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Lookout Point: A New Year

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January First, 4pm.  The afternoon sun lights up bright green patches of grass between the tall tree shadows. I’m on my way to greet the new year from Lookout Point, where we all like to look out at Oakland. Pyramid hill glows with the indescribable color made by orange light on bright green grass. Beyond, the bay is shining, Lake Merritt glistens. The whole city looks quiet and clean from here, rinsed by last week's rains, ready to start a fresh new year.  A year ago today park was in shambles after the “cyclone bomb” of a storm that decimated this urban forest. A great number of Joaquin Miller’s trees are history now, the ones he planted 120-150 years ago to create a park setting on the Ohlone’s former grassland hunting ground. My 2023 photo album is  full of green devastation . I soothed my sorrow knowing that these hundreds of lost trees died a natural death— they were at the ends of their life spans and killed by nature. But I also still feel that they, and all ...
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Fire Circle: Foxtails, Food Fun and Feedback

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Today I'm writing from the Fire Circle. It's time for a makeover...because danger ! This sometimes sunny meadow was a soft green in the spring, but now it's full of dry, flammable foxtails, surrounded by trees full of tinder. Fun fact: The Golden Gate is not the bridge, but the hills the bridge connects. Before The Spanish arrived with their cows, those hills were green all summer, like this meadow would be if the native grasses weren't choked out by foxtails. The cows pooped out the Spanish hay, full of foxtail seeds, which are persistent hitchhikers with an incredible life force. Soon those hills were browning off in the summer. Or I should say blonding off. Turning that sort of soft gold that is not to be confused with the brilliance of California poppies. (Which really did used to crowd these here hills.) The picnic tables and concrete barbecue/stage were built, I learned recently, by none other than the devoted Juanita Miller, Joaquin's youngest daughter, a.k...
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California Writers Circle: A Community Kitchen

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As we prepared to send in our proposal  to give the Fire Circle a makeover  last week, something wasn't sitting right with me. Was it seeing those little Wednesday outdoor school kids climbing around on the cracking, crumbling cement structure? Was it having somewhere to hang our CWC banner at our Earth Day poetry event? Was it the gentle backdrop to all those amazing poets (Nanette Deetz, Richard Loranger, Lucille Lang Day et al)? Was it the way Bob Stephens curled up like some drunken beat poet in the sliver of shade that slab provided? Yes. YES. So much yes! The way we all  interacted with the space—food on one side, poetry on the other—made me realize this spot was thoughtfully designed for parties. I listened to President Keith deliver his puzzled, hilarious description of meat shopping for meat , and while staring at the shapes behind him, realized... Those are ziggurats! Yes, this classical, geometric stairstep pattern is an iconic Art Deco detail. How had I missed...
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