It is said that Mont St.-Michel—“le Merveilleuse”—is the second greatest tourist attraction in France, so it was with some trepidation that my friend Mark and I headed for it during our three-day driving jaunt in Normandy, fearing that it would be overrun with visitors. But that proved not to be the case. 

The day was windy and drizzly as we made our way down the winding country roads. And then, quite suddenly, at a bend in the road, we saw its unmistakable silhouette in splendid isolation—high on a hill, ringed by the sea, with its tall steeple soaring heavenward. Simultaneously we both gasped at the sight. 

A few minutes later, after driving down the long causeway leading to the entrance, we pulled into a spot in the parking lot next to a car festooned with pink crepe paper, indicating that the occupants were a honeymoon couple. We smiled, until we noticed the young couple standing nearby, and that they were having a heated argument.  

We remarked at the contrast between that couple, who were just starting their life together so unfortuitously, and ourselves: well advanced in years, each a veteran of a broken marriage, old friends from college days who had recently been reunited and had quite unexpectedly fallen in love. We smiled at our own good fortune, and wondered what the future would hold for them. 

Hand in hand we weaved and climbed our way through the narrow, twisty streets huddled at the base of the Abbey—streets lined with tourist gift shops and restaurants, and we were soon overrun with groups of English schoolchildren on holiday.  

When we arrived at the Abbey we were struck by the unique beauty of its combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, with its cloisters, parapets, ramparts, buttresses, battlements and fortifications, and all surmounted by a tall steeple.  

Mark flashed his press pass at the entry booth, and we proceeded onto the grounds. I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes till noon, plenty of time to explore the area before the twelve o’clock mass would begin.  

We wandered through the gardens and the terraces, and climbed up into the refectory, and down into the monks’ reception hall. I glanced at my watch again. Noon was approaching. We decided it was time to get back to the church entrance. We tried to retrace our steps, and scampered up one set of stairs and down another, but at every turning we encountered a locked gate. We felt like rats in a maze! We were laughing uncontrollably at this turn of events. What an adventure! 

But we soon became frustrated. We really wanted to experience the Mass. We kept trying to find a way out, and eventually found ourselves in a courtyard next to the church. We could hear the chanting of the service. The Mass had begun. 

There was a large wooden door leading into the church. It was locked, of course, and I thought, “If I bang on the door, they’ll have to let us in!” I also thought, “The Ugly American strikes again!” I didn’t care. The situation was desperate! 

In moments a young, white-robed monk (I later realized that she was a girl—I dubbed her “the monkess”) appeared at the door, having unlocked it with a huge key from a giant ring at her waist. She glared at us as she let us in. We mumbled our apologies and sat quietly in back. 

The service was very beautiful and very moving. As I sat there in the gloom of the church, I looked up, and could see the blending of the ancient Romanesque nave with the flamboyant Gothic choir, and I was immersed in a sense of awe and timelessness.  

Random thoughts passed through my head: 1) the setting seemed to me to be a symbol of a kind of faith which hardly ever occurs in the “real” world; 2) I was overcome by a sense of the agelessness of the ritual, and of all the generations of people of faith who had come here for spiritual sustenance, and of being a part of a moment in Eternity; 3) I felt a sense of “Consecration” of our union, Mark’s and mine; and 4) I recalled that the last time we had been together, all those years before, was at a Christmas Mass in Greenwich Village in 1952!! 

After the mass ended, Mark went up to the officiating priest and spoke to him in French to apologize for our rude entrance. The priest, hurrying out, angrily replied, again in French, “What do think this is, a stable?”  

I am not a religious person, but, as inappropriate as my actions may have been, I have never regretted my intrusion into the Abbey at Mt. St.-Michel, which allowed me to experience some of the most profound moments of my life.  

‘Tis the day after Christmas 

And the house is a mess. 

Though I love them all dearly 

I can’t help confess 

That the noise and the turmoil 

(Now considerably less) 

Is quite wearing 

With tearing 

Of kids through the room. 

This place can’t be cleaned 

With only a broom. 

A squad wielding dust-mops 

With backs overbent 

Though working all day 

Would not make a dent 

In the once-lovely wrappings 

Now crumpled and torn 

Nor the crumbs and spilled eggnog 

Which my tables adorn. 

The dishes and glasses 

Now dirty, I see, 

Have been left in their places 

To be cleaned up by me. 

This sight I survey 

As I stand in the doorway 

With despair in my bones 

And silently pray 

To be given the strength 

To last through the day. 

Then with good morning coffee 

To bring my heart cheer, 

I rejoice that Christmas 

Comes just once a year. 

Ã

The egg yoke skyline was waning. A new night came barging in from the outer skirts of the city.  

I’d been backpacking through the heartland of Europe for a few weeks with my high school buddies James, Nate, and Tim. An absorption of every last detail awaiting exploration. Beauty and mystique were enormously abundant, or so said myself. There were sacred legends all about whose presence flushed my nerves into convoluted anarchy. 

