No photos, partly because I do not yet understand my reluctance to learn how to put them here, but mostly because pictures would not convey to you my personal experience of this reality. So, if you're still with me, lightly step over the small orange cloud and come explore...
Some of you know of my love for the Santa Cruz mountains of California and that, having come to visit a friend here for 5 days last month, my stay is being extended for possibly now up to 5 weeks. Unfit for much walking in some visits over the past couple of years, this time I am lighter and in less pain, so I’ve been carefully indulging my desire to walk about as I did in times past.
Often when I walk there is a narrative in my mind as though I am telling a story. Sometimes I share this story with others, sometimes not. Sometimes the sharing is appropriate, sometimes not. If you are reading this, I trust you to tell me which it is this time.
New Year’s Eve day, prior to helping fire build for an event, my walking time produced the suggestion, nay directive, I was to release old attachments. I gasped in alarm before realizing the need was not for releasing beloved friendships or places but rather to release the desperation I’d not even been aware of having when contemplating never seeing or being with them again. OK -- once acknowledged, the release of that desperation was easy, and fit in with the New Year’s theme of letting go of what no longer serves.
Today’s walk was one of remembrance and new thoughts. All the guests but one departed last night and my friend left again to spend time with her family up north. The remaining overnight guest had loudly and often proclaimed she would take care of the necessary cleaning up before leaving mid-day today. Over time, I have perceived her to be a “notice me, notice me” type and often in need of ways to use her pent up energies. (Aside: One of my beliefs is that people, places or things to which I have a strong reaction are often reflective of at least some particle of what I also have within me. ‘nuff said there.)
Upon awakening this morning when I felt the urge for peace and quiet, I decided to give us both what we might most need, conveyed to her I was in Silence and let her work whilst I withdrew. OK, I wasn’t totally silent ‘cause I played for a time with m’C-U-A peeps…
So it was mid-day before setting off to walk up Little Basin Road, the last road along the highway from Boulder Creek before dropping down into Big Basin State Park and where I moved in 2001 to stay for about 4 years. At its corner is an Outdoor School where, in California, classes of, iirc, 5th grade students are brought, usually from the cities, to spend a school week learning from and about Nature. It is also used by many groups during non-school time.
In June of 2001, having just arrived directly from having spent years raising my son in a small town in the Mojave Desert and taking early retirement from earning my living over the years in mostly conventional office work, I came to be a companion/caregiver for an elderly (93 and 95) but mostly still very independent couple who needed a driver and a presence in the house. Upon awakening that first morning and going out for a quick early walk, I was thrilled to hear the sound of bagpipes coming through the trees from the school’s property. I later learned it would be for only that week as a Music Camp was being conducted and the piper’s job was to awaken the students.
Today, the memories of the various groups who learned there surface and I am hopeful the ones who came have continued in their respect for our shared Earth.
As I continue past the school and up the brief elevation I once could run up, then for some time couldn’t even manage a slow walk, but today can do with some ease, I am grateful to have this example with which to gauge my current state, pausing a moment at the flat ground where the road curves to the right, but another unpaved one leads downward to the left. Although I’d once lived down that way, I knew the hike down and back this day would be more than I could comfortably manage but more memories were evoked.
After two years with the Mr. & Mrs., their needs were more than I could alone fulfill and a couple was found to serve them, allowing them to stay in their beloved home until their ends. As word of my soon departure spread, a neighbor who lived down that way offered me the job of donkey wrangler … and, having met and talked with her often and having recently shared a hike with her and another neighbor, I accepted. Oh, all right. Probably not wrangling though I like the sound of that word. I was mostly only responsible for feeding twice a day on the three days a week when she wasn’t telecommuting from home and whenever she was away. The donkeys were an elderly duo of smallish ordinary “burro”-like donkeys, he traditional grey and she white, plus a mother & grown daughter of the Mammoth donkey persuasion -- think dang near big as mules!
Nestled on a hill down below Little Basin, the 2-story, smallish Victorian-like house had been designed by Nancy (her second one) with her and her contractor father overseeing its building. Off the grid, using solar power and a generator, it was a perfect home in my opinion. She was also a master gardener and I suspect her tomatoes just might even be near to those of the legendary sidepocket.
Having lived in the area for two years by then and having met (and respected) many rattlesnakes while hiking, the one living under the front porch was just an added bonus as far as I was concerned. When Nancy decided to sell the property two years later, I was greatly saddened at my loss and hoped against hope that the flatland city folk whom the realtor insisted upon bringing out to see the place would quickly realize how unsuited it would be to their ways.
