Running in the rain. Smell the chaparral scents suspended in the droplets hanging from the laurel sumac bushes that brush against your thighs, cheeks and forehead as your feet dig into the softened dirt when you pass. Hear the pitter patter, the quenching chatter of upturned manzanita foliage gathering moisture, the excitement of slender sagebrush, the delight of minuscule chamise. Dried silvery tree trunks littered on the hillside, yesterday long dead, now like freely drawn charcoal marks that will rot and fuel the undergrowth of scrub oaks who’ve spread their precious acorns in hope of many futures, and today, because it rained, can imagine their progeny rising from the slope, or the canyon floor to shade a hot, sweaty jogger for just a brief second, on a warm sunny day.
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Forested canyon Heavy oak limbs arched over the path shield and guide hikers bikers and horseback riders from low winter sun Like parents join hands at the end of a child's game to cheer the team the majestic trees gossip the sound of saws looms nearby this sylvan tunnel flanked by gated and guarded armed communities a passage to the mountains where the cougars roam and feed
He walked dreaming rambling short stories (six-word stories, to be precise).
A hike and a poem met along the less-traveled path one blue sunny day and almost missed one another when the poet lost his way while the hiker took a nap. Words whispered in the cool breeze that lifted and dissolved thin cloud patches rolling in from the pacific ocean, smelling like sage, pine, and dirt. carefully pausing under an old cedar chained to a dirty picnic table, pretending to feed the poet's muse with the crunchy beat of footsteps, dangerously slow, like Billie Holiday singing Good Morning Heartache Pres smiles, shakes his porkpie hat Listen to the groovy bass line if you don't believe me like these words in the wind, wicked, gorgeous and betrayed by meaning, reason, blink and they vanish like the crooning of crows circling over a carcass in the azure sky, fading before the low winter sun reaches the end of the road. Is this what you call a poem? the hiker awakes and protests the poet, silent, has found the trail but is at a loss for words.
Raymond Queneau puts it very nicely, in a poem entitled “Un rhume qui n’en finit pas”(a never-ending cold)–somewhat timely, given the pandemic–which I read sitting at a picnic table leaning against a cedar tree, under an azure sky.
Quand on examine le vaste monde ses beautés, ses tristesses et ses aléas on se demande on se demande à quoi rime tout celà When you take a close look at the great wide world its beauty, its sadness and its perils you might ask you might ask is there any reason or rhyme to it (my translation. Note that it does rhyme in French, in a way I couldn't duplicate in English, but don't read anything into it)
My favored trailhead to Rubio Canyon turns out to be a private driveway, or so it says on the laminated sign posted on the gate next to the old disheveled miner’s cabin. I respect the sign, albeit with a question mark; I can’t help thinking about the much publicized and ongoing battle over public beach access. No ‘right to roam’ here! Given the significant increase in gun sales since the pandemic started, you never know what kind of neighbor you might run into, armed or unarmed, trigger-happy or cool and relaxed. Given the level of anger and fear in the country these days, the odds are in favor of the latter. For now the other accesses to Rubio will do just fine. Just please don’t tear down that cabin.
Under the cedar where a tennis court once sat next to a tree stump that favors Rodin's Balzac coffee and P, B & J
Yellow maple leaves dried white sage rusty buckwheat long late fall shadows dead timber snaps under my steps a landscape waiting for rain
Much needed return to this routine that is anything but. Walking and looking. Paying attention. The world is beautiful, no, the world is. I ‘is’.
Discarded blue purple black orange surgical gloves and celeste face masks alongside blooming jasmine and california poppies
Spotted two signs during this ramble around West Altadena and Northwest Pasadena: the first, at the taped off trailhead where West Altadena Dr. dead ends, full of fear, anxiety and aggression, threatens to call the sheriff on anyone spotted crossing onto the trail, “stay in your neighborhood”. The second, hangs next to a driveway, appeals to the passer-by to “care for yourself and others”. Two very contrasting attitudes in a health crisis that affects us all, to various degrees for sure, but indiscriminately. I’m tempted to use the contrast as more evidence of the divisions exacerbated by our current political climate, and all the anxieties it has brought forth, but I prefer to walk on, return home and prepare a meal for the family.
