Seasons in California (CA foothills specifically)
It has almost been a month since I started doing these again. Time is going by really fast! This time of year always feels especially surreal, like being pushed and pulled at the same time as the days get short and holiday energy sweeps in from different angles.
I worked at the farmers market all weekend and my head is especially fuzzy right now, so this one feels haphazard. Maybe I’ll edit it later.
. . .
In California, winter feels like thin netting. A blanket with holes, soft and silky. There’s a chill in the air, snow in the mountains, but the season never fully introduces herself before retreating. softly. Winter pokes, teases, and dips into our lives. I’m sure there are exceptions to this lack of commitment. Like that one year a snowstorm came crashing through the Sierras, knocking down half the trees in El Portal, or what felt like it. Unfamiliar with this season asserting a real presence, we could not wait to go outside. “Let’s look at the destruction!!” I was in elementary school. 2010? Our parents were gone - trapped in Ostrander during the snow storm - and Dawn and I tugged our grandparents (who were taking care of us) outside to gawk at the way the whole town had changed. Trees blocked the roads and they wouldn’t let us go very far for fear of more falling down. Now this was snow that could do something. Other than that it was just school snow days called because of a dusting or a light morning rain, since the superintendent lived on a hill. Fragments of winter, passing through
After a truly absurd amount of water pouring from the sky in early 2023, spring this past year was beautifully aggressive. Everything: green. Everything. If it could have grass growing on it, it did, and it was bright, almost blindingly, green. Flowers in the obvious and the hidden places, likely unaware of their participation in such a stirring phenomenon. Well, perhaps they do know, I can’t say. Not only was the central valley looking like paradise with lush rippling fields and vernal pools supporting wildflowers and entire parties of life, but at one point during the spring I found myself driving on the outskirts of the American River. Alongside the highway, flat, glassy water came up to the knees of the oaks. The swollen river was making these oak woodlands look like a sparkling marsh. It took all I had not to crash as I gawked, bursting from the water and the green. Because spring comes early and is bright, but always leaves in a flash.
Summer is long. Summer, unlike winter, asserts her presence and demands attention. The hills are brown. In more places than not, heat can be seen radiating from rocks or asphalt. In the foothills and the valleys, the only relief from the heat - and the gorgeous beauty of summertime - is the water. Still rushing down from the mountains, who are experiencing their own springtime, the rivers are the place to be all summer. If I could be in them all day, every day, that would still not be enough time. Rapids, riffles, and clear, perfect pools that morph and gain algae as the summer marches on and on
I could not wait to go back to El Portal last week and smell fall. Wookmoke and water and the earth coming back alive. Like spring, fall feels fleeting. The oak trees are beacons, with the angled, piercing sunlight of the season illuminating them like lanterns. Pop and I crossed the river and hiked through dormant poison oak to the little oak woodland on a knoll. It felt kind of enormous to be there right now when it is orange, since it won’t be for long.
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Ps.This was written while my laundry was in the machine which I think is pretty awesome.