Sketch Book

    After a long time wandering I realized a portion of my own soul.  Within me was a yearning to write for creative contribution, not just for the sake of personal reflection.  Ten years I toiled in the halls of higher academia, writing and reading, pondering and considering the ways of the deeper things of life.  Much wisdom I found, much I seemed to lose, finding myself far from any shore, only now able to continue my journey through the void.  

    I finished one degree, then wandered.  I finished another, then wandered.  It was the case my education had little to do with practical pursuits, instead satisfying a craving to learn more of the unknowable, to explore the depths of which no bottom could be found.  

    Yet the nature of life demands a practical response. So in the face of closed doors, narrow paths, and internal turmoil I chose to write.  I chose to write a lot, seeking to make a profession out of a hobby.  This I still seek.  

    I did not begin with grand plans.  My only goal was to write, to explore, to expand my abilities through the doing of the task.  I decided to write at least a thousand words a day of pure fiction in this pursuit.  Since early September I have done so.  Much of what I wrote at first I enjoyed, knowing it less of a publishable body of work and more of an exploration, a practice at an art form which I knew only from observation.  I considered this sketch work.   The stories became loosely cohesive, and accordingly I attached a title, Misplaced Self.

    This is my sketch book, a daily story from my initial forays, updated each and every day.   I may or may not edit what I post.

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Getaway

          He woke up earlier than usual that morning, and he usually woke up pretty early.  The summer sun was showing itself before most people tended to stir, and he loved the quiet of the day before the world starts.  In the past this is what Colin lived for, shaping his entire life so he could taste of the beauty, existing to fill his heart with the delights of the subtle voices of the natural world. 

          Tasks, important and vital as they were, had brought him out of that world into this world, the world most people knew.  He was still reorienting himself towards being back in society.    His work with the publishing house, and now legal clinic, kept him almost too busy with things he genuinely loved.  It was with discipline, then, he insisted on a weekly Sabbath, in which he could get away from humanity, if even for a brief period.  There was much he saw he did not like in his dealings with people, but surprisingly, his time away had opened his eyes to aspects he had never before noticed – the qualities of humanity which often get lost in the criticisms.

          But today his focus would not be on those qualities – which even the owners are mostly unaware.  Rather, he thought it a good day to restore his foundation, and seek some wisdom in the solitude of a long, morning hike.  His habit had been to go to the beach, or to a county park, or sometimes even the botanical gardens, where he liked to feed the water birds.  Always, however, those were places which had as much human interaction as natural.  He needed to get away from that, if even for half a day. 

          Sandwiches packed,  peanut butter and honey on wheat, along with a ziploc of triscuits and cheese, he threw his backpack on his shoulder, picked up a 1.5 liter bottle of Arrowhead water, and walked out to his driveway.  Nature was not nearby. 

          Well, it was, in part.  Trees abounded in his Pasadena neighborhood, vastly more than would have been here had humans not.  The low shrubs and scattered oaks had been replaced by homes and stores, but also an infinite array of flora – palms, pepper trees, maples, camphors, chestnuts, myrtles, eucalyptus trees, peppermints, walnuts.  Just on his block there was a virtual United Nations of trees – a Japanese Maple was in the yard next door, down the street was a Queensland Kauri, he had planted a Hong Kong orchid when he bought the house in the late eighties;  there were Australian Flams, English Walnuts, Southern Magnolias (he always felt those from the south were part of a different country), Italian Stone Pines, Mexican Blue Palm, Crepe Myrtle (that sounded French), Australian Willows and Chinese elms.  That wasn’t even a complete list – with the amazing soil of Southern California a fountain of life for growing just about anything which would grow.  Because of this, just about anything did in fact grow.  That the suburbs had overtaken what used to be some of the world’s finest farmland only aided in the propagation of these various ambassadors. 

          When people thought of Southern California, when he used to think of it when he lived eight hours north, the only pictures which came to mind were the freeways and suburbs, Hollywood and concrete.  He stopped on the walkway before he got to his car and remembered his own first impressions, thinking the constant bustle and lack of friendliness the only hallmark of the local lifestyle.  Then he noticed how odd a place it was, where parks tended to have less trees than the rest of the neighborhood. 

The canopy of his Engelmann oak in his front yard was home to no less than ten species of birds, oftentimes more, and oftentimes exotic.  Crows loved it, but as they love just about anything that isn’t saying much, but so did mourning doves, wrentits, finches (of course), sparrows, woodpeckers, and at night, he knew, mockingbirds announced themselves from its branches.  His friends from home were surprised to hear about his other frequent visitors – parrots.  The local flocks of parrots in the area, supposedly escaped from a pet store fire in the early 1900s, were always a raucous group, screeching loudly and constantly, but nevertheless a treat to see.  They flew in groups of twenty or more, and when they came by, one knew it. 

