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CLOSE TO HOME
California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day
By DAVID CAMPICHE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
M
id-morning and Big Sur, an
expanse of California’s central
coast, remains moody. A thin
stratum of clouds huddles low on the
Pacific horizon. Intermittent sun rays
hurl tendril-like flashes of intense light
upon sheer faceted cliffs, rocky spires
and lacy wave tops 1,000 feet below.
As the weather changes aggressively
before our eyes, clouds, the color of a
dirty martini, blanket the surf, skirmish
between god-hewn forces and nature’s
rock titans — between ocean and sky
and terra firma. I stand before the land-
scape in awe and offer a single Buddhist
salutation: “Be! Be!” And prayers roll on
like waves churning off the Pacific.
California State Route 1 snakes along
the coastline, feigning and twisting and
dodging like a springbok sprinting ahead
of the jackals. Anxiety paws at the stom-
ach, and then plunges into the depths
below. Here, the surf ebbs and flows.
Patterns appear heaven-sent, pulsing,
weaving, dancing — my oh my!
And when was the last time I stood
awestruck before the hand of nature?
I take a deep breath, let my mind
recede into lovely memories. Was that
on our own Oregon Coast, and just last
month? Was that Depot Bay or high on
Neahkahnie Head, or standing on a bluff
above Ecola State Park? Or possibly,
this same magic happened while I wan-
dered through an ancient cedar grove on
Long Island. Our own heartland is full of
surprises and delights.
But I was humbled, in some form
of meditative reverence, for those
white-hatted combers at Big Sur,
dashing upon ocean-sculpted rocks and
igneous stone islands, buried and then
unburied by tide and storm and wind-
song currents.
The way we are
This is to say, where we live is
blessed with dabs, dashes and pockets of
landscape we might define as paradise.
And in saying that, we must be forever
reminded of our responsibility to protect
those holy vistas. Those redwoods.
Those Western cedars.
DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTOS
A roughly 1,000-year-old redwood
Continued on Page 14
Big Sur on the central California coast