Borderlands
Notes from today’s WALK… The WALK takes me to a natural place. Or does it? Our house is 10 minutes from a State Park, a National Recreation Area, and a Land Trust. It is also 10 minutes from San Francisco. Our house has electricity, heat, and a modified bitumen roof. It is also half a mile from a redwood grove. I live a liminal existence, traversing the borderlands between grime and grace, civilization and survivalism. Or perhaps I’m overstating this. On recent WALKs, I have encountered, in some particular order, coyotes, a bobcat, snakes, foxes, rabbits, red tailed hawks, red shouldered hawks, deer, dead deer, and turkey vultures. The trail goes through a primordial forest of bay tree, live oaks, redwoods, ferns, and huckleberries before breaking into the windswept chaparral of manzanita, scrub oak, coyote brush, sage, toyon, lupine, and sticky monkey. Along the same path today I also saw a matchbox car, sunglasses, and a rusted out VW. And when I arri