Cirque du Malaise

I know my East Coast friends are riolling their eyes at this pathetic displayof "snow," but trust me, it was exciting around here.

The Blair Witch Snowman. Seriously, I found this snowman looking all shady and evil in the middle of a big empty meadow with no one else around.

If this tree were gay he would be a bear. Get it? Cuz of the fur coat? I’m hilarious. .

Last week I wrote an article for Elephant Journal about the question of how spirituality and technology overlap and enhance each other. I’ve been thinking a lot about ways that these two things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Today, I went up on Mt Tamalpais to check out the fluke snowfall we had gotten over the weekend. I had an epic time hiking around in the snow by myself.

I love my mountain. If my mountain was a folk singer with a ponytail playing love ballads on an acoustic guitar, I’d be the most devoted fan in all the coffee shops in Portland. If my mountain was a spider monkey, I’d smuggle it back from The Orient and walk it around on a leash. If my mountain was a girl, I’d be a lesbian.

And today my mountain looked so damned cute with snow on it! I had the best day, by myself, trudging around in the slush, dodging melting snow falling from trees, breaking frozen mud puddles with my pottery boots, asking random strangers for a glance at their maps, taking pictures. I had a whole afternoon of solitude and didn’t for one second feel alone.

I’m sure no one will argue that getting out on a mountain by yourself just after a snowstorm is one of the most spiritual everyday experiences a person can have. To me, spirituality and creativity often go hand-in-hand.

Whenever I hike by myself I always have a lot of creative ideas, and before I had an iPhone, my brain would fill up with them to the point that I couldn’t relax and hike anymore because I’d be too anxious about getting to a piece of paper to write them down. Now, I can whip out my iPhone, turn on Voice Memo, download the idea bubble, get it out of my brain, and create space for something else.

Oh also, here’s a link to a Patty Griffin song called “Up On the Mountain.” This song was inspired by a Martin Luther King speech (as you’ll hear on the recording) and it’s just lovely. Once I was up at the top of the Marin Headlands — having just huffed all the way to the height of the cliff over Tennessee Valley and along a snaking, precarious trail — when my iPod shuffle burst into a round of this song. It was pretty much a spiritual moment for me. Thanks to my iPod.

When I was little I would often say that I wanted to grow up to live in California.

I am from the rural hill towns of Massachusetts, a place where houses were (and still are) heated by wood stoves, and where people chop and stack their own cordwood in the Fall so they can get through the truly unfunny winters. A place where snow tires are “studded”, and everyone knows how to steer into a skid on black ice. A place where cable television, internet access and cell phone reception are still considered spotty luxuries at best.

Before my twenties, I had never been to California. I had never even been to New York. Except for a few fluke trips abroad garnered by grandparent generosity (and pity, I suspect), the most exotic place I ever went was Boston.

Still, in my heart, I knew California was going to be it for me. I just didn’t know why. If pressed, I would tell people that I wanted to be in California when the big earthquake shook it free from the rest of the country, so that then I would be living on an island, floating free on the Pacific, away from all you people.

(Ironically, I am now of course terrified of earthquakes and frequently subject myself to torturous nightmares about being trapped in my fourth floor apartment when the big one comes. Ah well, seems I've lost the blind courage – and the fantastic imagination – of childhood.)

One of the first things I noticed when I finally moved to California was the curious abundance of maintained, accessible hiking trails crisscrossing the Headlands and running rampant up the coast. I’m sure that hiking trails exist in rural Massachusetts, but I had never been on one, nor had I been subjected to any kind of outdoor culture (outside of skiing, brr, yuck) that would have enlightened me to the fact that such a thing as hiking trails existed.

I embraced this access to the great outdoors, and since I’ve lived in the Bay Area, I’ve become a master of navigation of my beloved Mt.Tamalpais, have discovered backpacking, and can even take you on an urban hike through San Francisco parks and along coastal bluffs. Hoo-Koo-E-Koo, Matt Davis, Railroad Grade, Cataract, the Dipsea…. these are all places I’ve spent a lot of contemplative time over the years. I've spent nights at the West Point Inn (accessible only by state-maintained hiking trails), camped at Steep Ravine, backpacked into Castle Rock State Park, and taken moonlight walks to Tennessee Valley Beach. My favorite departed cat, Milla, is even buried (surreptitiously) on a high point in Mill Valley, in a resting place with an eternal sweeping view of Marin, San Francisco Bay and Muir Woods.

Now, our freak governor (and I mean not necessarily that he’s a freak—although I suspect he is—but more that it’s a freak that he’s governor at all) is making the move to close the majority of our state parks within the next month, citing “fiscal crisis”.

There’s not enough room in this blog to get into the myriad of reasons why this is an asinine idea that’s going to backfire and create more problems than it could possibly solve, not to mention that it’s going to strip this state of the valuable tourism that is it’s only chance of survival in this day and age.

But I’m not much of a political ranter, so on an entirely personal note, the closing of the state parks in California is, to me, a tragedy of emotional proportions. It’s akin to taking away our art, our spirituality, and in some small way, our raison d'être. Not to be too dramatic.

Without the parks, it’s a going to be a lot less California around here.