Bless this daily walk

Oct. 26, 2009

On one of her visits to Davis a few years ago, my friend Judi and I biked from our house to my office across the nearby UC Davis fields. We crossed a dirt field road to Olive Tree Lane, lined with the olive trees that were planted for beauty but are now the source of gourmet olive oils sold by the university. Judi’s absolute delight in the scenery was a sweet reminder to me of the beauty of my daily commute.

Lately my post-UCD work life has included a walk (or sometimes even two) through the fields and Olive Tree Lane with Taj. Some days I treasure each smell and sight, others I am simply glad to have a peaceful place to walk. And occasionally, I am bored by the quiet.

Today yielded one of my favorite seasonal phenomena : the sticky trailing silk released by a variety of balloon spider. Taj and I found the long threads trailing across Olive Tree Lane – so perfect for October and Halloween. The spiders weave the silk that emerges from their abdomens, spin it out and catch an updraft of wind to travel. After they land they release the thread, which drifts away. Many a time I have biked smack-dab into trailing threads, which cling and stick to my face hands and clothing like chewing gum or paper charged with static electricity.

We walked through a field near my former office; a young walnut orchard again took me back years to Sutter County and Dad, the farm, and walnut harvest. Dozens, no hundreds of squirrels chippered at each other and ran from hole to hole in the orchard floor. Taj quivered with excitement, but knew he probably couldn’t catch them and settled for sticking his nose into the squirrel and gopher holes that dot the fields. A few months ago he actually did catch one, but I think it was injured or ill before he got to it. Today a few hawks drifted above, but aggressive crows, emboldened by their number, heckled the larger hawks, which flew to other fields.

It startles me how much more I am seeing of the roads and fields I walked or rode almost every day for the 14 years my office was in the west campus fields.

[I really will figure out how to place/caption images. In the meantime, from the top images are: Taj walking down the lane as a jogger comes toward us, a young walnut orchard, close-up of the sticky spider threads, and threads streaming off the campus airport fence. Ciao.]

Hawks, crash, peonies

October 25, 2009

Walked to Putah Creek Reserve with Taj this morning on a blustery warm fall day in Davis. Taj and I aren’t so good at the “loose lead” walking, and the wind was no help. On the way home, I saw soaring red hawks, gliding and diving over the UC Davis vineyards. The first one reminded me of Dad enjoying raptors flying over the farm and Feather River banks. I had a fantasy that the hawk was Dad, but realized it sounded in my head like Neal Thayer’s fake laid-back New Zealand traveler dude voice. So I just enjoyed the hawk. Bird of prey wing tips must be the inspiration for the design of some jet plane wings – the slightly upward tip at the end, the sleek line.

Airplanes at the UC Davis airport bordering the vineyard don’t look sleek; they seem more like chubby cheerful toy planes.

We transplanted the peony root clump I bought from Dianne Madison at the farmers market this afternoon. She reminded me to plant it bud tips up, and to cover it with a maximum of two inches of soil. Six hours of daily sun is best for peonies. Not sure what color these will be; the Madisons sell palest pink, brilliant magenta and white peonies. The flowers are so beautiful; now I understand the inspiration for the Chinese and Japanese ceramics and paintings highlighting their beauty. They really do look too good to be true.

I’m calming down after four days with Mom in Santa Monica. A week ago she was in an automobile accident and broke her left arm/wrist and totaled her car. She was so shocked and angry at first, but by mid-week she was practicing the piano with her left arm in the Velcro cast (my sister April says she played with her right hand alone the day after the crash). She had also come to the conclusion that her driving days are behind her. I am relieved, and interestingly, I think she is relieved, too.

After doing errands in a borrowed car for almost a week for her, I was reminded how hard it is to drive there. Our friend Elizabeth was in Tulsa recently and said that although Tulsa has as many people and as much traffic as Santa Monica, drivers there let others change lanes with a smile, and there isn’t the same cut-throat intensity as on Southern California roads. I saw so many people on cell phones – walkers, drivers; few appeared to be paying attention to the present.

Glad to be home.

[Today's photo is one taken last year of Mom and me when we restored her incredible Chiura Obata painting. We love to remember that day; we all gathered in the Alameda studio of the conservator-restorer Tomakatsu Kawazu.]

Endless Summer ends...

I think I've reached the period after a big ol' change (leaving a job after 21 years) when the spirit calms down enough to notice: "Whoa...am I on the right BART car? Is this my stop?" The change has been startlingly terrific, and,it has its own issues--the main one seems to be, "I can't see ahead.(Could I ever?)."

Some of this has been precipitated by "a change in the weather" (thanks, Credence Clearwater). I feel like summer is truly behind me -- and that was the last time I thought I knew what I was doing. NorCal's first big storm is due tonight, and I'm very ready for it -- but maybe not what comes after.

Here at the homestead on Bucklebury Road, we've almost finished the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes thank-you notes, and my decluttering whirlwind is slowing down. I'm facing some core questions about our belongings. Where do I store what we're keeping? It's hard to keep things visible so they can be used, but if we don't use them, why the heck keep them?

Seems kinda obvious and maybe minor, but an organized, cleared out space feels like the kernel of my creativity. Does that sound too metaphysical? My sweet friend Neal worded it just right as he tried to describe how he and his companion Mackenzie felt as they explored Canarvon Gorge in New Zealand: "This place is an oasis on the land and in the mind. We felt mystically surreal as ancient forest spirits rode eternal lightbeams into our pseudo-human emotion receptacles. Just kidding :-"

Lightbeams aside, I haven't forgotten about writing, radio commentaries, critique groups, voice over work - irons in every little flame; it all seems on slow simmer -- like the curried chicken I made Saturday, or garnet-red clear pomegranate jelly Alan cooked and bottled over the weekend.

Let the rain begin!

[Since I'm crap at formatting captions, images above are: JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes at State Capitol (our 8th, dang it); Josh hanging a few at Malibu Pier at end of summer; Lyra, Taj & Big Sur first day of fall (our anniversary)]