Walkin' with Joaquin

Calling all writers who love nature!  Starting in November, I've begun hosting a mid-month writing retreat in the Park. Come any time during the day, take a walk and explore, and find a place to put some words on paper. Look for other writers at the Ranger Station - inside or outside - at 9am, 12pm, and 3pm to make connections and share your work. This event is sponsored by the California Writers Club . We offer a monthly speaker series on the craft and business of writing, numerous support and critique groups, and social events for networking and fellowship. The history of the CWC is interwoven with the history of Joaquin Miller Park. We are made up of writers at all stages of our careers, writing in all genres and media, embracing the rich diversity of California Writers. Add Write in the Hights* to your calendar ! Visit Joaquin Miller Park! Bring a notebook and write! (*Joaquin Miller humorously mis-spelt his home hill.)

Hump day, slump day. I couldn't seem to get anything done today. Spinny ball of doom. Can't connect. Dead ends on every task. Taking a new path today up a soft green valley brown carpeted with compost, I felt held by the muffled silence, then tickles in my ears. Around a bend I found a tiny trickle.  Below my dangling feet, light wiggled on a living puddle, a small spot of sky staring up from the dirt and dead leaves. On the slope to my left, a lone mushroom peeped out from the messy debris, strangely circular in the chaos, an eye. There were murmurs in the distance, then voices from somewhere above me. The sounds materialized into bodies descending the hill. Friendly faces emerged from the trees, two women aglow from a happy hike.  We became acquainted in the way of the day, sending pics of each other to the numbers before saying our names.  Tiffany and Kaamil have been walking every Wednesday. They discovered the Park when 510 Hikers ...

Last night on Zoom, Darlene Flynn, Director of Oakland's Department of Race and Equity , showed the audience a black-and-white photo of herself as a child, sitting on the hood of a car, surrounded by her family, in a magnificent mountain setting.  There was something unusual about this idyllic family portrait, so typical of the post-war era when families flocked to National Parks for Sunday picnics. Not so much that all of the women were wearing dresses, and no doubt heels of some practical height—I mean who does that anymore? But her dad is black and her mom is white, something rare for that era, though normal, and legal, in the state of Washington at that time. Everyone's smiling and having a great day in the great outdoors. Darlene had been invited by The Friends of Joaquin Miller Park ’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee to bring new perspectives to park stakeholders. She invited us all to lean into Oakland’s vision of “creating a city where racial disparities have ...

I'm sitting on a big rock again today. This one looks over Sausal Creek in the cool slant of the ravine above the freeway.  Everything has changed since the big soaking! The hills are turning green and the creek is dancing with water. The dusty tension of autumn is past, with relief there was no disaster here this year. Now it's as if magic has been born again. Someone had hidden miniature garden gnomes in the trees. Forest gnomes. Water frolics down the slope in a sliver of silver, singing to the ears of my heart. There is a certain kind of solitude you can only find near a bubbling stream. This is not music you can play on a scale, music you can transpose on a sheet. I want to set lyrics to it but I can't; the poetry comes separately, in its own capricious rhythms. No matter; I have a rock. I have these sweet few minutes I claimed for myself, away from the shoulds, to listen to the woods, to channel this stream of consciousness into a trickle of words. I walk back through...