I sort of got my wish as it was bought by a young woman who worked as a forester, though she insisted on cutting down many trees in order to bring in electricity and phone service.
Continuing on around the curves of Little Basin today, I say hello to the house closest to where I once lived, the abode of my bestest hiking buddy and teacher of the local trails who was a long time coworker and friend of the Mr. mentioned above. He died a few years ago and the house has been kept and used by his son, daughter and family, and grandchildren. It is wonderful to see them keeping the property in good repair and continuing his careful ways.
I give a wave up the hill to the place I first lived with the Mr. & Mrs. and continue down past the neighbors who erected a Yurt near their house where many festive and musical events were held and who have vowed, like many here, to somehow always find other ways to get needed monies than by resorting to selling the redwoods upon the land.
Spotting something black at the base of a nearby aged stump even without my glasses, I notice a plethora of very long-stemmed mushrooms, once a deep brown/red but now thoroughly blackened and all bending over in layers onto the ground. A subtle movement catches my eye and I see a small newt having successfully crossed the road is now traversing the goosepen of the stump. Ho, young’un, I whisper. Find what you seek and grow large.
Then comes the Sunny Curve where the lingering sun’s rays are warming latest in the day, where my hiking buddy and I would often go, sometimes bringing a small glass of wine before evening settled in. I’ve placed, a couple of days ago, a small memorial as I used to do when living there. I’m glad to see it hasn’t yet been disturbed.
Continuing downward, I notice a place is bare where once there grew some lovely California Wood Rose. Many winter storms must have taken their toll. Just as Little Basin Road ends there is a campground now owned by the state. If I turn off the paved road to go upward, there begins the Eagle Rock Trail, a relatively unused part of Big Basin Park up which my younger, in-better-condition self once could run in some places and where I helped the trail crew do some bridge repair. Today, I have been remembering those times and, feeling so oxygenated, even briefly wondered if I could manage the hike up. Realizing I could not possibly… still my feet lead me upward. “Just up the first incline,” I think… and manage it. “Maybe to the first creek crossing,” I suggest…
Is it scairdy LinSea or reasonable LinSea who reminds me I didn’t even wear my hiking boots!?! No matter, I’m goin’ for it. And I manage it!
First heard in gently running gurgles, then the clear waters of deeper pools seen through the trees, finally being there at the water's edge. That lovely creek which has been replenished by my tears of joy, gratitude, loss, bliss, anger and forgiveness. All embracing and all welcoming. That lovely creek which I remember the trail crossing perhaps 5 times before the top. Could I possibly manage that hike today? No, but maybe I can cross the creek here once.
The stone people are well placed and spacious, mossy but not slippery, the creek a very narrow one. At the last step now, I clearly see through the shrubbery the upwardly sloping bank, though not very long, is still quite wet and muddy so, even with the stick I’ve picked up to aid my balance in crossing, would decidedly land parts of me upon places I’druther not be put.
Crossing back to where I’d been, I sit upon a comforting Stone where gentle rays of Sun showed the fogging of my breath. Garbed in my usual lightweight long-sleeved tee and short sleeved Aloha shirt and well worn denims, I was prepared for a brief walk … while enjoying a dream of a greater hike.
Perhaps I shall make a real attempt in a few days. If I cannot scale to the top from Little Basin, I could drive to another side to make an easier, shorter ascent. Or I could slowly hike from this direction and a friend would meet me with a car at the other side if I couldn’t manage to get back down here.
Meantime, I am grateful for the ability to feel grateful for the gifts that are here to share, for those who have gone before who preserved what they could for us, for those who fight for preservation today.
The walk back was much quicker and so very filled with peace. Somehow, with the walk on NYE day and this one today, ‘contentment with what is’ now reigns supreme within me, alongside contentment with whatever is to be.
The diary seems to have written itself. If you’re reading it, I’ve overcome my fear of posting … for better or ill, I trust you to let me know.
Peace, dear ones. Thank you for being here, now. :o)
(Still a novice tagger so any help will be appreciated.)
5:39 PM PT: I'll have to be away for about an hour, giving meds to a woozle whose folks are going out for the evening. Advance thanks to all who comment and I'll return via their computer as quick as I can.
Sat Jan 03, 2015 at 12:13 AM PT: DEAR RESCUE RANGERS: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!