Categories
Queer

Petrolia

Daisy

I promised that I wouldn’t write about where and who I was staying with… it feels like I am boasting.  But… here I am staying with Daisy Cockburn on The Lost Coast.   We met thirty years ago at Phil H’s house on Langton Street, Worlds End, Chelsea.

Daisy’s house/compound, filled with unusual and beautiful things collected by her father Alexander Cockburn, leaving his only child this house in Petrolia.  Alexander was a disruptor, a magnificent political writer.  Alexander died last July after a long illness.

Collecting the most extraordinary ceramics, eclectic paintings the decaying house is a warren of red wood improvements and additions.  James built a tower on the hill… I’ve not yet visited.  The ceramics are mostly by LA based ceramist Jim Danisch.

Daisy’s mother is the writer Emma Tennant.  Her cousin is Olivia Wilde.

I drove from LA.  Through San Francisco.  The last 60 miles along perilous roads in the dark.  Tarmac Roads that suddenly give out to treacherous gravel.  Past the magnificent redwoods that even in the dark… are extraordinary.

I slept in a huge bed built on a wooden platform.  I slept like a giant redwood log.  At night, I can hear the Mattole river moving quickly over tiny gray pebbles.  This morning we all… dogs too… swam in the cold clear water.

More pics tomorrow.