California Dreamin'

There is nothing like the landscapes and seacapes of southern California. On my Thanksgiving holiday I visited friends in Santa Monica and San Diego, returning to many of my favorite nature trails, and places of beauty. In spite of the runaway development, the land and sea hold sway over human activity.

In 1985 I moved to southern California from Westchester County, New York to settle my family in Laguna Beach. My former husband and I thought we had died and gone to heaven. First and foremost was the Big Blue Pacific Ocean that filled the panoramic view of our three story home on Blue Bird Canyon drive. We kept binoculars near our top floor jacuzzi to watch for the lumbering gray whales migrating from Alaska to Baja California for their seasonal mating and birthing season.

We swooned over a bugless atmosphere, havin endured the jet sized mosquitos and mayflies of the east coast for 15 years. Throwing open all the windows to feel the moist ocean air, breathing in the fragrance of flowers that bloom in ecstatic profusion...well, it was paradise.

Later of course I learned that the real flora and landscape of this area is mediterranean chaparral, with dense short aromatic shrubs, and small trees - a flora held in check and refreshed with fire every 25 to 30 years. Since the invasion of humans, bringing in trees and plants of all kinds from other parts of the world and suppressing the natural fire regimen, the chaparral ecology is hard to discern in and around the numerous towns that pepper the coastline. Fires are seen as tragic to us humans, but they are just a natural cycle of the land.

In Santa Monica my friend Cirelle lives in a condo near the ocean in one of the oldest sections of the city. It is a sweet place with blooming plants, orchids no less, and a short walk to the beach. She herself is pixie like, I think a result of living in beauty and gentle air for most of her life. We drove to Franklin Canyon north of Beverly Hills to meet our mutual friend Melinda. The three of us once led hikes in this canyon, cut through the hills between Coldwater Canyon Drive and Beverly Hills Blvd.

It had been 20 years since my last hike there. Cirelle and Melinda remained as docents for some time after I left for Arizona. Melinda took us on a tour through the grape arbor, natural enclaves shaded by towering sycamores and eucalyptus trees, scrub oak and mountain laurel below them. The heavy rains in southern California caused prolific growth in the understory. There must have been enough grapes produced this year to start a small winery!

We meandered along pine covered paths, down to the lake. It was originally a small reservoir, part of the LA water system, held by an earthen dam. During the 1979 earthquake in LA, it was damaged and later condemned. For years the little body of water sat, watched only by the LA Water Department. Then, as it became a natural flyway for migratory birds, neighbors began to walk in the canyon and discovered deer, fox, and oppossum. They got together and with the help of officials in LA and Bevely Hills had the canyon set aside as a nature preserve. Since then an education center has been built and many thousands of school children have been thrilled by its beauty and the surprise of its many inhabitants.

Later I drove down to San Elijo Lagoon near Encinitas, CA. It had always been one of my favorite hiking and meditation spots. The lagoon is one of the few remaining and protected marshes of a once vast system of coastal marshlands that lined the ocean shore for thousands of years. Chumash people fished, netted abalone the size of platters, and lived all summer along these marshes as recent as 200 years ago. I saw wood ducks, avocets, trumpeter swans, a great snowy egret and many shorebirds. American coots still dominate along the narrow, reed-lined canals and ponds that meander through the lagoon. Giant sycamores dot the rolling hillsides that fall down to the lagoon. Small group of hikers sat on the thick curving limbs under the canopy of its velvety, large leaves.

There is nothing like this place in the world. I have learned to look past the houses that now cut all the hilltops, and cover the hillsides. I close my ears to the roar of the freeway, and the drone of one SUV after another on the way somewhere. Even that I am at one time or another part of that frenzy I hold back from my thoughts, just to hold it all at bay so the beauty of the land can be the only dominate sensation.

But my return to the places we give enchanting names like Laguna Beach and San Elijo Lagoon prompts in me another California dream. I see a scaled back human community and the reflourishing of the natural land and waters. I hear fewer cars, maybe the silence of hydrogen powered vehicles spewing only water vapor into the cleaner air.

For Cirelle, Melinda and I, this is the dream we will hold, and in the meantime we will continue to visit and to protect - best as we can - the places of our inspiration and healing.

Be well my friends,
Susan