Mendocino

It is Memorial Day weekend and I came up to Mendocino on Saturday. It is here that I blogged my very first entry. Something about sitting in this cabin looking out at redwood trees, pine trees, manzanita trees and evergreens, and enjoying all the shades of green inspires me. The air outside is clean and it lightly scented, as if a master perfumier came by to add intoxicating aromas - hints of pennyroyal and bergamot, something else elusive - a spicy scent, as well as wafts of sweet geranium. Outside the window the fairies float by on drafts of air. This morning a female deer came elegantly into the garden and nibbled the grass. Later I opened a back door and startled the deer and her new little one. They turned around and leaped into the woods, vanishing instantly.  Last night a blue heron swooped into the pond.

Today is still and calm, yesterday the wind whipped through causing the trees to sway alarmingly over the cabins, creaking and groaning. It rained so abundantly this year that the wildflowers are still out and shades of purple, yellow, orange, cloak the hills and appear out of the grass. In fact, on the drive up it began raining after Cloverdale, all along W 128, as it winds and curves and ascends and descends. It rained steadily through the Anderson Valley and Boonville. When the road entered the sacred redwood groves I turned off the book I was listening to, opened my windows to let in the heady air, and accompanied by the steady swish of the windshield wipers and the steady patter of rain I drove.

This is a much needed break from the exhausting stresses of work. It seems like all the workers are running on nerves and adrenaline. This is not a good recipe for allowing the creative muse in. Here is my chance to exhale and allow nature to do her healing work.