Don’t miss the moment
It’s spring and I’m struggling with competing interests. Friends have posted pictures of wildflowers in upper Bidwell Park and weeds are blooming in my backyard. I realize the plants in each location may be exactly the same.
I’ll walk gingerly around a clump of tiny white flowers at Horseshoe Lake. At home those dandies are yanked before my yard looks like the levee along Wildwood Park.
This time of year you can visit upper park once a week and see something new each time. Blooms that faded yesterday are replaced by a new color Wednesday.
Enjoy the early sunshine now because soon Chico will be unbearably hot and the only Saturday destination will be the walk-in cooler at Costco.
We’ve already lost a lot these past many months — time, patience, our minds. If only I had lost some weight.
Some of us have lost people we loved.
Please don’t miss the magic of this moment.
Travels north
After Dad died of cancer, I started traveling north to visit my mother.
Mom is still very cautious and we sit outside and we wear masks. After a short overnight in her RV, I stop to see a friend who lives halfway between Redding and Chico.
Spring weather and a pandemic make an intoxicating combination for walks and talks in wide open spaces. I miss seeing upper Bidwell Park in full bloom, but have discovered some noteworthy locations on the outskirts of Red Bluff. We placed footprints along Red Bank, Iron Canyon Trail and the Coleman Fish Hatchery. Paynes Creek, the Bend area and a bunch of side roads I don’t remember have kept me from feeling like a freak who never sees the sun.
Among the epiphanies, I reminded that we live in one of the best places on the planet — at least in the spring. But please don’t tell everyone. I still haven’t bought a house.
Last summer it was the river. I needed the Sacramento River as much as I needed ice cream. When my head is spinning like the blades of a box fan, I can skip rocks along the Sacramento and remember the smell of sanity.
On recent days I have needed the green, flat lands halfway between Chico and Redding. People ride horses and kids fish in small ponds that are stocked with fish. I might miss the flowers along the Rim Trail this year. Yet, I am thankful my friend showed me the places I had missed while driving north at 65 miles an hour.
It only takes half an hour to truly unravel, someplace green where arms can be stretched wide. Midweek I can visualize that half hour and I feel my heartbeat return to normal.
Backyard weeds return
Of course, there are still those weeds.
Plants happily multiply in upper park and do the same in the back yard. Tall grass billows along the Rim Trail, and offends along the walkway where I planted freesia.
I smile at tiny flowers along the dribbling creeks of Monkeyface, but will show these flowers the backend of my hoe in the planter box. Wildflowers in the cracks in my alley? No thank you. I planted poppies in those cracks in the alley. Never mind that some people consider poppies a weed.