Spring

Today is my 11th day of officially sheltering in place and 15th day of social distancing. The first death from COVID-19 in my international circle of friends has occurred. Another artist friend was very sick, but is now recovering. Although the increasingly grim news makes me feel like it should be Winter outside, when I peer through my window or step out my front door I am reminded that Spring is here. This is both heartening and heart-breaking, miraculous, ironic, confusing.

Travel to far-away destinations is no longer an option. International borders are closed. Many national parks, including Yosemite, are now closed.  California State Parks have closed their indoor facilities, campgrounds, and parking lots. Up in the Sierras, the ski areas have all closed. After too much crowding last weekend, all parks and beaches in Marin County have been closed. In order to contain the spread of the virus and avoid burdening or overwhelming the healthcare systems of smaller communities, we are being urged NOT to head out of San Francisco to recreate in the countryside or the mountains. I support these mandates, but to honor them I have had to let go of much that I hold dear: a trip to Scotland and Germany, California field recording expeditions, backcountry ski tours in Tahoe, Bay Area hikes with friends. Compared to those who have lost loved ones and livelihoods, I know I am exceedingly lucky and that having limited freedom of movement is a much smaller loss. Even so, when I allow myself to think about it (and mostly I try not to), it feels profound. If/when I am able to travel and recreate again I will not be taking these activities for granted.

In the meantime, my local natural world is still open (with appropriate social-distancing of course), and in many ways it is flourishing amidst this extraordinary reduction in human activity. I hear that coyotes are being spotted wandering some streets in San Francisco! I am trying not to dwell on what is unavailable to me, and focusing instead on appreciating the subtle nuances of spring in my neighborhood.

I never noticed these tree sprouts before.

The bigger ones are green chandeliers!

I feel like an alien might hatch from this.

Purple flower arms wave to Cypress trees

Tentacles of blooming sage 

Variations on a theme. The gardener had fun here.

Some things are more beautiful in the rain

Who has been listening to this tree and what did they hear in there?

Speaking of sound, as human-generated noise dwindles, I hear the chirps, trills, caws, and warbles of my neighborhood birds emerging more and more. Flashes of color and spirit, they flit about over the city's dusky drones. Although North America has suffered a staggering 25% decrease in the songbirds over the last 50 years, it is good to have a chance to hear those that remain. (I have much more to say about how soundscapes are changing, but I will save it for a future post.)

Brewers Blackbirds on Lone Mountain

Dark Eyed Junco in Golden Gate Park enjoying some delicious afternoon snacks!

I am reading Robert Macfarlane's wonderful (and I truly mean "full-of-wonders" here) book Landmarks right now. This morning I came upon a passage about how children explore: 

"With the children as her guides, Deb began to see the park as a 'place of possibility', in which the 'ordinary and the fantastic' - immiscible to adult eyes - melded into a single alloy. No longer constituted by municipal zonings and boundaries, it was instead a limitless universe, wormholed and Möbian, constantly replenished in its novelty. No map of it could ever be complete, for new stories seethed up from its soil, and its surfaces could give way at any moment. The hollows of its trees were routes to other planets, its subterrane flowed with streams of silver, and its woods were threaded through with filaments of magical force" (MacFarlane, 2015, p. 320).

I remember experiencing the world this way as a child. Even now, as an adult, sometimes I can access unfettered modes of perception through art. Now the ability to imagine is a lifeline. Instead of "being" trapped in a country, city, or room, I am trying to be more child-like, to divine more possibilities.

Side Streets

Tuesday, on the first day of officially sheltering in place here in San Francisco, I did an evening exploration of my neighborhood.

I love Golden Gate Park, but it's challenging to stay far enough away from other people there. Paths are not six feet wide, joggers and small children sneak up on me from behind, and I keep having to move off the trails and end up trampling vegetation. I thought it might be easier to maintain a safe distance from humans on my residential neighborhood sidewalks. After a long day of work reorganizing my teaching so that I can do it online, I gave sidewalk walking a try.

