VARIOUS HUES OF MUD

You wake up and there are still ghost-images of somewhere very far away in your head. Colours not common here, and scenery only half remembered. Such as an autumn morning in a pleasant flat landscape with lots of moisture. California is not particularly moist. Most of the state is so close to being a desert waste that you half-expect a column of Sand People with glowing eyes to pad single file across Nob Hill, before stripping your car of all sellable parts. Except that you dont' have a car. And we've succesfully kept the Sand People at bay.

Tusken Raiders, as is well known, live in trailer parks.
There are several in the far suburbs.
Near the chicken farms.

[Hobbitses!]


I grew up in a colder wetter place. We moved there when I was two. My mother wanted to get away from the Los Angeles area, the air pollution there aggravated her asthma. And neither of my parents were particularly fond of Southern California, liking the climate of the Bay Area better. My father had spent a few years at college here, my mother had before she married my dad lived most of her life here.

The picture above shows neither the Berkeley Campus nor the Presidio, environments that meant much to them. It also does not show the North East Quadrant of this city (Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown, and North Beach) which are major in my life.

Early morning near a stream in North Brabant. I can still smell the tannins.

When there is moisture in the air, things smell different.

Stronger, and more decomposed.



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