Wildness, redux

So maybe this is not just my quit-smoking blog, but my get-through-hard-times-generally blog.  And Where the Wild Things Are might refer to the wildness of grief and obsession as well as the lovely critters I see while hiking.

Sunny hillside with tarweed, Mount Diablo State Park.

A lot has changed since I last posted, but I am still quit of smoking.  It's a good thing, because I am awaiting biopsy results on a lump in my breast.

Sweet Georgia Brown is gone.  He died April 4th, 2012.

The other main thing that has changed is that Piera is gone, was gone, specifically, 7 days before this cancer scare.  And that is so large and wild of a hurt that I can't yet really post about it, especially not sitting here in this home that we shared until just a blink of an eye ago.

I was thinking about writing today, and the sentences in my mind were sort of scintillating and witty.  I had little jokes lined up about titty bling and frankenchi-chi.  But home in this House of Grief, no longer a House of Bun, I feel grimmer.

Women are coming out from everywhere to support me.  The Realtor, my clients, colleagues - something about what I am going through makes them want to share their experience, support, and strength.

My friends and family are carrying me through.  I am trying to skate lightly along the ugly underbelly of life and still hike and eat and care for my Leopard (who had major surgery on Wednesday - it's been that kind of week).

I don't want these times to rear up and grab me.  I don't, either, think I will come through unchanged.  Too much has happened for me to know how to pray in words, but I did kneel down and kiss the ground when I heard coyotes sing tonight.

Is there a prayer of your heart?  What does it say?

A year and a half passed, and then...

More when

Today I walked at Big Canyon and Eaton parks.  These are two small canyon hikes, pretty suburban, across the street from each other.  One of the many things I am interested in and would love to eventually write a paper about are parks that balance high recreation use with high habitat values.  There are a couple ways to do this; one is by having a high use-specific area, like a dog park or picnic grounds, and then separate trails.  The other is just luck (good planning, strong remnant population of natives, guerrilla weeders such as moi, few highly mobile invasives nearby).  Luck abounds at these two little parks, which have just as nice an array of natives as Edgewood or Pulgas Ridge, and not many more invasives.  Urban or suburban wildlands can never replace larger preserves, of course - where would the big mammals live? - but especially if there is connectivity, they are a crucial part of the overall scheme of habitat preservation and restoration.

Now that I've finished sounding like I am back in school, here's what I saw today, to add to this list.


2/27/11
Zigadenus fremontii - Fremont's death camas.  They look so much like they should smell, that I always smell them.  But they don't.  No matter how many times I smell them, they don't smell like anything.

Marah fabeceous - Manroot or California Wild Cucumber.  So there are actually two Marahs, which I think of as "My Marah" and "The Other Marah".  The Other Marah is Marah oreganus.  It was pointed out to me by Tom-the-plant-guy.  The leaves are spikier than My Marah, and the flowers are less scented.  This Spring I've seen both.

One of the invasive brooms, no, I cannot tell them apart.  Also flowering pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana, I think), but I'm not going to list grasses in here.  What a lazy botanist!!! 

Trillium sp. - Trillium (I can't tell those apart either.  See above about the lazy.)

Quercus agrifolia - Coast live oak

Dodecatheon hendersonii - Woodland Shooting Star.  Here is a fun explanation of the name.  "Dodeca-theon, twelve gods, the plants supposedly favored by deities; hendersonii for L. F. Henderson, northwestern botanist."

Fritillaria lanceolata - Mission Bells

Scoliopus bigelovii - Fetid Adder's Tongue.  I have wanted to see these for a long time and was just enchanted when I found them. I took a bunch of mostly terrible photos, and then made this one family's day by telling them where to find the flowers when they asked me about trail conditions.  They do not smell bad at all, but contrary to when should be happening, the longer I stay quit of smoking, the duller my sense of smell is getting.

Fetid Adder's Tongue at Pulgas Ridge

Ranunculus californicus - California Buttercup.

It was a very nice day, even though I am super sore from moving all my bedroom furniture around.  I seem to end up doing this every Spring, it's like a compulsion. Are birds this sore after refeathering their nests?  

After hiking, I slunk back around because there are a whole ton of dusky footed woodrat nests at the base of one of the trails.  I had hoped that since it was full dark, I would see one, but nope, they evaded me as usual.

