So much has happened since I last wrote on this blog: graduating from Berkeley, dealing with family illnesses and deaths, going through a divorce, through moving, grief and depression. Some things haven't changed, though--nature is still one of my balms, along with music, poetry, good company, and time to myself.

A journal entry from mid-October: 

                Magical as sunsets, constellations, and moonlight may be, I may be falling more in love with Dawn—Ushas, Eos. I woke to full dark this morning, so I drove to Rockville and began hiking just as the eastern horizon was turning plum. A musk of bay leaves, like basil, infused the air; even the trail-dust smelled sweet and fresh. As dawn and daybreak progressed, the whole landscape took on a gold tinge. It was like a Maxfield Parrish, colors and shadows saturated. Even the driest, deadest plants looked vibrant. The sky was cerulean, of course, and even Parrish couldn’t have outdone the painterly fog and clouds.

                I went to my new favorite trail, Cave View at the westernmost end of the park. It runs along the edge of a long cliff and boasts a garden of andesite, scrub, and quirky, shady blue oaks. One of the oaks has a trunk with a muppet-like face. Moss covers plants and rocks alike. Below and west of the cliff spread semi-rural Green Valley, vineyards, stables, oaks stands, homesteads, upper-crust neighborhoods. West of them rise the Napa hills, tufted with oaks like mounds of Venus. All this, too, was gold-tinged and saturated.

                In a perverse mood, and from necessity, I peed a golden tinge off the cliff, onto the ledge of a cave below. That was surprisingly fun.