A Great Highway

   I took this picture earlier today as I was driving up from a place near the beach where I had gone to try to see passing gray and killer whales (I had overheard a conversation of a man who said he worked as an artist near the beach, and had been seeing them regularly during the day there over the past couple of weeks). Unfortunately, I didn't see any whales today, but will try again tomorrow, and I did get the opportunity to take this picture as I drove north towards my apartment.
   I've driven this road many times, and it rarely fails to instill in me a feeling of freedom and openness. It's usually foggy and cool (to cold) here, and when I'm in my car with the window open a bit, the chilly air rushing in makes me feel like I'm on vacation.

A week for blooming

   I hadn't been to my usual Golden Gate Park spots for one week after having surgery on my toe. During that time (and in fact during the entire winter) we've had very little rain here in northern California, and the temperatures have at times been unseasonably warm. Yesterday, when I returned to my beloved early morning spot and slowly rounded one of my favorite corners I came upon this sight, which you see in the picture below. The (what I believe to be) apple blossom trees there, especially the one shown, was suddenly in rather spectacular bloom. Although there are sometimes pretty wonderful changes that can occur here on a nearly daily basis, especially after a good rain, this one I found quite remarkable.

   I sometimes feel emotionally that when I am 'out of the loop' for awhile the world and its' people are or will pass me by, and will become something that I don't know or recognize. I know rationally that this is not usually so, but it seems that I may in fact mistaken.

   

Life abandoned and life taken

   During my morning walk in Golden Gate Park today I witnessed so much life;  I also felt the allusion to it. I saw animals hunting, the remains of animals who had been killed (apparently for food), and heard the sounds of the world around me waking and starting the day.
   In years past, I might have found the sight of the dead body of a Muscovy Duck to be too sad to take a picture of, but now I have what I think is a better appreciation for the ebbs and flows of existence. I believe that my advancing age, my daily walks, and the work that I do (where I am so aware of the sometimes fragile state of the living) have all contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of mortality.

An egg left at the side of a walking path

End of the line for one and a meal for others

Behind the bison paddock

   When I first came to live in San Francisco almost nine years ago, the bison paddock in Golden Gate Park was a refuge for me. I loved to watch these animals, admired how docile and peaceful they seemed, loved how tourists would come to see them, but not so many that it would disturb the quiet and peace of the place. I would bring visitors to see them, and even managed on one occasion to leave ecstatically with a clump of their stinky fur that had become wedged in one of the fences containing them. I also saw my first wild red tailed fox here.
   Over the years I have become enamored with other parts of the park (especially Stow Lake), and have visited the bison less, but over the past year or so have regularly been visiting the North Lake, which is just west, across Chain of Lakes Drive East, and crossing back over east, one finds themselves behind the bison paddock, as pictured below.
   It was here that I had my longest encounter with a coyote, and I regularly hear owls calling when it is nearing dusk. It's behind a paddock, and outside of it my mind tends to run freer than usual.

There are bison yonder in those fields

It's stuff dreams are made of

   I took this picture at a place called the Sloat Garden Center here in San Francisco. The combination of the writing on the man's shirt, his back, and his ponytail appearing from below his baseball cap formed a message with I found, and still do, both funny and obscure . On the one hand, it seems amusing because the dreams that the shirt is referencing seem from this rear view of the man seem to be about his style, which seem to me more like a nightmare; but the 'dreams' may also be a kind of half-sleep state where the kind of meaning being offered in the picture may only be imagined in that state, leaving me with an overly simplified reading.  

   I hope that the very act of my trying to understand the image helps me get closer to the the second type of understanding.

Tree top

   This is a picture of a tree that I pass almost daily, and when I do, I invariably find myself looking at the top of it. I do this partially because much of it's lower portion is obscured from my sight from the angle I generally see it, but also because this very obscuring steers my eyes up into a different visual field, a view illuminated by the early morning light. This time of day produces colors that I find soothing and beautiful, no matter the weather.
   I wrote in another blog earlier about my shoes, and how they are significant for me in the space where they connect me to the ground. This picture illustrates for me a similar feeling, in that it suggests another meeting point, one which feels less personal and more ethereal than where my feet meet the ground, but no less significant. It points to the difficult relationships between objects in the world that I see.

Feathers

   This is a picture I took of the back of a Muscovy duck, near Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. The Muscovy duck might appear to not be incredibly attractive to many (initially to me, as well), but I find  the way that they interact with each other endearing. Upon close inspection, their feathers are pretty great as well.

What to trees do at night?

   When I arrive daily in Golden Gate Park for my walk, it's often pretty dark, depending on the weather and the time of year. The two trees that you see in the photograph below are located near the southeast corner of Stow Lake, and I am often drawn to look at them, partially because of their shape, but also because of their place on a very small island in the lake. As the sun is just beginning to illuminate the area, it looks to me at times like these trees have been kind of guardians of the lake, and as corny and hippie as this may sound (and I do find that somewhat embarrassing), it's the way I feel.
   If myself and many of the animals found there have been sleeping when it's dark, what have these trees been doing?

Empty House

   It was raining rather hard when I saw some people ahead of me glance over at what looked like a large leaf on the ground. I didn't want to get very wet and spend the rest my work day in wet clothing, so I continued on. As I passed by it again before getting into my car, I looked at it more closely; its' color and design were so vibrant that I figured that it must be made of plastic, and nudged it with my foot to turn it over. I realized that it was the shell of a turtle, empty but for a bit of its' former occupants' tissue. I was exhilarated and saddened when I thought about it later, and remorseful that I hadn't taken it with me.