Listen: lawnmowers hedge trimmers and leaf blowers weed cutters hip hop rancheras a live drum beat rattles the windows as I pass
Trails closed, Walk on asphalt less giving than dirt, Walk on rainy forecast, Walk on Nature is getting a rest While LA deals with the pest, Walk on (After listening to Neil Young)
It took all my civic-mindedness not to cross the yellow tape restricting access to all the foothill trails. The lure of the wild was strong, but I didn’t want to be that guy. Except I came across one they’d omitted, and I may or may not have treaded past it, for about a quarter mile into the forest. The bears, cougars, bobcats, squirrels, rattlesnakes, even the crows asked as I passed, “Where’d everybody go?”
“There’s a bug goin’ around” I answered, “real nasty, kills people, super contagious. We’ve been told to stay home.”
“Someone’s not a very good listener.” The bear admonished me. A group of curious lookyloos was gathering around me, they all chuckled.
“Well…It’s okay, you know, if you practice social distancing.” I blurted out guiltily, “if we, like, if we stay far enough from each other.” I noticed the bear and the cougar narrowing in on me. “Like six to ten feet apart!” I said louder, with what authority I could muster, and spreading my arms apart to illustrate.
“I ain’t heard nothing of the sort, have you?” The cougar turned to the Bear, then to the others, who were now also closing in on me. They were not openly threatening, just a little hungry, I guessed. The bobcat, for instance, was licking its chops lustily. The rattler slithered to the front of the pack, whisssspering, “I’ll sssssting him first.” Or at least that’s what I heard. I was rooting for the squirrel however, who scampered nervously from one beast to the other, repeating”What are you doing guys? He could be sick.”
“He doesn’t look sick.”
“He could be asymptomatic.”
“A superpreader!”
“So, if the trails are closed,” the cougar persisted, brushing the squirrel to the side, “they won’t come looking for you, right? ’cause you ain’t even supposed to be here.”
That’s when the reliable crow swooped overhead, croaking vigorously, a good indication, if any was needed, that some kind of game was afoot. That’s also when a cool wind gust floated into the canyon, sending a chill down my spine, made all the more chilly by the sweat accumulating on my neck, back and forehead. I shivered and sneezed loudly–into my elbow.
“AAAA – TCHAH!”
Before the sternulation had echoed even once across the canyon, the pack of animals had dispersed, scattered, vanished.
I seized the opportunity and bolted for the nearest trailhead, not the one I had come from, and it was of course blocked by a large plywood board with “COVID19 HEALTH ORDER TRAIL CLOSED” painted on it in large red letters.
I climbed over the board, and emerged into a neighborhood. I walked on, feeling the silent stare of citizens sheltered in their home bubbles, thinking rightfully “Who does he think he is?”
Hiking during a pandemic
The afternoon sky, dotted with a vanishing field of clouds, is so clear that from up here, about two thirds of the way up the eastern ridge of Rubio canyon, you can see ships leaving LA harbor. Beyond that, Catalina island cuts a jagged line on the horizon. To the west, the falling sun bounces off the ocean in golden hues. You can hear dogs bark in yards somewhere in the foothills, two thousand feet below, and sirens. I counted four since leaving the car at the trailhead and can’t help thinking: is that four more covid cases? But I remind myself that sirens are common, aren’t they? Though it is true I never payed attention to them the way I have today.
It all feels unreal
Is the city hum fainter?
the sunlight dimmer?
On trail the chaparral sings
with scents of sage and wild thyme
I encountered only one other hiker on this rather steep and forgotten trail, which is more than on the many previous times I’ve walked it in the past fifteen years. We followed city and county orders and maintained adequate social distance, exchanging a cursory greeting. Everyone must do their part.
Travel fast head down
don't breathe in when passing hikers
there's a bug going round
between late afternoon rain
showers the day before spring
The ‘Sam Merrill Highway’, or thoroughfare, busier than ever despite the wet weather, now that people are ‘sheltering at home’, was the perfect place to enjoy a late afternoon escape. The rain stopped on cue–not that it would have kept me at home–and the sky opened up over the LA basin, with shafts of light illuminating JPL and Long Beach like in an eighteenth century landscape painting with transcendental overtones. Then the clouds rolled in again, bathing the hillside in an aura of mystery and uncertainty, think London fog, more fitting to the trying times.
Where'd you come from?
asked the hiker to the rock
how long you been here?
The rock pondered pensively
then said how much time you got?
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