An Ode to Southern California

Southern California is a land of ephemera – passing and subtle changes and seasons.  This has been a wonderfully rainy winter, the hills and mountains are green, vivid bright green, carpets of green, that by May will be turning to the brown, gray, yellow blond shades that evolve as it gets warmer and drier over the summer and into the Fall.  Evanescent greens, and transient shades of dry, that is this place.  And its all so intense when it rains.  One because rain is scarce year-round and often delugeal when it does rain, and seems so wet!  And two because we are never prepared.  It is hard to remember after years of aridity, that despite the changing climate, it will, and does rain.  This year’s precipitation is likely to be ‘above average,’ and there is snow blanketing the foothills and mountains.  The landscapes are lush and luscious, they make you feel like running up hills, dipping in the crystalline roaring seasonal streams and rivers, getting wet and being out, out, out.

This is the Southern California of my childhood memories that also seems fleeting, overwhelmed by suburbs and freeways.  Yet, this year, there is an apercu of that past, of that knock out beauty.  Chilly at night, even frosty, fires in the evening to compensate for poor heating.  Puddles in the yard and flowing water in the gutters.  And then, the bloom, the mind blowing bloom.  Trees, bushes, shrubs, bulbs, all showing off, priming for the short, short-lived weeks of wild reproduction so as to prepare to hunker down for less favorable conditions.  The plants here know.  They know they must be prepared for long periods of heat and no rain, they are adapted to this climate of extremes and ephemeral moments when everything aligns for the possibility of the next generations, for regaining their strength after the stress of years of no rain and high heat.  Such lessons we residents of the region, could learn from them.  Joy from just the right conditions, even if they last just weeks; satisfaction that we did our best at that time.  Generosity from the exquisite and subtle colors reflecting the pace of the seasons and the weather.  Wisdom from a parsimonious nature that has spent millennia learning how to succeed in a place with seasonal richness of precipitation.    This is about learning from the plants how to live in place, in this splendid place.

Ojai February 10, 2019