Growing up out west - we had what was known as the "endless summer" feeling - a moment in the summer when - not Time per se - but hectic, anxious, nerve-wracking time would come to a standstill. Change would still happen of course, things would continue moving, interacting, but at a slower, more predictable pace...the rhythms of summer would take over with sunny days giving way to balmy nights...a certain degree of repetition would lend structure to this seeming "pause" in the action...Clouds still move across the sky, waves still crash against the shore, traffic on the roads, people walking, biking, swimming - but all in a self-contained world over which one had some semblance of control..Long days at the beach, lying in the sun or playing tennis at the community college, watching the heat rise on the pavement, shooting baskets on the outdoor courts, sitting poolside at a neighbor's house, sitting on the lawn at dusk, staying outside on summer nights with no wind blowing and the stars out....At the beach, you could glimpse at its most perfect point of stillness - this illusion of eternity - when basking on the ocean, literally floating on a raft, you'd feel the waves moving underneath in their un-altering pattern...I call it the "time-stop mechanism" ...it was a reassurance of escape that came with growing up in a golden state...it was enough of a respite to allow you forget that eerie uncanny counter-feeling of time-passing - the invisible winds that erode the facades of stability... So it was that those natural events for which California was known for then - earthquakes, wind, wildfires, mud slides - would serve as reminders of the short-lived fleetingness of the entire edifice ...
Prologue - > We are fortunate to live in a time, or so it is said, when we of the future no longer feel the burden of gender to such a degree as in previous ages; nowadays there is no pre-established norm or "role" for us to perform or hold onto like a chain about the neck. There was a time, of course, and not so long ago, when men were de facto expected to be tough strong, resilient, athletic, assertive... and which to judge by the role models in movies and popular culture which we could add on silent, stoical, protective, while no great shock was registered if there should be a woman or more than one who in some degree was known (also through popular culture, movies, novels, songs, etc. in comparison with her male counterparts) as: soft, demure, flirtatious, sociable, wise, and to which one might add on: practical, prescient, intuitive, gregarious, solicitous, nurturing and perhaps multi-tasking, socially-aware, loyal, resilient . With regard to the males, unfair
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