Around the Bay

 

Around the Bay, Sept. 14, 2009

Copyright © 2009 Paul D. Natkin, All Rights Reserved

 

Around the bay there was a little red in the leaves on some of the trees, and I observed a somewhat hazy and slightly lavender quality in the colors in this area. I saw a friend walking his small white dog and another on the way home from work. Several joggers passed through in the few minutes that I was at the Viewpoint. I took a number of photographs, but not one photo captured the essence of the place. As I've pointed out earlier, the problem is that when I take a shot that shows what an expanse the view encompasses, then the intriguing details are no longer visible. And when I focus on the details, the breadth of the view is no longer apparent.

Twenty-three Stones

There are twenty-three stones at the Viewpoint. I counted them this morning. This includes the big rock at the head of the trail going down to the ravine. It also includes a mostly submerged rock nearby and a large, almost completely submerged stone near the south entrance and another stone close to the latter which lies flat on the ground and is partially submerged. This doesn't include the three concrete bollards that stand at the entrances: one at the north entrance and two at the south entrance. (There are two possibilities for entry at the south end, so two bollards were required to keep anyone from entering the park in a car, I suppose.) Another kind of stone I'm not including in this tally of twenty-three is type of stone used to support the lamp fixtures. There are three of these stones, if I remember correctly. They're basically blocks of concrete. Their size differs from lamp to lamp. As I counted, I found myself wondering what the difference really is between a rock and a stone. There are many things I might call either "rock" or "stone," but it seems to me that if something is actually made of cement, or concrete, it shouldn't be called a rock. I think of a "rock" as something formed by the forces of nature. We often speak of "headstones" in reference to the markers in cemeteries. Many of these are made of marble, granite or other kinds of rock, but if I'm not mistaken, some are made of cement, or concrete, and still we call them "stones." Many of the "stones" at the Viewpoint are, in fact, pieces of cement or concrete. Maybe later I'll give more details about their composition. I could check my photos, so that I don't have to go to the Viewpoint a second time today, but it's hard to tell much about a stone's composition from a photo, unless the photographer has made a point of focusing on the stone. I do have lots of close-up photographs of plants and animals that live in the park, but none of rocks, as I recall.

Next time I go to the Viewpoint I'll count the hawthorns that line the side of the park adjacent to the arterial. These are some of the last hawthorns on the hill. One was recently lost.

A Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day. When I got to the Viewpoint, there was a family there, under the laurel tree. They were speaking a foreign language--Arabic, I think. One of them, a man, was taking photos. Photographers, professional and amateur, come to the Viewpoint all day long. I've taken hundreds of photos there, myself, so I can tell you that it's not easy to take a good photo of either the view or the park itself. There's something about the way the space is arranged that makes it hard to find the ideal shot.

After a couple minutes, the family left. There were three other people in the park:

1. A man reading a magazine, who was wearing a white izod shirt, khaki shorts, thong sandals, glasses and an earpiece

2. A woman lying on her stomach on a white blanket, hugging a light blue pillow and reading a book. She was wearing dark blue glasses and a short, form-hugging dark blue dress. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun. She was near the tree I call the "Lovers" because of its two trunks. I've read that it was brought from Denny Park.

3. A guy who was sitting near the stone at the entrance to the trail, smoking a cigarette, wearing a gray T-shirt, navy blue Adidas shorts with white piping and athletic shoes with no socks (or short, invisible ones). He had a rucksack, removed from his back, and a mountain bike. He finished his cigarette and then lay down on a bench and began reading a book: Euclid's Mind.

As I was leaving, a couple came walking by. They were speaking Mandarin. The woman had on cut-offs, dark glasses, orange shoes with yellow laces and gray-black soles. The man was wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans, a brown belt and multicolored shoes with brown, tan and black sections on them.

There were white sailboats on the blue, blue bay, and above, just under the edge, blackberry fronds weeping down, illuminated bright light green against a rich, shadowed green background.