Usually I'm very goal-oriented, even when pursuing "leisure" activities. On a normal walk, in normal times (ah, the good old days - only a week and a half ago!), I'd be thinking: "I'm following x route, I'm exercising for x amount of time, I will achieve x things (visit the bank, buy groceries, see the turtles in Stow Lake...)." That's how I am wired. But now is a time for re-wiring almost everything.

Attempting to jettison old habits, I redefined the aim of my walk. This walk would be rambling and inefficient. I would walk the way I do when I visit a foreign city for the first time. I would approach my neighborhood as an exploration, and seek out nooks and crannies that, in 20+ years of living in the Inner Richmond/Lone Mountain, I haven't yet visited. I would boldly go where I have not gone before (but, you know, on a very local scale)!

Sunset was approaching and I wandered over to Angelo J. Rossi Playground. The athletic fields were empty, except for a young couple having a romantic dinner date behind one of the baseball diamonds. I was glad to be in an open green space, but footprints left in the dirt and an abandoned ball gave the scene an eerie, melancholy feel, and I wished this was all just a movie I could go home from.

Likewise the children's playground was hauntingly empty. It is not safe for kids to touch this shared equipment now. I was reminded of the abandoned kindergarten I saw in Pyramiden, a mining ghost town up in Svalbard in the Arctic. There, polar bears roam through the abandoned structures. Here it is a virus. I wonder when, or even if, I will be able to journey to far-away lands again.

Checking out the "No Outlet" street... 

...I discovered an entrance to the San Francisco Columbarium. I hope to not end up as a resident here, at least not for many years to come! The architecture is lovely though. 

On to happier thoughts! Some folks in my neighborhood are doing very nice things with succulents. 

This lovely mini-garden borders my new favorite street: Lone Mountain Terrace. It's a narrow, easy-to-miss, alleyway-ish, pedestrian-only lane that runs for three blocks between houses and apartment buildings. Alone in the dwindling light, my imagination granted Lone Mountain Terrace an air of mystery and a European feel, like I was on a small street in an old Bavarian town (without the worn, granite cobblestones though). At least in the short term, we are going to have to cultivate traveling in our imaginations. 

It was only 7:30pm, yet there was very little traffic. This allowed me actually hear my footsteps, and to notice that select stretches of Lone Mountain Terrace have very intriguing echoes. The hard parallel walls reflect sounds back and forth into strange mutations. It would be fun to do some recording here (but please respect the neighbors!).

Having successfully walked off the day's stress and gloom I headed home. It was now fully dark. Two blocks from my apartment I encountered a homeless man in a wheelchair crossing the street. When he asked for money for food, without even thinking I blurted out my usual response: "I don't have any cash on me." This was true, I had left my house without my wallet, but as I walked away I immediately felt terrible. I felt like a sham, a failure as a human being. Now, more than ever, we have to help each other out, and this means everyone. 

I rushed home, filled a bag with food, and scoured the neighborhood until I found him five blocks away. I gave him the food and then helped him get to a bus stop. Chaos is an opportunity to reorganize, to put things back together into something better.

Doorways

Today is the eve of Sheltering in Place for at least three weeks here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although, as of midnight tonight, we are ordered to stay in our homes except to access essential services, we will be officially allowed to go on walks or hikes outdoors as long as we stay 6 feet away from humans who are not in our household. Thank you policymakers for this sanity-saving detail! And, of course, thank you for acting sooner rather than later. This will literally save lives.

Things have changed so quickly over the last few days. Much of my (former?) life/world has been abruptly stripped away, yet, at the same time so much remains. I can't gather in a venue to make music with my friends, but I can listen to music from all over the world online. I can't attend a workshop in Europe, but I can Skype with loved ones there. Increasingly the options that remain are disembodied, remote, heavily mediated. Things that can still be done in person are now imbued with a rawness and intensity that wasn't there before. It's like when I eat dinner on a backpacking trip and cheap macaroni and cheese with a cup of hot cocoa becomes a gourmet banquet. Now, a walk in the park is a precious gift, a treasured opportunity not to be passed up.

In case things change again, I thought I'd better not wait. Carpe diem!

