The Creative Process

It's funny because it's true…

California Trip

I haven't posted on this blog since I came home from the Azores, but I have definitely been working on the project. At this point I have about twenty-five minutes done. The piece is now out in the middle of the ocean in search of whales. I soon realized that it can't end there. It needs to land somewhere! So I decided to make a recording trip to Avila Beach, where my great-greats Caetano and Maria Isabel lived and where my grandfather and his father were born, and to Sausalito for their annual Holy Ghost festa.

I drove from Santa Rosa to San Luis Obispo on Thursday, arriving in time for the great farmers market that happens downtown in the evening. Woke up early the next morning and headed out to Avila Beach before the wind came up. My goal was to get to Whaler's Island, which is now part of a larger breakwater that protects the Port of San Luis.

The easiest way to get there is to rent a kayak; since it was 6 AM that was not really an option. It would take a few hours to get there hopping across the lava rocks, and the changing tides would make getting back that way a dicey proposition. The only other way to get to the island on foot is to pay to take a guided hike through the property of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, also not an option so early on a weekday. But I very much wanted to record there, as there was once a shore whaling station on the island where I suspect Caetano may have worked. So I scrambled across the rocks a fair distance and got as close as seemed reasonable given my uncertainty about the status of the tides. Made some nice recordings of water gurgling through the lava rocks, much as I did in the Azores.

Then I went to another beach nearby called Pirate's Cove, which is a famous clothing-optional beach. As it was still quite early I had it all to myself for a couple of hours. It's a very cozy beach protected from the wind, and I waded into the ocean for some good recordings of the shorebreak, a very different kind of wave sound.

Hiking back from the beach, I took the trail to the left and ended up at a cave high up on the bluff, where I hung a mic off the ledge and recorded the larger waves crashing into the cliffs, along with some birds that were nesting there. A very productive morning of recording!

In the afternoon I met with my third cousin Denise Martins-Goodwin, who lives nearby in Santa Maria. We've collaborated on genealogy info for a few years now, so it was great to finally meet her. We had lunch and she shared tons of family lore and local history with me. Then she took me to the Old Mission Cemetery where the great-greats are buried. We couldn't find their exact graves as they are unmarked, but we did find the grave of one of their granddaughters, Mary Frances Martines, who died as a child of nine when her dress caught on fire while burning garbage.

Later that afternoon I stopped by the County Clerk's office and got copies of the death certificates for both Caetano and Maria Isabel. The one for Caetano is especially interesting as it confirms he came from the island of Flores. My grandfather always said they came from Pico, but we suspect he was making that up, or guessing based on knowing other local people named Freitas who had come from Pico.

The next morning I again woke up very early and returned to the cemetery to record the dawn chorus, which consisted mainly of one very busy mockingbird and a bunch of traffic (major road nearby). It wasn't open yet, so I had to sneak in. About fifteen minutes later a security truck showed up, an hour and a half before the cemetery officially opens. By that time I had followed the mockingbird into the property next door, where there was no fence. I'm pretty sure the guard saw me standing there but he never came after me. He drove to the entrance and stayed there, waiting for me to come out, which I didn't. Eventually he gave up and left. I went and got some breakfast, then drove back up the coast.

The following day was Mothers Day, and I had made a plan to go with my mother and my aunt to the annual Holy Ghost festa sponsored by the IDESST Portuguese Hall in Sausalito. Neither of them had ever been to one of these functions, and they know almost nothing about Azorean culture, let alone the whole Espirito Santo thing. For me it was very interesting to compare it to the festas I'd seen in the Azores; the basic form was similar, although there were some differences in the details. There was a solemn procession from the hall to the church up on the hill, accompanied by a marching band, which I recorded. Holy Ghost societies and festa queens from nearby towns were represented. I was surprised there were no Azorean flags. It was pretty much what I expected, and people seemed to be having a good time, although apparently attendance was low this year, possibly due to it being held on Mothers Day. I was a little surprised to see one woman show up wearing a capote, the traditional cape and cowl worn in the islands in the nineteenth century. The free meal of sopas was very good, done by chef Manuel Azevedo of LaSalette, the fabulous Portuguese restaurant in Sonoma that we often visit.

