February, when we welcomed the rain.

Feb 4 2023

 We take the opportunity before too much more rain develops to fit in a quick walk out at China Camp – it is, after all, practically in our back yard.  With enough rain gear, it’s not a bad walk under trees and along streams. It’s not pouring rain, just a pretty steady drizzle – I mean, in Portland, it wouldn’t even rate a mention. We’re the only car in this particular lot – most folks park out on North San Pedro Road. But we’re not confident about the weather and want to have a quick  getaway if we get drenched.

 

A quick flutter off to the right , a piercing whistled cry,  white rump just above the tail – a northern flicker greets us as we tackle the three switchbacks that get us up the low hill, tree boles swathed in brilliant green mosses – we are moving through a green universe, dotted with mushrooms, and the tiny white bells of manzanitas and wildflowers, the magenta red of Indian warrior plants, that as far as I can recall are dormant all summer, springing forth now with the rains, defiant and beautiful. There's a tinkling soothing sound of rock-bedded little water falls, little creeks running out to San Pablo Bay.

It is an astonishment of greenness, of moist air. Our lungs gobble it up and we march forward with no purpose but to be walking. A few joggers and several squads of mountain bikes pass us, everyone moving faster than us, hoping to avoid the bigger rain drops. The backs of all the bikers are festooned with strip of mud straight up their back side, from saddle-seat to mid-back.  We relish this rebound of green and mud after the months and years of drought and dust. Bring it on, we think!

 This was in February. March soon became another matter.

 

April 10, 2020 - Friday. Long Walk on a Good Enough Friday

Rabbit Tree on Santa Margarita Island

This Friday has to be Good Enough.
We took a long walk over to Santa Margarita Island,  a 3-mile round trip from our house, about an hour and a half all told. We walked on sidewalks past gardens just revving up and in streets eerily devoid of cars or trucks or even bikes. The island is more like an islet, not even 1/2 mile around the edge and back. Some big rocks in the middle, a few small oaks, madrone, some low brush, loud bees, busy birds. Grasses and wild flowers wave in the gentle winds that kick up now and again. Low, humid clouds dominate the sky, never letting the sun gain any traction on the day.

The island is fascinating and compact.There are few obvious lounging places until you climb up into the rocks, where there's almost a bower of small trees and rocky seats overlooking the marsh to the north and the creek wandering off to the east. Compared to  China Camp with its grassy meadows, steep inclines and stunning bay views or  Pt Reyes National Seashore, with all the beach-hikes, mountain-hikes, canyon hikes you could desire, this little County Park islet barely stands out. This whole experience in lock-down living would be very different if we could get out to something like wilderness, get closer to trees and waves and ocean breezes, go wander around the big, charismatic parks.

And yet. There's something to be said for local.

Right here in this little subdivision there are just enough vestiges of the wilder-world, of nature, grass, flowers, insects, ravens, yellow-capped sparrows with their distinctive descending minor-key three notes, towhees chinking away the afternoon, ravens fussing around the bird bath, murmuring and croaking, tall trees rustling in a rising wind measured by the clink of the wind chime, bees wandering in the open window and back out again.  We think we have nothing or very little in the way of nature, of walking space, but now that we are forced to look, we find the hidden treasure all around us. 

This island is a tiny jewel of grasses and big rocks and small trees, protected from habitation and therefore available to us Isolationists for a chance to look across water, to hear the calls of birds. It is enough - it is more than enough. All without driving and sticking closely to Physical Distancing Guidelines. Mt Tamalpais gives us her stern look through the grey skies; wrens and rails call and scurry through the mud and reeds. 

This restriction to quarters has forced us to look and explore more closely to home, the way a kid might, who only had a bike and their sneakers to get themselves around. I want to return to Santa Margarita Island, with my journal, binoculars, some oranges - as good a place as any to sketch and create some verses and live in the outside world. And bask in the moments of joy we are able to wrest amidst the worry, confusion and consternation of the world in a pandemic.