Tag Archives: california

Tongues Tangle in Arcata

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Too often I’m focused internally when traveling, instead of externally. When a portly woman with waist-length silver and black hair crowned with paste jewels crosses my path, I’m focused on my aching feet. Or when I drive past a drum circle swaying in the lawn, I’m feeling my sun-dazzled headache.

Which is why it was a small miracle that as we drove through central Arcata today, we… stopped! I pulled my camera out and snapped while each brilliant sidewalk square dazzled me. Turns out, we’d happened upon one of the largest art events in Northern Cali, a yearly fundraiser called Pastels on the Plaza. The air thrummed with energy. A tanned itinerant with a djembe argued with a policeman. Children skipped past or drew their own designs with sidewalk chalk, pale against the intense pigment of the pastels.

Serendipity was kind to us today.

Arcata, CA / early afternoon / Pastels on the Plaza

Dance with My Salty Mistress

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Your salty kiss lingers on my lips, your twinkling caress on my toes. I leap and twirl while you advance and recede, our forces meeting again after far too long. In your waters the sand glistens and rises, performing its own intricate dances beyond my glance and washing in to join our waltz.

You’ve always intrigued me, Lady Pacifica, and sometimes when I’m far from you you invade my dreams with washes of translucent water that fill my vision and float me into a new world where breath is precious and bubbles fill my vision. Now you call to me and I venture deeper, deeper, and I abandon control and let you tumble me in your dangerous embrace.

Arcata, CA / mid-day / Samoa Beach Dunes Recreation Area

Reaching For the Clouds

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I’ve been coming to Redding for years now, and never visited one of its best sites: Sundial Bridge. Visible from most of the valley, the sharp white needle soars into the sky above the black-bottomed Canadian geese that squawk through the Sacramento River below. We visited on a stormy afternoon. Murky clouds pressed against the spiky treetops and cast iron highlights on the river.

The long green-glass bridge grew slippery as tiny drops fell, while water beaded in my husband’s rich red beard and on my forearm, casting the fine hairs into relief. Laughing teenagers skated on the glass and families ran for cover. Our hearts filling with the serenity of the river and the majesty of the glowing structure, we held hands and wandered about until the bustling world called.

Redding, CA / late afternoon / Sundial Bridge

Mountains Run in My Blood

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A cool transparency to the air, a direct sunlight that shivers in the pale green trees, and the jagged outline of the mountains all around me, echoing the geography of my heart… where am I?

Granby, Colorado, 5 years ago. I am young, hopeful, heartbroken, and wildly alive for the first time. I sit on a balcony with a notebook and a pen and try to capture the tumult of my heart and the grandeur surrounding me. Joy wells up, tempered with pain.

Redding, northern California. After an excruciating drive from the smoggy wilderness of Los Angeles through the plains and fertile washes of Central California, to the saturated colors and meandering rivers of the north, where we drove with all our goods and gear in our two aging vehicles, I take a breath and let it out slowly. I am in sight of real mountain again, and my heart is alive.

Redding, CA + Granby, CO / morning / off the grid