It is a small pond really... but a real jewel.
...and many moods too. I circle as a meditation and a bit of exercise. I live very near so I could walk to the Pacific ocean (and I do) but Spreckels Lake remains a constant for it variability.
It is always changing. Fog hides its smallness in mystery; in sun - the rare Richmond' district event- it sparkles with miniature sailboats.
It has made me a migratory observer of water birds: Seagulls, coots, pie-billed grebes and cormorants. Geese of course. a few ruddy ducks. mallards
but the turtles are magnificent.
The only 'feature' in the water is a concrete turtle that is covered by layers of living turtles in a constantly reorganizing, pick-up-sticks kind of dynamic architecture. The sun brings them out to bask but their shyness keeps them away from all edges but this little turtle island.
It is a daily embodied reminder of the Hindu myth of world cosmology about turtles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down I walk around this cosmologic world center, circling around to find my own.
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Monday
Friday
The Presidio Flower Memorial
3/08
In my daily sojourns into the Presidio National park, I observe how nature moves through the city.
The funny thing about this two year long walking tale is that it is about humans that I do not know and mostly have never seen. I only find their leavings.
The tale begins on the last day of a young runner’s life.
A detective intercepted me – asking questions about an unidentified young woman who was hit and left for dead on Washington Blvd
The next day’s walk found fresh flower bouquets and grief notes tied to a fence.
A week later, a man in black running gear, drenched in sweat from many cathartic miles, knelt silently at this spot. I walked by in fear of disturbing him. He seemed to be weeping.
The next year was a succession of fresh flower leavings. The spot became an ephemeral memorial to the loss. As soon as the flowers wilted, they were replaced.
As time passed, the mourners tried potted plants – in some heroic effort to keep her memory from wilting. They even dared to plant them in the Presidio soil around the spot. But the flowers were soon unearthed.
Two years later, the fresh flowers gush only intermittently –like a seasonal spring. Recently, I saw 4 fresh bouquets all in sunset colors on my walk but on the return trip they had been swept away
Flowers seem such an appropriate memorial to a young woman cut down - the sunny and fallen Ashlyn Dyer. I think of the black-clad sweaty, sad knight, and the driver – that unfortunate driver - that paid poor attention at the wrong micro-second.
This flower memorial makes me a more mindful driver – because I know in an instant, I could be any one of the players in this human drama.
In my daily sojourns into the Presidio National park, I observe how nature moves through the city.
The funny thing about this two year long walking tale is that it is about humans that I do not know and mostly have never seen. I only find their leavings.
The tale begins on the last day of a young runner’s life.
A detective intercepted me – asking questions about an unidentified young woman who was hit and left for dead on Washington Blvd
The next day’s walk found fresh flower bouquets and grief notes tied to a fence.
A week later, a man in black running gear, drenched in sweat from many cathartic miles, knelt silently at this spot. I walked by in fear of disturbing him. He seemed to be weeping.
The next year was a succession of fresh flower leavings. The spot became an ephemeral memorial to the loss. As soon as the flowers wilted, they were replaced.
As time passed, the mourners tried potted plants – in some heroic effort to keep her memory from wilting. They even dared to plant them in the Presidio soil around the spot. But the flowers were soon unearthed.
Two years later, the fresh flowers gush only intermittently –like a seasonal spring. Recently, I saw 4 fresh bouquets all in sunset colors on my walk but on the return trip they had been swept away
Flowers seem such an appropriate memorial to a young woman cut down - the sunny and fallen Ashlyn Dyer. I think of the black-clad sweaty, sad knight, and the driver – that unfortunate driver - that paid poor attention at the wrong micro-second.
This flower memorial makes me a more mindful driver – because I know in an instant, I could be any one of the players in this human drama.
Walk with the Mockingbirds
(Published as a KQED Perspective 4/10/08)
My exercise is walking and I do it every morning – even when I don’t have time - like today. The San Francisco Presidio National Park is literally next door - so I have no excuses and it is a particularly glorious April day. To mark it in the calendar of nature, the purple Wisteria are, in other parts of the city, giving it their all for their annual cabaret extravaganza but here in the Park I have come upon a mockingbird in full throttle.
I stop and listen.
Mockingbirds mimic the sounds they take a fancy too. This guy is strutting and singing to find his femme of the season. I detect in his song - a raven’s squawk, a red tailed hawk’s cry and perhaps even a wild parrot.
Listening for his location, takes time. My eyes search high in the pines. Not there. Scanning lower, he in not in the Monterey Cypress, either. I focus harder and listen closer and this time, I find him in an understory tree almost in front of me on the trail.
We look at each other.
I am a bit stunned to be so close, but he continues singing – it was like he was singing to me. Sitting on a Eucalyptus stump, I give him my full attention.
Then I heard it. I heard - laterally - all the other mocking birds in the forest. All staked out in separate territories, singing for their sweethearts to come.
Suddenly the breeze was sweet and heavy and cool like spring buds.
Next week, I will not remember my everpresent to do list but I will always remember the moment, when I sat on eucalyptus stump in the Presidio, the air was full of spring, and song and I was outrageously happy and alive.
My exercise is walking and I do it every morning – even when I don’t have time - like today. The San Francisco Presidio National Park is literally next door - so I have no excuses and it is a particularly glorious April day. To mark it in the calendar of nature, the purple Wisteria are, in other parts of the city, giving it their all for their annual cabaret extravaganza but here in the Park I have come upon a mockingbird in full throttle.
I stop and listen.
Mockingbirds mimic the sounds they take a fancy too. This guy is strutting and singing to find his femme of the season. I detect in his song - a raven’s squawk, a red tailed hawk’s cry and perhaps even a wild parrot.
Listening for his location, takes time. My eyes search high in the pines. Not there. Scanning lower, he in not in the Monterey Cypress, either. I focus harder and listen closer and this time, I find him in an understory tree almost in front of me on the trail.
We look at each other.
I am a bit stunned to be so close, but he continues singing – it was like he was singing to me. Sitting on a Eucalyptus stump, I give him my full attention.
Then I heard it. I heard - laterally - all the other mocking birds in the forest. All staked out in separate territories, singing for their sweethearts to come.
Suddenly the breeze was sweet and heavy and cool like spring buds.
Next week, I will not remember my everpresent to do list but I will always remember the moment, when I sat on eucalyptus stump in the Presidio, the air was full of spring, and song and I was outrageously happy and alive.
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