nurse would catch him staring at the bundle and asked, “as long as it’s not your child”. Before he could stop himself he would say “yes”. He had tried to correct the word, but she was gone.

Many wide steps descend from Prague Castle. About of the third way down is a very small structure. It is closed and locked. It’s window boarded shut. But many years ago it was a tavern. A place where three, maybe four, could sit inside. People would come with small cushions, buy a glass of pilsner and sit on the steps. Some conversing, others in silence looking down to the city below. After awhile you could watch as It’s lites would begin to turn on.

There is a church there where it is hard to tell where marble ends and painting begins. I had studied it for quite some time, but there were still places on the ceiling I could not find the transition.

Walking the streets and back streets of Prague is hard to describe, but they seem to lead you to places you need to go.

Behind the castle is a summerhouse. It stands at the end of a large garden. Sitting on one of its benches in silence you can feel the presents of a small child. Someone who is watched after, but let to play inside the walls. He seemed to be alive inside his innocents and his thoughts were that of wonder. He seemed to climb the trees and run and hide among the flowers and hedges.

There were times he would sit and listen to its sounds. Maybe a bird, maybe a breeze as it gently moved his hair. Maybe he could hear the river below. Maybe people talking as they walked on the other side of the wall. Maybe he wondered who they were, or why he couldn’t be with them.

The world was his to discover, it all seemed so new.

The mind has a way of thinking of things and understanding things that don’t seem to be a part of the things our eyes see. I wonder who the small boy was. I wonder who the small boy in the tree house was. Maybe somewhere in the back streets of towns and cities that are rarely visited come forth these things. Or maybe it is traveling in the darkness of night.

And so it was on the train back to Munich I saw the ghost rider again. He was still on his way to Prague. Still scared. It was as if he was caught in some eternal movement that would not let him free. Or maybe was it that whenever we move or think we leave a trace behind. Like tracks in the snow. Only waiting for us to return.

On the train to Prague there is a two-lane road that from time to time parallels the tracks. When it did looking out the window I saw the ghost rider. He was scared, as the road had leaded him to a place unexpected.

That first night in the Czech Republic he stop at a restaurant with rooms on the second floor. He did not speak their language and neither did they speak his.

The owner guided him to the back of the building and had him park his motorcycle, off to the side, in the kitchen. He was shown a second floor room and noticed they all were empty. Sitting at a table they brought him food and drink. No words were spoken, but everything understood. Later, he had sat in his room looking out and wondered why the road had changed.

He had been stopped at the border behind a few kilometers of cars. It had only just recently been opened. People were bringing in things they couldn’t get before.

The fear was almost overwhelming, what could be learned there that couldn’t be learned in a safer place. The bike began overheating as it always did if it idled too long.

He had come a long way to be at this place and time. He had heard the soundless voice telling him there was nothing to worry about. Still he did not completely trust it.

It was a country he had heard about, but did not know. He didn’t know the place, the sounds. The Russians had controlled it since WWII. It was part of the Eastern Block. How could it be safe he had wondered.

It was then, he had taken a deep breath and felt the fear that was trying to engulf him. The bike slid into first and started forward. He had slowly driven on the side passing the others and then stopped at the crossing.

The border patrol had been amazed to see someone with US California plates. The passport was carefully studied and stamped. Looking at him, he could see their minds thinking things he could not know. After pausing for a moment or two they sent him on his way. He had then known the road would lead to Prague.

There is a room; its walls are covered in fabric. Some has come from the old shops in the middle of Cairo. Some from down the street. From the ceiling hangs cloth, sew together it forms a canopy. During the day small lite filters through the thin material covering the windows. When a breeze gently moves it, it seems as if the room is breathing. The floor is covered with many different rugs, one from the northern Sahara.

There is a writer’s table in the corner. It came from a trade, but you can feel its presents. What words have been written on it are not known, but they are now part of it, just like van Gogh self-portrait. Since inside the room there have been very few words written on it, but it seems that will change.

There is a rocker that Sarah’s grandfather use to sit on and a small table by its side. Coffee and raw cream is sipped mostly on Saturday morning and other mornings when work can wait. And then sometimes in the evening with a glass of wine.

On rare occasions a candle is lite. It is in the darkness that calmness comes. It is always there and waits patiently for new thoughts to come.

Cyprus groves and eucalyptus trees grow easily just north of Bolinas bay. Highway 1 thins as it moves through 13 turns. There is a small church that still has a outhouse. Fog covers the area during much of the summer, but at times gives way to bright blue skies. Matt had come with me when I was working there at the old church and he walked through the very small cemetery behind. There was a rumor of a mass grave of Indians being buried there, small pox to blame. I remember watching him move in and out between the tombstones. He never said much, but his mind was always thinking. It was in this place overlooking the bay and smelling the trees my foot pushed a shovel into the earth.

Redwood sawdust floated through the air. Boards are cut at 45-degree angles then glued and screwed together, forming a small rectangle. The bottom is attached.

More dirt is removed from the earth.

A small bag of ashes is inserted. The top enclosed them in. Screw holes are plugged and sanded.

My son took his last breath in his mothers’ arms. Then holding him, I could feel his warmth fading. It was like a dimmer switch slowly turning out a light. And then I didn’t feel his presents inside his body anymore.

It was at his funeral people, some of which I did not know, would stand up crying and tell their stories of Matt. It amazed me how he had affected so many. This small boy of almost nine had done something I had not realized before, he had touched other people the way he had touched me. A girl in his class said, “he never pulled my hair”. There were few words I could say, only just, “thank you for caring”. I remember staring into a fire that night, the void had come and would never go away.

Slowly the wooded box was laid in the three-foot deep hole. Dirt was dropped back in. Stepping in to compact the soil. The task was repeated over and over until it was done.

So from the first moment of laying eyes Matt, to the last bit of laying dirt over him, came the time when there was nothing left to do.

There were words spoken that I should never had said to my wife. They started a conflict that would take many years to resolve. And maybe it’s still not completely overcome. My wife and I could raise children and build houses together, but somewhere in there, at the last hours of an evening we would find ourselves in separate rooms.

Looking back it was no one’s fault. But I blamed her for things that I shouldn’t have. And so my words fanned the fire of conflict which born confusion and anger.

There was a time I blamed others for my son’s death, but I was wrong. When a small vial of heparin appeared it shook me from a dream. For Matt was on it during that last night before all things changed.

I wanted things to be different, but they weren’t and so anger engaged and raged inside, and then came forth the words that I should not have said. Other words would follow in the years to come, but now they are no more. There was no one to blame, no one to be angry with. Just because I thought certain thoughts and made judgments I came to believe were true, did not make them so.

There are people I have hurt, for this I am deeply sorry. Maybe there are words that could justify it, but I will not try to find them. Maybe it is to honor the past and learn from it, but to not live in it. But also to remember how I still love the ones I have loved before. It seems because a relationship ends and communication ceases we forget. But I would not be here in this time and place if it wasn’t for them.