The Ditch!
Bernal hill sticks out from the city like a pimple. Or like a spaceship.
From my back porch, the ridge is a line along which silhouettes glide in a never quiet stream.
From the hill, you see the whole city, the 360 degree view palatable only in pie slices. The sky and the water are never one color: liliac, grey, light blue. The city is like a collage. Buildings and boats begin to sparkle at dusk, around 6pm. I imagine that this is also when the most people are on the hill, watching.
Gnarled pine trees (I do not know what kind) form a small bundle up top, and rocky outcroppings remind me that there is dynamic earth - topography - beneath the layer of city. The trail on the ridge forms a runway.
On the northern slope, there is a ditch. A ditch! I first found it because of the swing, which is now just half of a rope. When scrambling up or down the ditch you see lichens living on bits of rock, on tree branches from the pine and live oak. A single sword fern and bright green polypody fiddleheads springing from the ground. A bush lupin with brown, already dispersed, seedpods. The amanita mushroom, once red, had turned into mush. Small, delicate brown mushrooms hide on the steep sides. There is a pine tree, a live oak, and two madrones with peeling bark. There is some shade in the ditch, thanks to the trees.
On Saturday, after scrambling down it, Shelene and I landed on the road and began jogging back to the city below.