A few more days for reflection on this rapidly closing year.
I write facing the body of water pictured on my screen, Whalers Cove - now thankfully known as Shelter Cove - at the southern end of Sausalito, a tiny nook in the San Francisco Bay.
Whaling ships took shelter here for almost 200 years. Fresh water still comes from the same prized springs that supplied the whalers. Barges loaded with barrels ferried our water across the Bay to the tiny (but dry) settlement that was to become San Francisco.
The winds that blow from the sea blow over the ridge and drop down on the water spreading it in all directions. The sun and the moon rise over Angel Island and the low East Bay hills. Sunrise lights up the back wall of my studio and colors the large open sky. Some pilings remain from ship building wharves (taken out by a severe northerly I hear). These pilings provide me with many hours of delight as they are a gathering place for many sea birds.
At low tides one sees the fragility of these pilings. The worms have eaten all but a few strands of wood that now hold the teetering pilings in place. A big storm this winter may be their undoing. I have fantasies of galvanizing a work force to patch these remaining 37 pilings. I know that 80 to 100 migrating Elegant Terns, the winter Pelican visitors, year round Cormorants and gulls, the night fishing Great Blue Heron, the occasional King Fisher and the two little land birds (that think they are sea birds), will find other haunts, but I will miss them greatly. My morning ritual for the past several years has been to count and greet the piling sitters.
Sausalito means a little willow grove. The name was recorded as early as 1831. When I moved here 5 years ago, there was one old willow at the south end of the cove. It created a picturesque end to the beach, and partially blocked out the huge apartment building on concrete pilings that is anchored there. The tree perished in the next couple of years. 2004 and 2005 had some bad storms, bringing high tides. Maybe the salt water did it in. This winter I will replace it with a rooted cutting I have on my deck. The only other willows on the shore are at Dumfey Park, a mile or so north.
The day I moved into my apartment on the beach, my younger sister was diagnosed with lung cancer. Shelter Cove became my refuge, and Angel Island framed by my picture window, my anchor and my solace. This uninhabited Island of natural beauty, forests and wildlife surrounded by the metropolis of the Bay Area, supplies oxygen for us all. The rhythmic lapping of water (the earth breathing - Homer) only a few feet from my door is my Buddha breath, my rocking cradle.
New things I started this past year - piano lessons with a wonderful jazz pianist and swimming in the Bay. What a delight to step into the water and bob like a cork with full wetsuit, fins, cap and gloves no less! The surprise was the motion. "The water was so alive today!"... my friend Lucille so aptly put it one morning (she also says I have a big grin on my face when I swim that makes her laugh!). Lucille has been swimming for many, many years. Her adventures could be told for days. Sometime in August, Lucille and I were sharing toast and jam on the beach. She was warming up with her thermos of coffee. I might have said, as I often did, how wonderful it must be to swim here. She answered "why don't you meet me at 6 am next Thursday? We'll do a short swim on a good ebb tide"... Now that I'm hooked, I can't wait for the water to warm up just a little for my very unseasoned body to start again. (Note: Thoreau cultivated the habit of jumping into his pond every day - throughout the year. He could have measured the temperature of the water for his data collecting but he chose instead to unite with the pond experience!
Angel Island was on fire during one of my sunrise swims. I had helplessly watched it burn all night. It is greening up now with the winter rain. When it opens to the public again, I will check out the seeds and roots that thrive with a good fire. My New Year's wish (are they supposed to be secret?) is to see as many California spring-times, from desert to High Sierras, as I can. I have challenges from family and work to face this year. Writing this reminds me to watch for resilient seeds and nurturing roots that sustain my life and perhaps surprise me as I find my way.
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