Elysian Park. Scent of Eucalypts after rain. Decomposed granite gritty through sandals. It's winter, but sandals are preferable to heavy shoes on any sort of walk. Many times I walk barefoot on the DG paths of Griffith Park, but today, the road is all mine here, near my childhood haunts. Mulch, peat moss, humus rich with growth possibilities reach out to insist their life-full odors into my nose. Greens of the complete spectrum ~ vivid Springgreen of Los Angeles’s winter grasses to winter evergreens dark, towering trees. Silvers, pinks and lavenders of Eucalyptus leaves and grey-green Scottish Pines. Gold barks shout hello from trunks of every hue. Barefoot here would be lovely, but for the dog shit and swathes of mud that have eaten entire paths in parts.
Walking briskly in the brisk cool, is slow enough to see hummingbirds swoop and vrrrrrt, vrrrrrrrrrt me as if imploring, "did you bring some sugar water with you?" Too early for many blossoms to pop up. What do they eat? Where do they sip?
Throwing my arms together forward and back gives momentum variation: Legs fast forward when arms go ahead; slow forward when arms go back. Meander bed of my mind lets me flow along with thoughts just long enough to change course, skip to new direction, sometimes related, sometimes un.
Spinning is a favorite break from left, right, left right. I like to see and feel the park go by over my outstretched arms. If I stare at one up pointing thumb, I do not get dizzy in the slightest, until I stop and then the world goes tick, tick tick side to side for several long breaths. I like this disorientation. I like being off kilter in a semi-controlled way. Likewise I recall Tibetan Monks walk the ancient Swansoo, swastika shaped figures, native to many cultures before Adolph bastardized them. The thought behind the ninety-degree angle change in direction is that 90 is the angle of greatest change. If we go 180, we're merely going back the way we came. Fork left, walk a bit, fork right, walk a bit; keep forking around and you’re bound to change something in your mind, heart, beliefs, and soul.
As a kid, when I walked up our very steep cement street hill after school, I made switch back patterns, perhaps, thirty to forty-five degree angles of change each turn, simply to vary the walk and so as not to get too exhausted charging straight up - which left even us children breathless, on account of the incline. It's like walking a bit then saying, “but then on the other hand… let’s go this way for a bit."
Walking around Echo Park Lake was always a moist adventure. Sprinklers on the grass had to be dodged, wind blowing lake water from the geyser like fountain onto passers-by, and ducks scrambling out of the shallows and shaking themselves in a wiggle-waggle of murky lake-water-spray were fine to encounter on a hot summer's day, but not welcomed during winter walks.
Our Lady of the Lake's statue was always covered in pigeon poop. Her head was the tallest vantage point at that North end of the lake, apart from the bridge to the island. The old green wood rotted and the bridge was dismantled altogether within the last twenty years. The Lady's featureless face and rounded shoulders gave away her birth date, sometime in the 1930s Art Deco era. We loved, as small fries, to run around her base, extending a hand to feel the rough granite of her long straight robes.
Walking an infinity figure as the sun is coming up has been part of my waking routine for the last twelve years or so. Here in Oakland, I like fixing my eyes on some distant point of light across the Bay in San Francisco or closer-up, on the turquoise, black, and white paisley print planter on the patio. Looking over my shoulder as I return to center of my imagined infinity sign and swinging my arms left right left right gives my whole body a wake up that feels right. In my head I hear the music of Marin Marais's La Sonnerie (The Carillon) de Sainte Geneviève du Mont de Paris off an album Mark bought for me when he was in New York in mid 1980s on business. He'd been walking the city and went into a bookshop where this was playing and thought of me. It's a favorite album and the three-quarter rhythm of the first cut just suits walking in an infinity shape in the pre-dawn den. No one is up yet, except Mama Skunk or maybe a neighbor's cat trying to get a jump on the early bird - out to get those worms. There must be some worms out there. Our soil is so poor, but worms seem to be more plentiful since I spread out a bunch of hay bales over the weeds, over the cardboard I laid down, to discourage the weeds that grew through the black porous garden cloth that was supposed to prevent weeds taking-over the sad, top-of-the-hill-missing-its-minerals-earth. The soil is so full of rocks and weed seeds, it's a work in progress even after nearly five years of living here. Wishing for some of that wonderful peat moss of Elysian Park after a rain. For now, compost and other amendments will have to suffice.
Waking by walking... now, there's something to ponder. I wonder as I ponder and wander the neighborhood if, when we lose Daylight Savings Time, it will be light enough in the mornings to walk outside so early??
