Fog

sun, originally uploaded by camille94019.

Having grown up in the mighty 94019 (back when it was 415) I have a soft spot in my heart for fog and her big sister, overcast. A grey blanket that blurred the distinction between day and night, heat and cold, summer and winter. The dawn began in the night with an indistinct haze over the barely-there hills and at the close-- a faint, colorless glow over the flat sea (we sensed with our memories and noses more than anything else). At night the underbelly reflected the tangerine sodium vapor glow of the greenhouses in the crook of the hills, while the west was swallowed in a boundless darkness.

We lived like pale troglodytes in a sunless world. Weeks went by, in the summer of 82, when we forgot that the light could bring warmth. When I wandered into the Brussel's sprout fields behind my house, they seemed to contain the universe with their immensity. Once in the middle, I couldn't see anything else but farmer's rows and the creek (where the trees grew lush and tangly). The microscopic water droplets swirled around my head spiral patterns. They seemed to defy gravity. The fog replaced the perpetual hum of Highway 1 by a damp, a quiet that magnified the breathing of the insects and the beat of my heart.

The pater and I took our evening walks to the beach. Sometimes we could hear the ocean long before we saw it. Other times, we could walk on the sand for miles, it seemed, with nary an indication of the world's ocean, when suddenly, our feet would be wet, and, belatedly, we'd hear the crash of the waves. When the light was dim enough, we knew we'd have about 15 more minutes to make it home, before it was too dark to navigate the trails. We'd bring our wet, cold bodies to mom's warm kitchen, and by contrast, we'd realize just how wet and cold we were.