Probably the biggest irritation for me at the moment is that I don't get to indulge my traveling sweet tooth. This is such a privileged problem that it's embarrassing to even write the words. It's along the line of being devastated that your long-time Ferrari mechanic has retired. Anyway, this exchange was triggered in a conversation with a friend today. I am glad for my experiences. Such a blessing.
In most of the places we've visited we've been able to at least get in the ball game with the language, but not Asia, although after a few weeks you could pick up the cadence, hear similar sounds drawn out or bitten off differently. One of our favorite experiences was being in a train or plane or bus where a native guide was speaking or there were automated messages playing - we could read or watch the sites going by while the voice was droning away so that it became part of the background, like Muzak. Then all of a sudden a combination of sounds would burst into my consciousness as a distinct English phrase - Absolute Chevrolet! Diving sense! - before the Japanese or Chinese or Vietnamese would seamlessly pick up again. It was especially weird if I was dozing off. It would snap me back to full consciousness immediately.
I went for a long hike up in the foothills of our local mountains this week. A couple of years ago we had a violent firestorm move through our area. It destroyed a ton of homes and absolutely scorched huge swaths of wilderness. I got up there a month or so after the fire when there were still hot spots smoldering here and there. Some of the smoke was coming from the root systems of large trees that had been immolated - the fire was so violent that it actually didn't stop after it vaporized the tree but would burn down underground into the roots. The earth itself had turned glass-like. The dirt had been subjected to such extreme heat that if you stepped off the trail (which I did only once - it was important to let nature have plenty of leeway to heal itself) it crunched, like there was covered by a thin layer of ice.
This area has some groves of trees following the paths of small creeks and streams but is mostly covered with low-lying native shrubs and bushes. After the fire most of the bushes were gone - completely gone - only blackened branches poking up. Some of the trees had vanished; some had been partially burned, green sections weirdly mated with charred trunks; some were untouched; and many had their lower branches burned off, the upper sections blithely waving in the breeze. The fire did what it wanted unless the trees had other ideas. But the fire was the big dog. The fire was ascendant. The wind that day had been powerful, blowing at 50 or 60 MPH. A fireman I know told me that when the wind is blowing like that they just get out of the way.
At the time I noticed that many of the blackened bush skeletons had small spurts of green growth at their bases. A whiff of hope wafted over me. Two years later the scene is amazing. Most of the bushes are in the process of regenerating, thick greenery pierced by the still standing black branches. Rebirth. The trees are a mixed lot - some of them look as good as new; some have vibrant sections mated with dead tree; and some have fallen, indeed are still falling recently. They tried but in the end were unable to overcome the damage. And because we had a wet spring the ground is covered with green vegetation and tons of flowers. Not the thick covering you would see in a more temperate climate - this is a semi-arid zone, after all - but still a lot of flowers clinging to the hillsides, a lot of color.
This hike has a lot of climbing involved so I'm able to burn off some of my naturally occurring and very irritating nervous energy and burn it off while I'm in nature, two things that are very calming for me. I miss my daily swims and look forward to picking them back up when the gyms reopen but I'm choosing not to dwell on this, preferring instead to enjoy frequent hikes.
The Problem V The Solution
No comments:
Post a Comment