Monday, February 22, 2016

Sharon's New Digs

Sharon went a little nuts last week and built a shelter out in her favorite hiking spot.  A respite, she says, from the drudgery of modern life.  Living simple.  Living small.  The tiny house movement taken to the extreme.  There is no electricity, no phones, no running water, no keys.  No WiFi.  Stop by sometime and say hello!

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Welcome to 2016



Welcome to 2016.  Every. Single. Thing. is changed.  Where I was sure of the route I am finding myself uncertain.  Where I was clear on the method I find myself unprepared.  Is there a map for this?  As I'm winding my way within the breath of the winter season, the sultry squirrels chatter in a new voice and the delicate canyon wren floats beneath a sky of a different color.  If I'm patient and quiet there is a whisper of encouragement in the cold air.  We'll find ways to be inspired again.  Motivated again.  Let's at least think for a minute that we can end each day with gratitude and wake up within the optimistic embrace of this New Year.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Old Friends



I arrive at the meeting spot early so I might have a little time to myself under the big-cone pines.  I'm sipping my coffee and there are people scurrying about with headlamps on.  They're looking for friends in the dark, stepping carefully, calling out in whispers and listening for familiar responses.  There are more dogs than usual and they don't mind the cold morning but are eager to be let from their leashes.  They are also looking for their friends and the meeting of a cattle-dog and a husky mix causes me to laugh a little.  They run toward each other jumping and circling and cooing just as old friends who have a lot to catch up on.


I am also waiting for an old friend but I choose to sit on the wall where I am sure to be found and watch the day begin.  Sure enough, Sharon arrives and greets me with a soft voice just as the morning comes into focus.  Its a cool, yellow sky of October and it holds us still for a moment.  It seems there is a lot of ground to cover but we loiter in the gentle quiet of the early hour.  I have the feeling of having been gone a long time but also of having traveled very far.  Although I've been here countless times, today everything is new as every day now starts somewhere else and finishes with something unfamiliar.  In between the beginning and the end are sights and sounds I have yet to fully embrace.  Sharon and I are back on the trail of our beginnings.  The trail where we met some fifteen years ago.  

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Gold





Rushing for Gold



We hit the road before the sun rises.  Such a sacrifice is necessary when one wants to travel back in time.  We have packed for an entire day on the trail; our backpacks lay heavy with tools, camera equipment, maps, snacks and water.  The mood however is exceedingly light; we are floating in the anticipation of a newly hatched scheme like raindrops still amidst the clouds.  Everything before us is drifting with possibility and we need only choose to participate to be carried away within the storm.  We will float beyond the ordinary and gently descend into a world filled with all that is unexpected and surprising.  Our destination today is 1849 and we are rushing for gold.

When I first mentioned this plan to a friend I presented it as simply hiking somewhere new.  We would make our way to a few locations where panning for gold is said to still be happening.  Maybe we’ll talk to a miner or two if we can find any.  We’ll take some pictures, commune with nature and absorb the aura.  Our conversation escalated with a tone of excitement as I spoke further about what I had recently read about the Gold Rush and we soon became giddy.  As we moved along it became apparent we could think of nothing else.  More specific plans were made which included actual digging and we quickly adopted a strategy of secrecy.  We outlined some rules: (i) It will be just us on this mission; (ii) We will tell no one lest the word spread and we are forced into subterfuge when faced with the desperate pleas of our friends who would not be left behind; (iii) We’ll divide the spoils equally regardless of who digs more vehemently; and (iv) We’ll get home before dark.  We started to consider how we would stimulate the economy with our newfound riches.  Sharon wants to go on an Alaskan cruise and I want a yurt.  There was no turning back from there.  The seed had been planted; it had been fed by gold’s brilliance and was already sprouting.  We officially had the fever and I could begin to understand what might have happened 166 years ago.

I have been fascinated by the Gold Rush since I moved to Los Angeles in 1989 and began to learn a little about the history of California.  I’m a backpacker and my maps are covered with place names like “Gold Creek” and “Miner’s Mountain.”  I had thought those labels were only of historical significance or maybe even an effort to encourage activity in the National Forest.  Upon further investigation I learned that people still find gold in our local mountains and professional prospectors still exist!  I visited an old friend who I consider to be an expert in such matters and was aptly forewarned:  the area is considered lawless; the miners are territorial, irascible, and armed.  It seems at least that much has not changed in all this time and my spirits were lifted by the possibility of authenticity.  
 