Near the library one day, he even saw two wild parakeets, bright green, busily eating the blossoms of a Red Horse Chestnut, as they chattered to one another.  No books he found mentioned the presence of wild parakeets here, but there was no doubt this is what he saw. 

He kept going towards his car, but then stopped once more before opening the door.  There was something in the branches he had not seen before.  An oriole of some kind, he thought, must be migrating somewhere. 

Of course, living in the middle of the suburb did lose him some of his closest friends from home.  The squirrels here were fairly emaciated creatures compared to the gray squirrels he used to know.  There were opossums, he knew, and skunks, he smelled, and even a small group of raccoons who eked out an existence in the wee hours of the morning.  But the rest of the animals strayed far away from his home, though they were plentiful in the hills a short way a way.  He missed seeing the mule deer grazing in the early morning, and even seeing the occasional banana slug which he had, oddly, grown quite fond of for various reasons. 

But, he was here now.  Living in South Pasadena, where far too many people forgot to take notice of the sheer beauty around them as they grasped to show off themselves.  Of course, to help change this trend was why he was here, but not today.  Today he had other plans, which would sharpen his focus on his usual tasks.

Part of him was so entranced by seeing the oriole high above he considered sitting on his porch with a good book, which would occasionally even be read.  The noise of the neighborhood, though, was going to increase, as traffic and gardeners got busy.  

He got in his green Contour, put his backpack in the passenger seat, and backed out of the driveway.  He went north for a couple of blocks, then turned east for a few more, then finally went north again when he got to Lake Avenue.  This would take him all the way to his goal for the day.

In the early twentieth century a wealthy oil man (oil was plentiful in Southern California as well), built a hotel high in the foothills overlooking the bustling town of Pasadena, which then, as now, was where the wealthy who worked in burgeoning Los Angeles made their homes.  There were no roads to the hotel, but this did not stop the intrepid developer.  He built a tram which would take people from the bottom of the hill to the top.  With the kind of ingenuity and creativity which construction of this era often entailed in creating things which even now would be difficult, the man built his hotel, including a five star restaurant, and his tram.   He built a getaway where wealthy Pasadenians, and others, would be able to retreat to the country for a while.  There was a nice bar, a stable full of horses, and natural beauty extending into and past the San Gabriel Mountains.  It was placed on a spot called Echo Mountain.  A name like this likely doesn’t need an explanation.  It was on a mountain, and if a person yelled really loud… it echoed. 

The intrepid developer enhanced this by building a megaphone on the backside of the hotel, facing the mountains.  This is still here.  Well, a plaque is, and for some reason, a smaller mounted megaphone. 

Nature asserted herself, as nature often does, just to remind us we are not all we think we are.  There was a fire, a large fire, and the hotel was burned to the ground. The tram still ran, but without a worthwhile destination it too was closed after its upkeep could not be maintained. 

After many years this land, and all the land around, came under government protection.  The government built and maintained paths, where hikers could get away, going as far as they may please, as long as their cars at the bottom of the hill were not left past sunset.  The ruins of the hotel could be seen, mostly just the foundation, overgrown, but with a distinct sign that ‘something’ used to be there.  The large gears and tracks of the tram could also be seen, rusting away.   During the weekend this was a fairly popular destination, but not on weekdays, and so to the beginning of that path, at the very end of Lake Avenue, he drove. 

Once there he parked, threw his bag on his shoulder and began the three mile hike up.  There was a fork in the path, leading in one direction to a shaded waterfall, but he decided to keep going up.  The south facing path meant he was going to be drenched in the warming sun as he walked, which at this point in the day he didn’t mind.  It was all part of the experience. 

When he finally got to the spot where the rich once played, he stopped and stared at the view for a moment, then continued on walking over the foundation, in the middle of what was once the grand hall, and by the empty reservoir.  He continued on, walking downhill now, to where isolated picnic tables sat under scrub oaks and cottonwoods. 

Colin put down his bag, pulled out his book, and sat down, only then noticed the pair of ravens sitting in a pine tree twenty yards away. One of the ravens groomed the other, each of them occasionally making a small grunting sound.

It was quiet, other than the natural noises of a chaparral forest, no mechanical equipment, no motors, no traffic.  Just the sound of a light breeze shaking the leaves, and whistling through the pines broke the gentle silence.  A jet flew over high above, but it didn’t bother him.  His book was out, but he didn’t read.  As other birds kept busy around him, doing their duties for the day, Colin stared at the clouds wafting through the sky.  Not a thought was in his head.

 Copyright 2003  Patrick D. Oden