LOVES ME LIKE A ROCK: BUDDHA'S SMILE

The fireplace mantel in Gus’s house resembles a Valentine’s card. A collection of Baroque-style ceramic angels prance, play harps, sing, and gaze off love-struck. “I fantasize a lot,” Gus says coyly, corners of his mouth turning upward just a bit, as he cocks his head slightly to the side. It seems appropriate that he should live in the house he does, the old ferry runner’s house built in 1890. I imagine that, like the ferry runner, Gus spends hours gazing upon the river, watching birds and dreaming.

He has crafted this house from its original 25’x25’ square foot structure into something more reminiscent of a small castle, with fantasies wrought from solid elements of stone and wood. It’s preposterously large for a single man, but that was not the intention. Gus once had a wife and it was to be a family home, where meals were cooked and shared, where they could observe their child growing: sweet baby, lively toddler, spry child, awkward adolescent, and finally, proud young man. It was a house full of possibilities, like their relationship, like the baby growing in Abbey’s belly even at the moment of their marriage.

You know you are entering a fantasy as soon as you approach the house and are greeted by the Celtic Green Man, whose face adorns an impressive knocker on Gus’s massive wooden front door. Behind this door are now 3,000 square feet where Gus’s fantasy was to evolve. Hand-sanded and varnished wood floors play out into a puzzle of rooms.

Gus’s living room is cozy, with a fireplace and its angel-laden mantel and antique furnishings. Five ornate stained-glass light fixtures dangle pendant-style from the ceiling.

Throughout the house stand multiple Buddha statues and other Asian artifacts representing holy and wise men, including a very old figure of a wise and hunched Dymio crafted in Japan in the 1920s, and another of China’s Lao Tsu.

About sixteen hand-woven wool oriental rugs, magic carpets from the Far East, though purchased on eBay, are scattered about the floor. Gus points out the uneven patterns. “Most likely they were made by children just learning the craft from their elders.”

There are playrooms for his son Shawn, a well-stocked pantry off the kitchen, efficient-looking offices, bedrooms, two staircases, and even a turret built onto the second floor that Gus uses as a meditation room.

Gus is a man with a raging need to build and construct that drives him deep into nights with his hammer finding nails and his saw finding wood. He sets his mind to a task others would find daunting. His determination causes all to stand from his way as he forges his fantasy into reality.

We hear his saws deep into the night, but in spite of these Herculean efforts, each room resists being finished. Its beauty is interrupted by half-painted walls and exposed beams. In his dining room, green paint spreads toward the center of a south-facing wall and then stops, so brush strokes fade, leaving a white starburst in the center. There are places where the old wooden studs are exposed and tufts of soft pink insulation peek from between two-by-fours.

One room, however, is without flaw. It is the elegant bedroom on the first floor, reserved for Gus’s mother. He wants her to have a place where she can be comfortable when she visits. It is furnished with a grand Civil-War era walnut bed frame, covered in a green floral spread, with matching throw pillows with silk tassels. A large bay window reveals a view of the river below, waves belting against the rocks.

On the outside of the house, Gus has built steps out of black basalt carved by Baltic stonecutters from Chinook’s earlier days. Gus tells me he has seen a picture of this stonecutter standing with a proud, protruding chest, positioned next to Teddy Roosevelt in front of the newly constructed Chinook High School.

“Stones make me feel good,” Gus says. “I discovered this climbing in Joshua Tree National Park as a med student, struggling with the stress of that situation.” A variety of stones he has collected are scattered about his yard. One is a large chunk of granite that weighs ten tons. He had it hauled into the neighborhood from across the river. I, and others in the neighborhood, believed this immense stone was a Valentine’s or birthday gift to his then wife, Abbey.

“No,” Gus explains. It’s his rock. He brought that in because he saw it at a construction site. He points a partial finger, (he cut the top off accidentally while sawing at the same time that he was arguing with Abbey,) to a set of narrow white condominiums built on the south side of the river. He brings his hand back down and pats the granite. “I just like stones.”

“This is the one that I got for Abbey.” It is a smaller, soft-shaped piece of quartz, with a pinkish hue and ripples of white foam markings. It sits on the ground about twenty feet from the ten tons of granite. The quartz he found in the woods sixty miles north of Chinook. “It was a relationship gift. I don’t think she ever understood or valued it.”

The quartz is beautiful, but it’s the granite and its massiveness that captures the imagination. Gus dug a hole three and a half feet into the ground to lodge the granite in place and planted it upright so it stood nearly seven feet into the air. But Abbey didn’t trust the stone looming so high above their small son as he played outside. She was terrified that it would fall on him.

The word at the Crossroads was that Abbey and Gus fought, often, and about almost everything: the manner in which the house was constructed, the manner in which affection was or was not expressed, who was caring for Shawn, and especially about the granite stone. It became the center point of a brutal tug-of-war.

“Abbey was my fantasy. But as the Dalai Lama said, ‘The sex is good, but then the trouble begins.’”

Gus and Abbey’s relationship ended after two stormy years in which Gus brought the concept of family into the construction project. Before Abbey packed her bags and left, Gus took a bulldozer and pushed the massive granite stone prone. Now, when Shawn visits, he climbs about it and uses it as a back wall for his forts. In winter, if the temperature drops low enough, Shawn and Gus arrange a spray hose above the stone so that water sprays and drips, then freezes. A thick sheet forms on the stone’s flat top, while ribbed columns drape its sides and clusters of mushroom-shaped bumps emerge from random water drops. It is a beautiful combination of the elements of water and stone.

In The Crossing of the nine houses, only one seems to hold a couple successfully co-habiting. Lisa and John’s 12-year marriage is a beacon of possibility. Other houses are filled with loners, many of us with long histories of tumultuous relationships and poor matches.

Gus wonders about all this. Is it the self-absorbed fascination we have with our journeys, or our extreme eccentricities that make us so unable to successfully couple?

Gus looks out his picture window to the water roaring beneath, water that could carry any of us away and beyond, despite whatever hands we may attempt to grasp.

“Perhaps,” Gus sighs, “there is just too much water.”

Buddha’s Smile—A dish to eat when feel you're drifting away. (an adaptation of Buddha’s Delight)

4 T cooking oil

3 slices fresh ginger, finely minced

2 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced

4 Napa cabbage leaves

3 cups Oyster mushrooms, cut into pieces

1/2 red pepper slivered- or 2 mini sweet peppers

One 3 ½ ounce package thin rice vermicelli noodles-soak 20 minutes in warm water

3 Tablespoons hoisin sauce, 3 Tablespoons soy sauce and 1/2 cup water or vegetable broth

Hot chile sauce or paste to taste

Firm tofu cut into cubes and fried in hot oil or use pre-grilled tofu.

3 green onion, chopped

½ cup cashew nuts

In a wok or large fry skillet heat oil and stir-fry garlic and ginger for 2 minutes. Add mushrooms, red peppers and cabbage leaves. Continue stirring until cabbage is just wilted. Add cellophane noodles, liquids and chile sauce. Cover and cook for five minutes or until noodles are translucent. Gently toss in grilled tofu, green onions and cashew nuts.