last pictures from last may

eucalyptus groves

The trees here. So many of them are old and creaky, frozen in their wind-blown shapes, leaning away from the wind with their branches yet still firm in their roots.

 

I especially love the eucalyptus groves. Those in the middle grow straight and wheat-like while those on the edges have a few branches raised against the wind as if they've thrown up their hands to protect their faces from the salt air.

 

 

Standing amongst them, their scent settles down over you in the softest way -- almost ephemeral -- but it keeps coming down and down, settling around your neck.

 

And oh the bark on these trees. Much like birch, it flakes off in elegant, papery swaths. The new bark revealed underneath is soft and smooth, pulled taught against the trunk. It creates a visual depth. All I want to do is run my fingers through it like hair at the nape of someone's neck. The illusion breaks as soon as you touch it, but it is beautiful all the same.

 

 

The eucalyptus stands here are on the Monarch Butterfly's route. When they're traveling, the beauty of the grove turns delicate as thousands of butterfly wings are added to the twirling leaves and pealing bark. Everything flutters and tree blends with wing and pretty soon you're struck with the vast number of creatures. At first glance all appears brown with only flashing sparks of orange until you look carefully and see clumps of butterflies hanging off one another in great pillars because there isn't enough branch to go around.

 

 

So often returning to childhood memories I find that the world has shrunk. What was a great, unreachable buttress is only a short twisted tree. The miles on miles of concrete sidewalk leading to the elusive stop-sign corner isn't even a block. But those trees. Those trees are still just as ethereal... just as rooted in the sky. 

san simeon

Standing in the little parking lot near the San Simeon post office, hardly the size of a postage stamp itself, the soft scent of the eucalyptus wafts around you and Hearst Castle appears far off on the hills.

 

Strong memories seep out of that pavement -- ornate, cold marble floors and passageways in the castle, a long-held obsession with palm trees because they meant California and California still meant home, the red licorice whip granddad bought me when he got rich, molasses black.

 

 

The one room school house, still standing, isn't empty. It doesn't house classes or books, but the swallow nests fill the eaves as the birds fly helter shelter in their distinctive swoops.

 

As the sun set, their shadows darted back and forth over the long grass and white wooden walls.

 

harmony headlands

fiscalini ranch

 

 

delightful confusion

Fiscalini Ranch is just around the corner from here. The trail through it winds both up into the hills and down around along the ocean's edge, twenty or thirty feet above the waves. It's all rolling coyote brush and a few scraggly low grass varieties mixed in.

 

 

 

Walking just as the sun was beginning to set, I watched the light reflect up off the water and bounce between the wet rocks when they weren't covered over by the waves.  Such beauty, and no one else in sight. The peace was profound.

 

I didn't go far down the boardwalk as the setting sun caused the air to become rapidly colder and most of my walk had been getting to the beginning of the trail itself.

Anyhow, heading back all bundled up in a sweatshirt enjoying the wind on my face and neck while watching the water turn from orange flecks to a purple grey scheme, I suddenly found myself face on with an entire little herd of skunks.

 

 

Mama's tail was straight up and six or seven little identical tails crowded around her.

 

What do you even do when faced with something like that? Something so fuzzy yet capable of striking fear into the heart of nearly anyone? The camper in me started yelling at the photographer: "For goodness sake get out of here! What are you doing?! Don't you know anything?!" But there I was, taking photographs.

 

Thankfully, not all of my sense left and I stepped back to give myself more time. They were coming on fast though and mama was looking rather nervous, rightfully making me so.

 

I started walking backwards. The camper in me was apparently also very adamant about not going off the trail, as I ruled out that option quite quickly. I realized however that mama had no intention of getting off the trail either and that, continuing my present course of action, I might have to walk quite a ways to satisfy her. There wasn't any way I was going to walk past her. I wasn't about to crowd her.

 

Problem solver that I am, I did the most reasonable (and dignified) thing and began to stamp on the boardwalk.

 

It did not have the desired effect. They all paused and the kits, confused at suddenly finding their mother behind instead of in front of them, began bumbling about in circles trying to find her again. However, moments later, she was charging ahead again, faster than before.

 

Once again, I did the most reasonable thing and added yelling to my stamping. About then is when I became particularly thankful that no one else was around.

 

 

The combination of noise and movement seemed to convince mama at last that it was not safe up there. She dipped down into the grass and slipped under the walkway.

 

All confusion broke loose.

 

The kits, suddenly finding themselves leaderless, scattered in every direction, bumping into one another and generally being adorable even in their oddly threatening state. I was, of course, taking pictures. Perhaps not the best idea however (though worth it now that I have the photos), as a couple of the little ones decided I must be mommy -- seemed logical to them I suppose -- and proceeded to bolt in my direction.

 

 

With greatly mixed emotions, all decorum was forgotten and I stepped off the trail and high stepped into the brush. I had originally planned to come back again the same way but one of the little ones was so determined to keep up that he tumbled down after me and moved much faster than I supposed possible.

 

While fighting a strong urge to pick him up and cuddle with him, I proceeded to leg it through the bushes as quickly as I could, just outstripping the tiny fuzz ball. I circled back onto the boardwalk closer to home, past where they had originally appeared, and looked back.

The last of the troops were gathering themselves again and slowly, like some tumbled game of sardines, managed to one by one discover mama who as still under the boardwalk.

Who can help but to find joy in such delightful confusion?

ragged point

driving

This month I am living with my Grandma and Granddad on California's central coast. I have been in love with this place as long as I can remember with its stretched-out highways and swaths of land. As a child it always meant vacation, family, and the briny smell of the ocean. Now that I've come back older it means rest, good conversation, and cold sand under my feet.

 

I've been here a week now and we've done a wonderful lot of driving either to spend time with old friends, escape the fog and chase the sunset, or simply to grab a gallon of milk. My neck has become sore from the looking but words tumble through my head as I watch it all go by and I cannot help but look harder.

 

 

Some of the great hills are disrupted by outcroppings of old volcanic rock, flinty in their old, wind-worn age, as if the hills oozed around them over time rather than the rock rising and piercing the hill's smooth descent. From above the land looks like bulky creatures smothered under thick earthen blankets, their arms still outstretched as they were when they gave up the fight.



 

 

 The contrasts of this place always surprise and delight me. One moment will show softly rolling wheat fields with airy oak trees dispersed through them and the next will reveal steep ocean cliffs with a single gnarled madrone holding on by the ends of its roots. The crisp curving lines of a grape orchard gives way to the scruffy burnt brown of heather and thorn bushes. Each curve enhances the next in the sheer unexpectedness of the coming views.