The house that Jack built

"Rest/Read" says the sign on the green mailbox. Next to the box is an inviting bench, and inside the box is a collection of short stories by Jack London. London himself rests not far from here, or his ashes do, buried in an urn beneath a mossy boulder. We're visiting the Jack London State Historic Site, the farm where the author spent his final days.

First we visit the ruins of the dream house London built in 1913, a massive structure of stone and redwood that burned before he could move in. It makes a lovely ruin. At the cabin where the author wrote his last books we see how he organized his ideas: scraps of paper covered with his notes are clipped with clothespins to ropes festooned across his sleeping porch. The view from the porch features a koi pond and herb garden and vineyards stretching into the distance.

We share a picnic lunch and listen to a guest lecturer by Dr. Charles Crow, who taught the California Lit class I took in grad school years ago but is now retired to California. We sit beneath trees and discuss London's work as Charles draws Jungian diagrams on an invisible blackboard. We rest. We read. We carry on, as Jack would want us to do.