Now I have a few more hours of recordings to go through and edit, which will keep me busy for a while. But it feels like it was really important to get this new material, and I think now I have a much clearer idea of where the piece is going.

Day 20: Ponta Delgada, São Miguel

It was a little hard to say goodbye to sweet Lajes and start heading for home. But it is that time. I so enjoyed getting to know the Meireles family and friends, and my hosts César and Cidalia were exemplary as well. It was my first time on Flores but I hope it won't be my last.

I flew back to Ponta Delgada on São Miguel, and after checking into a little B&B I met up with my friend Emanuel. She took me to her lovely house in nearby Lagoa, where we went for a last (for me, anyway) swim in the piscina natural that was more or less right outside her garden gate.

Afterwards, we sat and chatted with her oldest daughter Julia and adorable grand-daughter Violeta and drank some herbal infusion made with something she had just pulled from her garden (lemon balm?). Then we went to pick up her youngest daughter Alice in Ribeira Grande. Finally, we had a good meal at a place just down the street from where I am staying. Emanuel was a big part of making my time in Ponta Delgada so rewarding and enjoyable, and I am so appreciative of her help and friendship. Emanuel will be moving next year to join her partner in Angola, where many Portuguese are moving to find work, and soon Julia and her family will be moving to Goa, India. As always, it seems, people have to leave the islands to find other opportunities and to expand their horizons. It's a beautiful but small place, with some definite limitations.

Tomorrow I fly home with a load of rich experiences and strong memories of all the wonderful people, beautiful places, and amazing sounds I've encountered here, along with a rather huge feeling of responsibility. Having come this far and done all of this field work, I feel an obligation to do this experience justice and make something really good out of it all. It's a bit scary because I feel like three weeks was barely enough time to scratch the surface here. Even three months would have been too brief. I know there are many elements I am missing because I simply didn't have time to wait for things to happen or to develop the kinds of relationships needed to go deeper. But I will do my best with the material I have, and hope to make something worthy of bringing back here to present and share with these people who have made my time here so fulfilling. No pressure or anything.

At the same time, it will be good to be home, to reunite with my wife and family and friends, to get back to my life, and to dig into working with this material for the next year or so. I know that as I do, the sounds I've recorded will evoke strong memories of my time here. And that will be a pleasure.

Day 19: A Coração da Festa

This morning was probably the most important part of the Festa do Emigrante, and hardly anyone was there — a procession down the main street of Lajes to the church, in which people from the various other churches in the parish brought crowns representing the Espirito Santo (Holy Ghost).

For those not familiar (most of you), the cult of the Holy Ghost is pretty much specific to the Azores and is carried over to the Azorean communities in the US, Canada, and Brazil. As far as I know it doesn't really exist much in mainland Portugal. I won't go into great ethnographic detail now, but you can get the basics here. There are special festas (feast days) and rituals devoted to the Espirito Santo, but it tends to make an appearance at any major event here.

What I find interesting is the absence of humanized iconography. There is no visible "person" being worshiped or represented. No images of Jesus or Mary or any of the saints. Instead, the only symbols are a nearly transparent crown, sometimes a scepter, and a dove. That's about it. These are housed in a special small chapel called an imperio, and there is usually nothing much else in there except the banners and other items used during the processions (the two photos below were taken on Pico during my previous trip). Those of you who know me know that I am not at all religious, but I find this kind of unmediated, "minimalist Catholicism" quite beautiful and interesting.

The procession this morning consisted of groups from each church in this freguesia (parish) bearing their banners and crowns, each accompanied by its own folia, an ensemble of men playing drums and cymbals and singing stark hymns. As they marched solemnly down the street, the foliões alternated singing, first one group then another, until all had been represented. There were only a handful of people there watching, most of whom I think were associated with the participants.

I've been worrying that the ethnographic part of this project was getting a little lost, so I was happy to make recordings and take photos at the same time (thanks, little Canon point n' shoot!). In some circumstances I might have felt self-conscious about doing this, but there were plenty of other people documenting the event, and I was probably one of the more discreet ones. There was a TV crew there, and a number of people with video cameras and tablets and shooting still photos, all of whom were getting up much closer than I was. There was even one old guy who was recording all of the sound on an ancient boom box.

