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.

Tree Boulevard (Presidio Boulevard)

   When I am on this road in the Presidio of San Francisco, where the trees form a cool, shady canopy, I am always in my car. On the one hand this is unfortunate, because it is a fairly busy road, and I don't have a chance to engage in the kind of slow, intimate looking, smelling and hearing of my surroundings that normally make beautiful places so moving to me. There are places to walk, rough places in the wooded area off to the right of the picture below, but there is not really a designated, calm path to slowly meander in the area shown in the photo. The fact that I most often am driving when I'm here also has a positive side, in that I believe that this road only feels like the 'Tree Boulevard" of the title from the position from the inside of a car, and for me, it is when I am driving north, as shown in the picture. There is something about being in my car, going twenty five miles per hour that makes the canopy seem like the calming, continuous green drapery that I find so relaxing. When I drive here, it's like there is a cool, refreshing breeze clearing my brain of unwanted debris.

The smell of pine

   There are many places I love to visit at my local parks, spending most of my green time in Golden Gate Park, and in particular around the one mile stretch of walkway that is adjacent to Stow Lake. I spend about one hour here (or more) on a nearly daily basis, and although I'm very familiar with most of this area, there are often new sights and smells to surprise me, sometimes because I have not looked very closely before, and sometimes because different times of the year and conditions illicit new sights, smells and sounds.
   The picture below was taken recently, on a stretch of road that curves around the southwest portion of Stow Lake. I began walking on this road (it is actually a car path, whereas the pedestrian path is outside the picture to the left) when more people would arrive to walk, and I sought solace and quiet here. It was after a heavy rain about two months ago that I first noticed the strong, wonderful smell of pine at this location, and the fragrance has returned during the past three weeks or so, despite no rain during that time. It may be that the rain caused the trees to bloom, or the lack of rain and above-average temperatures fooled the trees into thinking that spring had already arrived, but most of the park, including much of the city, has been smelling wonderful.
   I recall seeing about a year ago a blind person being led around the lake by a friend, and as they passed by one of the people that I see here regularly, that person turned to her friend and said, "why would you bring a blind person here?" I remember thinking to myself how stupid that sounded. It reminds me to try to keep my mind, as well as my nostrils, open.

The curve of road in question

A week away

   I recently returned from visiting my mother who now lives in central New York, and while there I was not able to start my day with my usual dawn walks (I did try one day, but it was only 16 degrees fahrenheit, the ground was slick and frozen, and I threw in the towel early). Although I had a very nice time being with my wife, mother, and my sister and her family, I really missed that time that I am accustomed to having for myself in the mornings.

   Today, although tired and a bit jet lagged from the trip, I woke up early and enthusiastically headed head out for my beloved walk. It was dark when I arrived, and at the first hints of daylight, a beautiful display of early morning colors appeared somewhere around the east bay, while wonderful smells greeted me at special points around the path. I  heard loud, unfamiliar sounds at the north west part of the lake, and saw two great blue herons engaged in what seemed like a fight (or at least, an argument), as one doggedly pursued the other around their usual nesting tree. I have seen the herons here many times during my early walks, but never saw them in this way. Squirrels and ducks looked to me for food (they obviously had me confused with someone else), and I noticed that the coots, whose ranks were so populous on my last walk, seemed to have left and continued on in their migrations. It's great to be back home.

Red Sprinkles

   Even though I walk around Stow Lake just about daily (and have been doing so for the past couple of years), I still manage to see and experience things I've seen many times in different ways, something I attribute both to the beauty of the location and my own willingness to allow this to happen. Although I always walk in a counter-clockwise direction, I choose different areas to walk on occasion, and can choose either the footpath or the drive for vehicle traffic, as there are very few cars in the early morning hours when I am there. 

   Because of the time of year, it's quite dark when I arrive, and there are only a few people that walk in the dark as I do, but within ten minutes or so it starts to become a bit lighter, and more people start to arrive. As the path becomes visible, I often choose to walk around the perimeter where the cars drive, as I like the solitude there, finding it easier to let my mind wander when there are not people around. As I step off the walking path onto the area where the car path widens, there are a variety of trees, I hear the faint hum of traffic of cars on busy Crossover Drive, and I encounter this deep green plant with a red that just sprinkles the green with color, a color which becomes more beautiful, rich and complex the nearer I get. People can be that way too for me on occasion, but it seems that I often take a path which obscures this view.