pacific time 4

i have recovered from my ear trouble and can fully enjoy the april in blooming california. it is also high time that i praise the place where i have been living already one month now: the headlands center of arts in the golden gate national recreation area in marin headlands. this artist residency is located by the ocean in a formal us army base which is why the nature has stayed more or less untouched, if you don’t count the rotting nike-and missile station relics which tell their own story about the history of fear in this country. but the sea air and the coastal scrubland have done its best to disguise those stains.
before the spanish came 1769, this area was inhabited by miwok-indians. last miwoks died already 100 years ago but the feeling of their energy has in some level survived over the spanish enslavement, the building up san francisco and the military times. it is somehow incoded in the nature; i can almost feel how the miwoks were peacefully living on this special soil and respecting the powerful ocean.
today this area is inhabited by wealthy hippies and us artists who stay in this wonderland for a while. it is amazing that this coastal wilderness is only 10 minutes drive from san francisco over the golden gate bridge and yet you can daily meet big-eyed deers, lazy-looking bowcats, sly coyotes and vulgar turkeys spyed by flying turkey vultures. there is also some mountain lions which i haven’t managed to encounter yet. instead i’ve seen sympathetic sea lions.the hills are full of blooming small flowers but also poison oak, a bitter pseudo-oak with poisonous oil on its leaves. the ocean is always cool, beautiful but unpredictable and the coastal slopes steep and crumbling. but when i watch the wide sea horizon, there is no doubt that our planet is round and i feel in peace with it.