The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--24. Toes of the Sierra Nevada, No. 1

 

Marci & I Stand with the Joshuas, Steve Brown 2022

Sunday, April 10, 2022.

When you crawl across the toes of the Sierra Nevada, the hills seem to go forever.  At first, they are dry and daggered with coarse brush and Joshua trees.  But compared to what's east of them, they feel lush and green.  Owen's Lake sits in an otherwise profoundly sparse place.  It feels Biblical in its hostility towards an easy life.  In contrast, the dry hills feel verdant and alive with possibilities.  So much so, we had to pull over to take a selfie, having made it to the promised land.  Besides, ever since U2 released The Joshua Tree with that iconic album cover, I just have the need to take pictures of people in front of Joshua trees no matter how visually removed my picture is from the original.  Joshua trees have become stars, so why would Marci and I pass up the chance to get a selfie with a couple of them?

As one moves west towards Lake Isabella, the world slowly greens up until it is eventually quite verdant.  And the hills seem to go on forever, the road winding, and going up and down, in and out, and around.  It's a slow, methodical drive--very relaxing--and always reminds me of drives with my dad in northern California in the hills nestled between the Sierra and Cascades, Eagle Lake country.  Oh, how the late afternoon shafts of sunlight thrown across the highway from between ponderosa pines are burned into the retina of my mind.  I ride in that truck once again, now and then, forever.  My dad may have given me his shyness, and he may have me my lack of confidence, my fear of connecting to people, but he also gave me the woods of California, the Sierra and Cascades, and the sea.  I gladly take it all for those memories of standing on a jagged point, misty fog moving all around me, hearing the breakers thunder below, watching the white waves below crash against black rock--the eye moving outward towards a horizon that never materializes as the gray water and the gray sky melt together in a bank of fog.

Although I've never lived there, California is mine.  It is as deep in me as is anything.  And here I am with my woman, the center of my life for twenty-five years, easing our way once again towards all that is mine.  California.  Magical still, magical always--no matter what the haters say.  We are here, now, and for the moment, that fact stands taller than my recent diagnosis of kidney disease and all that comes with it.  This road, these curves, Marci, and the anticipation of seeing the ocean once again--that is all I need.