Fresno has been good, a fruitful place to get things done. An easy place to work the day job and also have time and energy for personal projects. A good place to plant things for the months ahead.
But after two weeks at the Ramada by the freeway the Cali-Dream starts to wear a bit thin. The cuteness wears off, as Rick says. All the golden things are still true, but you can see and taste the gritty not-so-glamorous underbelly of it.It begins to feel like a neverending game of bumb worer cars, even when crossing the parking lot to get a cup of coffee in the morning.
So today I took advantage of the rental car and drove up to Yosemite. Got there about ten in the morning--a leisurely pace. Lingered a long time sitting at the bank of the Merced across from El Capitan. It was the turning of fall---golden leaves in the still water.
Above it the might mountain. There is nothing like it on earth that I've seen. It is not just a huge piece of rock. It seems sculpted in some perverse but brilliant expansion of something I was fascinated with last year---the trunks of the giant sequioas.
It's as if El Capitan is some kind of stone monument to the sequoia itself.
That got me thinking in a playful way. Is that just a coincidence? Maybe the seeming similarity between the wild structure of the great rock in Yosemite Valley with the base of sequoias has some kind of natural explanation, having to do with the channeling of water, given the rainfall here, its frequency, average pH, etc. Maybe it's just a quirk. I tied myself in knots thinking about this, looking up at the rock.
See, Golden again!
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