A highlight of today's human-avoiding perambulations was a visit to the End-of the-Log Fairy House in Golden Gate Park. This particular fairy house came to my attention some time ago (a year?) and is a favorite detail on my usual walk to and around Stow Lake. The first time I stumbled upon it I delighted in my "discovery" of the well-crafted, micro hobbit door, behind which a few tiny shiny trinkets were stashed, things a raven might collect. Over time I've enjoyed seeing how the contents change. It's the Toy Surprise of my regular-route walk. One warm day I even found a chilled can of fancy beer inside! It was an I.P.A. Since I only like dark beers, I left it for whoever came along next, but its presence there made me giggle.

Today there were lots of goodies inside, but I didn't have any rubber gloves or hand sanitizer with me so I decided not to take them out for a closer look. I'm OK with that. It's fun to imagine their particulars. Here's a peak:

I used a eucalyptus leaf on the doorknob so as not to touch it directly with my fingers, then I didn't touch my face until I got home and washed my hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. Kids, don't try this at home!

Earlier in the day I had another doorway experience. After first hearing of our impending Shelter-in-Place-ness, I worried that my local laundromat might be shutting down and I'd end up having to wash all my clothes by hand for who knows how long (turns out laundromats are considered essential businesses and shall remain open). Thinking I might need to do my washing ASAP, I rambled over to scope out how busy the place was. Yes, now we have to worry about getting too close to strangers when washing our clothes. Oh dear. There were a fair number of people inside so I decided I would try again another time.

On my way home, the strange sight of a 20-something woman in ballet toe shoes (I think) doing releves while balanced against the opened back hatch of a car caught my eye. As I walked closer, she went back to standing normally, then grabbed a couple of full grocery bags and carried them up the stairs of the building she was parked in front of. An elderly person stood in the doorway. Scraps of overheard conversation revealed that she and her friend had volunteered to help out this senior-in-need who they had never met before. It is good to see strangers come together in the face of great uncertainty. Sometimes humanity wins.

Walk in the Rain

Today was my third day of social distancing here in San Francisco during the COVID-19 pandemic and I went for a walk in Golden Gate park in the rain, while trying to keep at least 6 feet away from other people at all times.

Even though the weather wasn't great, there were still a few folks out and about, mostly runners and parents with small children. I tried to route myself onto paths less travelled, but still my walk occasionally intersected with other humans. I didn't want to come off as rude, so I felt obligated to improvise creative "reasons" for abruptly moving away from people or standing on the side of a trail in an unremarkable spot. At first these sudden reroutings felt awkward and contrived: "I'm veering off the path to check out this pile of sticks!" "Oh look, ragged flowers in the shrubbery!" "I'm very interested in this empty dock where no ducks are hanging out!" But, after I while, I began to enjoy how these spontaneous diversions led me to places and details in the park that I would never have encountered otherwise.

Under the eucalyptus trees near Stow Lake the birds were chatty and lively. Since the urban traffic and airplane noise was diminished, their voices rang out clearer than usual. Next time I will bring a field recorder.

A tree at the edge of the "forest" with roots of folded elephant skin seemed to promise entry into some other realm.

Flashes of late-afternoon sun illuminated the island for a few moments as strange-looking geese tottered up to me hoping for a handout.

Who placed these tennis balls in this tree and what do they mean?!

Sunset approaches and aromas of freshly-washed green accompany the evening light show. This is a special treat for me. I'm usually working at this time of day.

These are crazy, challenging times. I am worried and afraid for myself, my loved ones, for all of us. Yesterday I ventured out of my apartment to stock up on some essentials at my small neighborhood grocery store and was freaked out about getting too close to other shoppers or the workers there. As the owner of the shop, who I've seen for over two decades but never really had a conversation with, rang up my purchases he said to me, "We'll get through this." It was a small thing, but after days of anxiousness those kind words helped me actually get some sleep last night. 

I want to use this blog to share other such small things: glimmers of good stuff that we still have even though many of our lives have been abruptly upended; bits and pieces of joy, beauty, and hope; the small things that will help get us through the days to come.