The procession ended at the church, transitioning directly into a mass, which was better attended than the procession. I didn't understand a lot of what was being said, but at one point I could tell the priest was talking about all of the emigrants who have moved from the Azores to California and New England and Canada and Brazil, and how they have kept alive the Espirito Santo traditions there. I recorded the whole thing from up in the choir loft (along with several other photographers and the guy with the boom box), including some fabulous bell ringing in a continuous "strumming" style I've never heard before — again with the minimalism! At the end I went up in the bell tower and the sound was really intense. In the photo below you can kind of make out all of the crowns lined up on the two side altars, thirteen in all.

In the afternoon I was invited to join Regina Meireles and her family for lunch, but had no idea it would be at such a special place. Her daughter Ana picked me up and we drove about five minutes out of town, then pulled over by the side of the road. We got out and walked down a barely visible gravel path to an old stone mill house, set next to a creek and shaded by many large trees, a secret patch of heaven. Regina's parents met and courted here — it was where girls used to come to wash clothes, and boys would come there to meet them — and they eventually bought it because they had such sentimental feelings about it. All of the family I met the other day in Fajã were there, plus a couple of other young friends of her daughters. After a big lunch one of the guys got out a Portuguese guitar, and Manuel got out a classical guitar (called a viola here), and Regina's husband Armando began to sing fados from Coimbra. He has a beautiful voice, and I'll be hearing him sing later this evening with a grupo folclórico as part of the festa events. Again I must say that the kindness and hospitality shown toward me by this family has been truly wonderful, and I can't think of a better way to have spent my last afternoon on Flores. As Regina said to me: "We are not rich, but we are rich in other ways." Indeed.

Day 18: Lajes das Flores

One of the signature sounds I've become obsessed with here is the sound of waves interacting with rocks. There are countless different gurgling, glugging sounds, and you only have to move a few yards to hear something quite different. I find it endlessly fascinating, and it really reinforces the feeling of being on a hunk of volcanic rock in the middle of the ocean, miles from nowhere and surrounded by the sea on all sides. So I've been making a point of recording the sounds of waves and rocks whenever I can. This is not always easy, given the geological situation, with cliffs dropping right into the water. Today I managed to climb down and scramble over a bunch of large boulders to get to a place far from the noise of the harbor and the town.

When I climbed back up to the port, they were getting ready to put in three of the old whale boats. I've really come to love these boats, which are a huge source of local pride, a way for people to stay connected with the heritage of whaling and the ways of their ancestors. The old whalers really are revered here, and it's so tied in with the history of emigration. At the regatta I attended on Pico, I was impressed with how many women were involved, and here it was great to see that one of the boats had an all-female crew. I'm pretty sure there were no women whalers back in the day, and I wonder when they started to participate in whale boats for sport. I'll bet there's an interesting story there.

Sadly, I haven't really been able to make good recordings of these boats due to so much other noise going on around them. For example, while I was watching this there was a guy cruising nearby on a jet-ski and a bunch of machinery noise from the port, all of which would have drowned out the sounds of the oars, etc. One of the best sounds was when they brought out the oar locks, which seemed to be all tied together and rang like bells when they carried them. Still trying to figure out how I might be able to get a decent recording of that.

It was fairly hot and humid, and by now I was getting tired and hungry. Fortunately the supply ship had come in the night before, so I knew there would be groceries. I went to the local supermercado and sure enough, it was all a-buzz. The people who worked there were busy, furiously filling the shelves with goods that had just been unloaded, and there were a lot of customers stocking up. It's a big deal here when the ship comes. By the end of that two-week period, the shelves are nearly empty. So it's a real symbol of the important connection to and dependence on the outside world.

In the evening I headed back down to the festa, which by now has grown considerably. I'd say there were at least twice as many people in the street as the night before, maybe more. Tonight's main entertainment was the marcha, dance groups that parade through the street accompanied by marching bands. It's "folkloric" in the invented tradition sense, but festive and fun and it makes people happy.

There were two dance groups, which seemed to be accompanied by the same band. First one group marched down the street to the plaza, then all the band members walked back up the street and a while later came down again with a different dance group. I saw Regina on the street and she invited me to have lunch with her family tomorrow. How could I refuse?