As far as panning goes we are properly uneducated.  I purposely didn’t ask too many questions before setting out in order to feel one with original men.  They crossed the continent on journeys that took months.  They readily embarked on and endured hardships unheard of in today’s world of immediate gratification and impatience.  We will walk approximately twelve miles round trip and by day’s end I will feel I have experienced something of a day in the life of a miner.  I will remind myself over the course of the day that the journey of these men continued for months on end with no respite.  They would watch their friends fall beside them.  They would be hungry and cold and if they would survive to arrive at their destination they would not easily be able to change their minds and go home.  They had no experience extracting minerals from mountains and the information they would have had would have been hearsay.  What they had was faith in themselves and a general direction. 

The land surrounding us is peppered with Yucca, chaparral and poison sumac.  The air is scented with mountain sage and promise.  The occasional oak offers a cool shadow as the sun begins to emerge over the surrounding mountain range.  We are hiking close to the river and must cross in several places to stay on the trail.  There is more water than I expected and I’m unprepared to submerge my legs up to mid-calf; my boots filling with cold water and my camera held high above my head.  The hike to our proposed digging site is approximately six miles from the parking area and even though it’s still early we’re beginning to heat up.  The morning light washes us in a fresh glow and this has the benefit of making us appear young and adventurous so we stop for photos.

When we finally agree on a spot which we have chosen according to the various instructions and bits of advice we have received, we collapse onto the river bank and finally relieve ourselves of our packs and our soggy boots.  We dig a hole by the bank and fill the bucket with the bounty.  With our pans in hand, we enter the river carefully and begin to wash the material.  The swirling of the gravel is hypnotic and one quickly devises a particular style which is certain to be successful.  The colors and patterns of the rocks are exposed and each one has its own entrancing beauty.  I don’t see any gold though.  I’m now questioning if I could even recognize gold and we begin to more closely inspect each other’s pans while we debate if maybe we should have done more research on identification.  The pans are surprisingly buoyant and when I turn my back for just a second, it’s rushing off down the river and I have to chase it.  For the original miners, “panning for gold turned out to be one of the most exhausting forms of manual labor ever devised” and that “to the hard work with pick and shovel, panning added the necessity of squatting or stooping… either beside the icy water or in it, for hours…”.  I can attest to the accuracy of this and we soon begin our complaining of a numbness in our toes and a burning in our back.  Though we are good friends, we will hear ourselves bicker before we call it a day and agree to head back.  Our packs seem heavier now, we are absent the spring in our step and our heads hang a little bit low.

In my sleep I’ve been dreaming of gold.  In this dream I am surrounded by friends who share intimate knowledge of which I know nothing and I feel abandoned.  They’re laughing as they go about their day, speaking around me, and I feel shame that I’ve somehow disassociated from creativity.  They’re on their way somewhere and I’m not invited because they are part of a lifestyle which eclipses self-imposed responsibilities and regulation of which freedom plays no part.  I have an inner-turmoil as I might if I had gone to bed angry and woken with the vestige of that distaste still on my lips.  As if I had said something ugly that I now wished to take back but knew I never really could. 

I wake suddenly in the still dark and I feel worried as if I’m late for something.  Relieved that I’ve been dreaming I recollect on the nighttime images and in order to quiet my mind I form new images which are more pleasing.  I am pushing away the heavy rocks which weigh on my mind.  I am sifting through the gravel and the sand that chafes my being.  I am washing away the dust that clouds the sunshine.  I am separating the tiny specks of glittering placer and holding them aside.  Holding them inside.  Gold is a soft metal and if we caress the particles they can collectively form a dream that is more brilliant than standing atop the highest mountain and staring down on the clouds.  It is more invigorating than waking to the morning light of an alpine sunrise to find the coffee already at brew.  It is more satisfying than the meal of a king placed before the peasant.

I am awake.  I feel more awake and alive than I have felt since the time I left home and struck out on my own chasing my dreams across the continent.  I felt anything was possible then and my potential was only limited in its grandeur by how hard I was willing to work.  I was frightened and I was hopeful.  My thoughts are racing in a new direction and I will not sleep tonight.  I stumble to the computer and send an email to my co-conspirator.  There are two days to Saturday and I propose another trip to the diggings.  No sooner than the sun begins to shine than my phone rings.  Sharon has also been woken with a new sense of inspiration and significance.  We share this new spark and the power of it is a driving force so great we must not allow it to extinguish.  We now have a common knowledge and it needs not be said aloud that this new motivation must be protected from the damp, cold, jagged cliff of modern reason.  This is Hope.  This must be held like an egg as the wolves circle.  The drudgery of structure and predictability are predators with envy and malice.  They do not dream but we dream again!  We have not yet held the nugget but we have fully realized the magic of its nature. Besides, the grasp of the elusive element is not out of our reach it’s just around the next bend.  We have to spend a little more time on it.  We have to hone our technique.  We have to dig a little deeper.  We just have to try again.