I left the Free World, what many Americans habitually refer to as their homeland, so that I could find a personal freedom, whatever that is. Europe was a vague answer to my quest to become stripped of fettered chains. I’d sauntered through London encountering a unique conglomeration of people in all of its nooks and crannies that I peeked my curiosity into. I’d been in Paris for only that day. By the end of the night we were trippin’ on some Paris blues. A few hours before, the bouncer, dressed finesse, laughed at us outside the entrance of a trendy dance club Tim had read about in his Let’s Go Europe Guide. I guess black dickies, jeans, and sneakers didn’t fly.  

Earlier in the day, three hostiles wouldn’t take our money. We even had made reservations for one of them three months in advance. But the fourth hostile was a procrastinated charm for us. Across the street from it was a 24-hour open bar. With hope the turning of the screw confirmed my belief that everything in life happens for a reason. Liquidation, lost, found, dry. 

Later that night, we swayed in all directions weaving off the sidewalk to the street, process, then repeat. Our drunken collective came to a group consensus to indulge our livers in the luxury of having a final drink for the night. The 24-hour bar was not busy, the only lit up hang out near our crashing spot we paid fifteen U.S. dollars a piece in Francs for. We all trudged in treating ourselves to a particular brand of beer that was native to Amsterdam. A possessor of eerie alcohol percentage. It reminded me of the European version of malt liquor. All Star Liquor on Figgeroa in Altadena supplied my juvenile friends and I countless drunken adventures throughout our teenage years. Drunken 40oz. liberty. The city of lights was a gracious host that night for the clouded mind, an entity that’s unbelievably hammered. 

We ignorantly reclined in the uncomfortable chairs at a table on the outside porch of the bar.  

Nate and Tim were on the verge of unconsciousness. But James and I decided to live a little longer that night. After we had finished our cans of brew I went back inside to buy two more. As I entered the bar, a man followed briskly behind me to the counter where the bartender slouched over. The Parisian bartender gave the man a glass of cognac. He did not look up as he slid the drink over the counter. He kept reading his magazine. A cluster of naked bodies entangled and connected together were pictured on the cover. I asked politely if I could purchase two more of those lovely Dutch concoctions. The bartender followed procedure with me, the next in line. 

The man hadn’t caught my attention at first glance. But what would happen in the next five minutes has left an irreversible impression on me that I highly doubt will ever be lost. Like a live Hendrix guitar solo. Eternal through origin and death. Originated at this bar on a corner in Paris nobody would think twice about. It was that bizarre and extraordinary.  

Right when the man took hold of his glass he began yelling at the bartender in peculiar tongue of French. I leaned against the counter adjacent to the two men quarreling, in awe of a language spoken quite differently by both men. And my listening comprehension did not extend beyond the understanding of their difference. The man was obviously high as a kite. And he flung the glass of cognac he had been holding at the bartender’s face. A split-second later a gigantic German Shepard flew out of a hidden room from down the hall beyond the bathrooms at the back of the bar. He targeted the enraged customer. The dog fluidly hunted down his prey, a man desperate for an escape. On this Paris street corner the rabid wolf tore into this man’s flesh maliciously. James and I stared at this brutal beating with inhibited amusement, each alone and foreign midst vacated premises. It was an awesome picture show for the tired beer goggles to witness. Only my frightful hangover the next day allowed me to fully appreciate something so grandeur. Soon after, a great big, bald man stormed out from the hidden room, whistling at a proficiently loud volume. The beast automatically withdrew from the enemy. Known as Cue Ball on the streets of Paris. He ferociously engulfed the weakened enemy with another bout of flurry. They were a tag team. Man and dog against a man. Cue Ball and Wolf against a man. 

The summer before, I had worked construction. One of my laborious jobs was to break concrete with a jackhammer. This man that wailed on his exhausted opponent would have been remarkably talented at the art of the jackhammer. In fact, that is where I believe this unknown art is born.  

Blood covered the cement floor. There lay a man drifting along in a dreamy current. What that man saw thereafter, maybe he could not even tell others in the years ahead hastily pursuing him. Nobody but us bothered to notice what had just taken place. It happened too quick, without forewarning of what wrath the Cue Ball’s fistful strength could unleash. It must have been four, maybe five tops, blows. It occurred in a blink of an eye. A drunken eye may call it a dream. It speedily withdrew from the street corner under the iridescence and vocal calamity. All of it. 

The first emotion that I felt was relief that I was not that man. Then, I felt pity for him, even if he had truly deserved the beating. I scratched a curious itch and quickly went to the bartender to order another drink as an ode to this experience. Maybe pour a little out. Not puke.  

Bring spirit to the occasion. I asked him while slurring my words, “What-er lies in-a room ova there mista bah-tenda?” 

“Police,” he curtly replied in a tone implying that our conversation was through. 

So I grasped my last drink of the night, a pint-size bottle of cheap red wine. My last thought before I drifted away into the vacant point of the black sea, was of tired anxiety to the coming of events another night in Paris would yield, imagining the German Shepard’s glossy dark brown eyes closing in on me. His teeth glow night. 

