New and mysterious

   Now that the days are longer and the sunrise is earlier, it's already pretty light when I arrive at Golden Gate Park for my morning walk. If I get there too much earlier, I have too much time before I need to go to work, and so I've been missing that special time of day there when the light is just beginning, and the place is quiet and still, except for the animals.
   Today is Saturday, the second day of my weekend, and because I was already up, I decided to get to my favorite park spot early, forgetting that it's been awhile since I was there for that wonderful time of day. There was a misting drizzle at times after some light and steady rain a few hours earlier, and the wet colors  and delicate sounds produced by the water droplets dripping off of the trees were beautiful and soothing.
   As I passed a tree favored by squirrels on the northeast corner of the path around Stow Lake the second time, I noticed this strange, milky white substance accumulated there. In the midst of my walk, I decided to wait until the next time I passed it to look at it more in depth, which is when I took these two pictures.      
   Looking at it closely, I could see that there was an area above the white formation where a small piece of bark protruded, and it seemed that this is where the drips where coming from that formed this substance. I'm guessing that it may be some combination of rainwater and possibly sap, or perhaps a sickness in the tree that caused this, but I had never seen something like it before, or perhaps I had but had never really looked closely. Either way, it was new and a bit mysterious to me today, and experiencing things in my life that those two words can be sparingly used to describe make my life worth living.

Bubbling stuff.

Middle-top of picture, the piece of bark where the drips came from.

Dead mouse

   This is another picture that I recently rediscovered on my computer that I took some months ago. I saw this little fella (or lady) during one of my walks in Golden Gate Park, and although seeing a dead animal used to make me sad, I've found that the last couple of years it has affected me in a more complex way. The dead animals that I've seen recently include this mouse and a Muscovy duck, which appeared to have been attacked and mostly eaten by another animal, probably a coyote. Below, rigor mortis appears to have set in on this Stow Lake resident, but its' stiffness is offset for me by the gentle, crescent moon shape formed by it's body. I see no signs of trauma in the photo; it looks as though life gently left it during a tranquil night's sleep.

   The fact that I see these animals in what I regard as their natural environments, and because I see so much life here regularly during my walks, death seems more a part of the process of life (perhaps that fact that I am past fifty years old and can sense my own mortality also has something to do with it). Seeing things in environments that appear continuous with the life located there helps me to envision the world more holistically, and that helps me to feel more like I belong to that world as well.

   As I finish writing this blog entry and look at the picture again, I have just remembered my father's death, who was also an animal, but who died in a hospital, a place for me which is an unnatural environment. When he finally died after a night where I watched him struggle to breath, his body too, stiffened quickly. I don't know how much that thought has to do with this blog subject, but the association is a real one for me, and I write here to uncover these kinds of associations.

   In the picture accompanying this entry, the animal not only looks peaceful to me, but I believe that I can see the life that was once in it.

The bison paddock

   When I first came to San Francisco, at first to visit, I was enamored with this place. The idea of bison living in the local park was fantastic to me, and the reality of watching them do, well pretty much nothing, relaxed me. They seemed so content, that I though to myself, I could do nothing, too.
   Well, I am not a bison, and while the idea of doing very little all day does suits me, the reality of it does not. I get a bit anxious when I am docile for too long (though measured laziness certainly has it's place), and I feel like I have to get up and do something...anything. I've tried meditation, but I find it really difficult when I'm still, so I do it while I'm walking, and I really enjoy it. It's as if something in me has to be active (brain, legs) during the day to relax, unless I'm in bed about to nap or sleep through the night, at which time I am able to relax. I'm always ready though to be tranquil.
   So as I gather my thoughts about this subject, I realize that the bison in the paddock are in a nearly constant state of preparing to relax, so we are in fact not that different after all.