emptyage

No Moleste

I had such a great time on our road trip. We hit the Trinity Alps, Crater Lake, the Rogue River, and Redwood National Park.

I especially loved Redwood. Big trees do for me what big mountains do for a lot of others. I'm mesmerized by them. Ancient and alive, thousands of years rooted in one spot. Enormous; you can only guess at the wholeness that's way too big.

But I was also wowed by the Roosevelt Elk, which are to Redwood what buffalo are to Yellowstone. Or cows to Marin county. They are everywhere, just off the roads. Four-legged photo ops.

On our camping and backpacking trips, Harper turns into sort of a living "No Moleste" sign. She actually has to say "no moleste" to me quite frequently. In this way the seashells, giant pinecones from the forest, redwood bark, snakeskins, volcanic pumice, petrified wood, lichens, and all manner of other interesting artifacts remain where they are in nature, rather than returning with me to San Francisco to perch atop my desk, where, in my view, they clearly belong. Or at least, would probably be more comfortable.

The cautions extend to animals as well. I am often kept from grabbing up frogs, salamanders, and other slow-moving forest creatures, both large and small. My instinct when I see a giant Roosevelt Elk, for example, is to attempt to approach as close as I possibly can in order to take a picture of it.

"Hello! Don't mind me! Smile?"

Yet Harper discourages this practice too. Touting silly things like "park rules" and "common sense when dealing with rutting Elk," she dissuades me from approaching as closely as I can, or saddling, and riding the Elk. Similarly, she has had to pry me unwillingly away from monkeys, snakes, birds, water buffalo, bobcats, and bison.

While I understand that, well, yes, I may be upsetting the natural order of things, and that if everyone took pumice home soon there would be no pumice left, on the other hand: Elk! Look at the Elk!

In any case, I kept my distance as best as I could (the last photo was taken from the car as we rolled slowly by some roadside Roosevelts) and recognized the wisdom (if not the fun) of keeping one's distance, taking only pictures, and living the no moleste lifestyle.

Last Night

Last night we listened to coyotes howl below us at two o clock in the morning; wretched, alone, and hungry, their voices carrying through the hills, wanting. We slept below an open sky, it was warm and we didn't put the fly on the tent. I could watch the stars spin above the earth; feel the breeze blow up the mountain from the ocean and onto my face.

Last night we heard the crickets scratch their legs together all around us until the air hung thick with sound. We built a roaring fire using just one two matches. We hiked a trail I'd never seen before, and looked below at the fog lying heavy and full atop the city that I love; invisible and indistinguishable from the ocean were it not for the top--the very tip--of that great living tower, peeping out like the head of a forgotten god, nothing left but bones now, drowning in a billowing white sea.

Last night at four o clock in the morning two men came buzzing into the parking lot in an ancient, wheezing mobile. They shouted at each other and then began to head up the hill, cutting through the woods towards our tent. As they neared the perimeter of our campsite, I switched on my light and confronted them, hitting them with several watts and deep, booming voice. They answered me and I didn't falter. Then they turned back, and I felt brave and scared all at once.

Last night a mouse raged inside our foodbox, and in the pitch as we got up to investigate, we laughed as it played peekaboo, head hidden away with body in plain sight. A tiny tail hanging limp from the cirner of the cabinet. We surrendered to it our chocolate, our cheese puffs, our tomatos. You cannot have our coffee.

This morning we watched the sun come up through the trees. We saw the glow of the lights of the city slowly give way to a brighter, more beautiful din. Birds came alive in the trees, and we woke and packed quickly and quietly, and drove home again to go to work today.