Serpentine Prairie: The Light Falls Orange

This morning I woke up eager to start my year in the Park, energized with the idea of starting a new routine, especially this year after the Great Hiding. Backpack. Water bottle. Tea in a go cup. Laptop. I get more work done when I have a uniform. Flannel shirt. Hiking shoes. Pigtails—a far cry from the lady up routine at my last residency—but still fancier than the black sweat pants of 2020. I was so excited I forgot my phone.  (For a year there, I never left the house, so it takes practice.) I considered the possibility that I was trying to leave connectivity behind on purpose...I haven't let it leave my side for over a year.

Today is one of those days where the light falls orange. We’ve had such blessed blue skies lately, even as bad air quality chokes the nation. In the north, fires are again once again consuming whole forests. A whole town disappeared. Again. When I get up to the park, it’s closed. Extreme fire danger. This would not bode well for an official first day, but this is a practice run. My mood is not dimmed. I pull over in the shade of the main road and open my laptop.

I have been writing in these hills for some 30 years. Virginia Woolf had a room of her own where she could pull up to her desk, crank out the words, have the maid bring tea, then crank out some more. I have been lucky to have a car of my own. And, starting a decade or so into my writing practice, a laptop of my own. Add a pair of headphones and I have a space of my own, anywhere. Headphones would be good; I'll add them to my backpack. Cars rushing by and shake my wheeled office.

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I drive up the hill a little farther to the Serpentine Prairie. From here you can see to the ocean to the west and to the far hills to the east. I haven’t walked here since I had a canine and children to exercise, a mother who could still hike. I feel the stress in the land, in the orange light. The grass is brown, the earth is dry and dormant. Like a hot winter, summer is. Down in the valley, a scrub jay hops among dead branches. Bright green bags of dog poop brighten the dusty trails. But when I turn a corner into the ravine, the path before me is lush and welcoming.  

And there’s my ROCK!

A granite boulder the size of an airstream juts just off the path, covered with lichen older than my grandparents, perhaps older than all my ancestors. I have many photos of this rock covered with boys, even one with my circus dog atop. A tree has grown over it, branches sprouting prickly leaves, spreading  like a “street closed” sign, making the climb less inviting. A shock of showy red leaves shoots up the back, seductively shiny Poison Oak... I give it space. I try to give all toxins space these days--airborne, non-nutritious, emotional.

I put my feet in the familiar footholds, and soon, dodging twigs and ducking overgrowth, I’m at the rocky point, surrounded by branches. My feet dangle over the angle, below me a precipitous drop. A twig of Bay Laurel rests on my left shoulder; I rest my right elbow on the branch of a Coast Live Oak. 

The hill slopes down to my right, soft green ground cover dotted with the devil's red leaves under the still trees, saplings among mature trunks covered with moss. It's quiet. The faraway clop of horse feet echos in the still air for a long time before their bodies appear. Soft glossy chestnuts, wearing fetlock leathers and martingales notice me. The riders don't. Teen girlfriends with money chatting about their teenage antics as teen girlfriends do, preparing for the adventure of lovely lives.

A spider crawls over the keyboard. I have to pee. I need a snack. Half an hour in nature is pretty good for my first day, but I hope be a real frontierswoman by this time next year, away from bathrooms and refrigerators for hours on end. 

On the way back up the path I think of all the things I hope to accomplish this year: Get in a writing groove. Bring poets of the past into conversation with the future. Find new paths. Sit on more rocks. Observe.

Lean on well-rooted laurels.