?

Christmas is a time of emotional reckoning: wanted or unwanted. 

My greatest Christmas wish is that we all take the time to forgive ourselves, especially those of us who not only think we do not deserve self-penance but the ones among us who don’t even realize our right to own our weaknesses.  

Many of us believe others would never see our weaknesses, our bad habits, our “sins” or our sufferings as deserving of attention or forgiveness. 

We cry tears of encouragement for the most devastated among us: those who are suffering painfully as life-ending illnesses waste them away, parents who have experienced the death of their child, children who begin life molested, poor and/or severely challenged, mentally or physically.  

We draw encouragement from the bravery of these and others, the bravery of people who have conquered severe alcohol abuse, who have overcome drug addiction, daily winners against a struggle to act out in all the insidious ways seemingly born within them. The highs we climb when we use alcohol or drugs, engage in gambling and/or habitual unspeakable behaviour towards others, all in effort to escape or more accurately mask pain, the pain that is supposedly necessary to balance the condition called life. 

My wish every Christmas is that we all continue to fight and forgive our public and private hells but my special wish is for you, the one who believes she’s not doing enough to overcome what may seem a small problem to others but to her feels just as horrible as some global tragedy but she dare not admit it or speak it, the one who believes what he is struggling to overcome is just as difficult for him to overcome as any headline-worthy catastrophic event, but he believes there’s no comparison worth mentioning.  

Just as the smallest goodwill deserves the largest thank you, the most invisible suffering, the tiniest weakness that may never be overcome and will never be understood, deserves forgiveness.  

This Christmas and every Christmas, whatever it does to or for you, let it always be the time you thank yourself and forgive yourself. 

e

TUESDAY, DEC. 27 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. corner of Eunice. All welcome, no charge. 527-2177.  

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 28 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Sleep Soundly Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, DEC. 29 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

Joel ben Izzy celebrates Hanukkah with games, stories and a dreidel design contest at 6:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 483-0698. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, DEC. 30 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

SATURDAY, DEC. 31 

Open the Little Farm Help greet the animals as we feed them, collect eggs and do morning chores at 9 a.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. Dress to get dirty. 525-2233. 

Berkeley High Class of 1975 Reunion Party at 7 p.m. at the Doubletree, Berkeley Marina. mlc22@sbcglobal.net 

New Year’s Eve Balloon Drop at 4 p.m. (midnight Greenwich Mean Time) at Chabot Space & Science Center. Tickets required. 336-7373. 

SUNDAY, JAN. 1 

Tibetan Buddhism “Introduction to Tibetan Healing Meditation and Yoga” at 3 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JAN. 2 

Free Small Business Counselling with SCORE, Service Core of Retired Executives at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. To make an appointment call 981-6244. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Healing Mind”at 8 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

TUESDAY, JAN. 3 

Learn How to Use Your GPS with Map Software with Jeff Caulfield of National Geographic at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Family Story Time at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Branch Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Free, all ages welcome. 524-3043. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Kaiser Permanente, Dining Conference Room, 1950 Franklin St. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Berkeley Salon Discussion Group meets to discuss “New Years Revolutions” from 7 to 9 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 527-1022. 

Free Handbuilding Ceramics Class 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Materials and firing charges not included. 525-5497. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

“Ask the Social Worker” free consultations for older adults and their families from 10 a.m. to noon at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. To schedule an appointment call 558-7800, ext. 716. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

“Faith, Doubt, and Inquiry” with Jack Petranker at 6:15 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 4 

Community Advisory Group Zeneca/Stauffer Chemical Site meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Bermuda Room, Richmond Convention Center, 403 Civic Center Plaza at Nevin and 25th Sts., Richmond. 540-3923. 

“45 Days: The Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken” Documentaries on animal cruelty at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation of $5 suggested.  

Bookmark Reading Group meets to discuss “The Mistress of Spices” by Chitra Divakaruni at 6:30 p.m. at 721 Washington St., Oakland. 336-0902. 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 10 a.m. to noon at its headquarters in Oakland. Volunteers are needed to support the more than 40 blood drives held each month all over the East Bay. For more information call 594-5165. 

Dick Penniman’s Avalanche Safety Lecture at 6 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Fee is $20. 527-4140. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1333 Broadway, Oakland, and from 2 to 7 p.m. at Kehilla Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters welcomes curious guests and new members at 7:15 a.m. at Au Coquelet Cafe, 2000 University Ave. at Milvia. 435-5863.  

Entrepreneurs Networking at 8 a.m. at A’Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcatraz. Cost is $5. 562-9431.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Sing your Way Home A free sing-a-long at 4:30 p.m. every Wed. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Prose Writer’s Workshop An ongoing group made up of friendly writers who are serious about our craft. All levels welcome. At 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Tibetan Yoga with Jack van der Meulen at 6:15 p.m. at Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Place. 843-6812. 

Introduction to Buddhist Studies at 8 p.m. at Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Place. 843-6812.?