California Natives

Some trails are just ideal for discoveries. Others, not so much. The other afternoon after several wrong turns my husband and I and my sister, our local chauffeur, found just the spots to meander on to experience what the neighborhood works on during the weekends to beautify the trails. Both sides of the wide wood chipped paths are dominated with irresistible trees, whose canopies hang seductively at times overhead. The bees are suitably impressed and seem to congregate in the red bottle brush type flowers that are teeming on every branch. Even the closed buds are a work of art and en masse, a symphony of colored blossoms in red orange, deep red and creamy violet. Well, we are thrilled with the sight of them, to put it mildly.
In time we wander up to the area of major interest where the native California plants abound, all hand planted by the locals voluntarily. Masses of floral beauties fill the small valleys and hillsides of many varieties, some recognizable to me, others not. My heart aches a little because this is the terrain and dry fecundity that I grew up with for the first half of a century of my odd life. Then many years away in New Zealand, a stunningly different climate and culture to adjust to with all kinds of unique plants and animals I was previously so unaware of. So many discoveries in one lifetime seem to be on the cards for me at this juncture in my life. Being a California native myself, not exactly an indigenous one like the Yang-Na Indians that inhabited the caves of Malibu, but certainly one born and bred in this state, I feel that I’ve turned my back on my homeland in certain ways. Seeing my relatives after a 3 year and 8-month break has brought so many tears and equally so much joy to my worn down, jetlagged self. I’m a bit up and down lately to tell them all the secrets I’ve stored up and find out theirs.
That is my new chapter I’m thinking about as I laze in the sunshine and swim to my heart’s content.
The contrasts are almost overwhelming. We live in a place with enormous skies and plenty of open ground without any buildings or traffic or hustle and bustle for about an hour in any direction. They live is an urban sprawl surrounded by the gorgeous coastline on one side and millions of cars and horns and buildings to hustle and bustle in. I think I prefer a bit of each.