What have you seen lately?  What have you wanted to see?

Toyon at Eaton Park

Good advice

I give good advice.  In our culture, to baldly state you do something well is considered vain, but that's just too bad, because I give really awesome advice.

So good, in fact, that I sometimes think: "I should write that down."  And this morning it occurred to me that I have the perfect forum to do so, here in this occasional blog.

So here is a piece of advice I gave a dear friend last night.  This one is for the single ladies and mens.  (Sorry about the link, that song is just stuck in my head).

I know well that feeling of "This person is meant to be my partner."  It's a legitimate phenomenon (yes, I actually talk like this).

However that 'meant to be' feeling has no bearing on how many nights you will go to bed without crying, how many meals you will eat in happy togetherness, how many hikes you will go on, concerts you'll listen to, explorations you will have, how many peaceable days and supportive afternoons.  It has nothing to do with how many years you will be together, with how few fights.  'Meant to be' doesn't predict shared values or everyday compatibility.

In the reality of partnership, it is those things that matter.  "Meant to be" exists, but it runs on a separate, independent track.  So notice it and allow it, but don't confuse it for the real thing.

Trillium at San Pedro Valley Park

WHEN the wild things are

Today I saw fiddlenecks thrusting their curling orange smiles up at the world, so I decided to make a dated list of the wildflowers as I start seeing them.  This will also help me stay up-to-date on my botany, which I am losing through disuse, and hopefully make you jealous enough that you go out and take a hike, if you do not do so already.  Every time I see something new bringing in Spring and then Summer, I'll put it at the end of the list.  After some thought, I will include tree flowers, because I love them so much, and weeds, because I always notice them, but these will be marked with an I.

So, to date and with no particular date, I've seen:

Cynoglossum officionale - Houndstongue
Cardimine californica - Milkmaids
Escholzia californica - California poppy
Umbellularia californica - California Bay Laurel
Manzanita sp. - Manzanita
Acacia sp - Acacia (I)
Erodium sp - Storksbill (I)
Cherry and /or peach and/or nut blossoming trees; I can't tell them apart but those heavenly pink flowers and sweet nectar smells are some of my favorite harbingers of spring.  I'm sure I've seen more, but this is all I can think of right now.

2/21/2011
Raphanus sativus - Wild Mustard (I)
Brassica nigra - Black mustard (I)
Amsinckia menziesii var. intermedia - Intermediate Fiddleneck


Have you hiked lately?  What have you seen?

One from the archives (almost)

Well, so, this blog needs to decide what it's going to be.  The last time I kept a blog, it had a firm identity.  It was about garbage and love, two very compelling issues to me.  But then again, that blog got to be over a thousand pages, self absorbed and rambly, and it was just overwhelming.

This blog, now, it's not sure.  Is it about quitting smoking?  Nature?  What's the whole science angle?  How often will it get posts?  How much of those will be original writing?  Will it even keep going?

Good questions, all.  I guess only time will tell.  Sorry if it's too random.

This is almost a poem from the archives, except that it never even made it into the archives.  I was just tidying my room and I found it in a tiny notebook.  I remember scrawling it hastily (hasty scrawling is just about the only way I write poems) while on a hike.  It was late summer 2009, and we still lived in Davis.

THE GREEN AND THE GOLD

I would wait for rain forever

in this summer-spelled

breath-held

fire-starter season.

As long as the breeze keeps coming
to keep the flesh from split-scorching off my frame

I’ll wait -

a windborne hovered thought

a thistle seed caught.

Aloft in the currents 

between finding a way to land

and grabbing all the joy I can fit in my hands.

Balance.  Sure.  I know.

But this has always been my song. 

Keep away the winter, make summer last, everlong. 

I'm in love with summer, also the cleft in the seasons,

time held in between things, leaf madness on breezes.

I'm in love with more than this space in the fall,

but with the green and gold hunt for having it all.  

©m.sachs.martin

In Which I Am Not Rumi But Neither Again Do I Care

Paperwhites bloom,

Send scent saying “awaken!

Life is too short to hide in a haze. 

Put down your addictions

Your sadness, fatigue.

Come forth, come toward, to Spring.”