Morning my love. So! I've decided to give this blog another try. Not that it ever failed me so much as I failed it, but with a renewed sense of vitality from a freshly healed foot, and a refined sense of purpose from the master's applications we'll
soon be sending out, I felt it fitting to give my runofthemorningthoughts another go.
I have two posts for this morning! The first is a report about an incredible tree that I've stumbled across a few times while walking/running
the banks of Burr. The second is a letter I wrote, waxing fully poetic and philosophical atop the banks that shade our little town. With that said:
SILK-FLOSS TREES!
(that's MY picture!) : )
It took me a good while to find out what these lil' puppies are called. Also called Chorisia speciosa, these guys are native to Brazil, but somehow managed to come to the dry climates of Los Angeles, where it's able to thrive. The trees blossom in a fury of beautiful pink flowers
with each blossom looking something like this
And the seeds of the tree budding in these silky, amazing little puffs like this
The more I research these trees, the more interesting they become. Generally the trees lose the majority of their leaves when they blossom, which, for most trees, would mean a loss of food supply (fewer leaves=less photosynthesis). However, silk floss trees come equipped with green trunks that can photosynthesize sunlight when the tree is leafless! And, the crazy thorns, apart from making the tree look like some jurassic relic, serve to catch morning dew and shade the trunk, allowing the tree to absorb water before it dries up.
But what's really cool about these trees is that they're a main food source for namakemonos!! Which lead me to this amazing video (he's eating an almond leaf, but still....geeeeebobareedadlkajklfdshakjf!!)
I couldn't embed it, but go to youtube and type in "Baby Sloth Milo eating leaves". And while you're there look up "Baby Sloth"
shhhhhhooooot!!!
ok, and the second post:
___________________________
"I'm writing again, with frequency, which I realize is as necessary to consciousness as oxygen is to the heart, a necessity I am also, slowly but surely, incorporating into my daily routine with exercise.
So many thoughts on the way up here, to the bench-marked mid-summit of the Brand Park hiking trail. Thoughts that now are worn over and much too rehearsed to be real, to be honest.
Instead, I will start fresh. There's a point here, straight out from the bench I'm sitting on, where the hill feigns to be a cliff, and it's rolling connection with the hills below disappears. And the floor of the San Fernando Valley, and all of Los Angeles, becomes an ocean if you let it. The haze of the air, whether from pollution or simply the sandy dryness of the desert air, diffuses the sunlight so that the distant mountain peaks sit above a sea of light, and are easily mistaken for clouds.
And framed in this way, I watch the sun's setting, with a fixed, intense gaze that breathes in the scope of this ocean, and finds the weight of the day revolving with the sun, slipping from off my shoulders and over the edge of the horizon.
I become a 13th century Spaniard, with the scope, and the edge of the world for that matter, matching its perception. I can fathom the boundaries of my world, but nothing farther.
And this simple, clear definition of my surroundings, defined by my sight, for this brief moment, gives my mind a breath of clarity and the glimpse of a world where everything is not beyond my comprehension.
I thought on the way up here I would write a poem about the sun and my age. Half way up the mountain I thought I would write of music, or of the growing distance I feel from my mother. I don't think I've ever before thought the exact words I wrote above, but I am almost sure I have felt their sentiment every time I've come up here.
There's something in that- that our experiences are not simply the real-life counterparts to writing, but that a writing is something novel, and, of itself, an event apart from the experiences that prompt it.
The sun has set. The dusk, the crepuscule, is now my lantern and I must descend before it's gas runs out.
to my love,
forever yours,
-mister
