Sunday. Looking forward to an evening of writing. A day of emptiness, desolation. In Discovery Park, unofficial footpaths that cross lonely fields, I hear voices, see people in the distance, but rarely make contact. Finally join the main trail only to get lost, I follow a Japanese couple, the woman has GPS, finally checks her phone when we feel hopelessly lost, I've never seen this place before, I didn't grab a map, I have no idea where we are, or which direction to follow. We do eventually end up at the visitor's center, the arrows make no sense, there is safety in numbers. A man followed behind me, so there were four of us on the wrong path.
Childhood. I remember the streets being empty, hot, deserted. My memory is wrong, we were not the only people walking the sidewalks, hopping through open doors to buy a grilled cheese. That can't be right. But there is a loneliness of childhood, of abandoned military bases, or ones that feel abandoned. Perhaps it's that they are always near a bluff, winds blowing the grass flat, open water before me leading into the unknown world. Fog rolling in. Traffic-less streets. They all feel the same to me; I want to bathe in the melancholy. I had a hard time pulling myself away to walk on the real paths, the ones with people on them, just one more pass through an abandoned field. Just one more. The day dark. Rain and wood smoke.
I have a blister on my heel.
All day, unsettled, desolate, miles through train yards, the trains re-positioning; further on, engines run, lights on, but no engineers on board. They don't head out. The clank of movement. I keep walking. Finally in a neighborhood, a woman approaches, she looks familiar. In the desert of the day, I cross paths with a friend, we greet each other and then go our separate ways. I feel the need to continue on the way. To follow the road to the end.
I wish I'd had a camera, I didn't know I would be there. I missed a movie, doors locked when I arrived. Walked toward the sculpture park, but saw a path, and decided to follow it. I don't want to walk it alone again.
On the beach, a small patch of exposed sand, other footprints, I pick up a piece of brown sea glass, polished smooth, scan the other rocks, then remember that there is raw sewage in the bay, and I probably shouldn't be near the water, and make my way back to the path. Look for a sink to wash my hands. Where the path turns toward Magnolia, a man is darting toward the water, filling up his hands, then backing away, repeatedly. I walk as far away from him as I can, I don't want him to notice me, there is no one else around, though, he is engrossed in his own ritual. There is a sign to stay out of the water, because of the sewage; he takes no notice.
A woman stops to tell me about the cargo ships. Flocks of birds I do not recognize hold lines of territory in the water, in front of the idle ship: no cargo loading today. A boy runs over while I am in the visitor's center to play all the bird songs for me. His mother tries to call him back over to her, promises of reading a book about reptiles, but he stays with me until he has engaged all the bird sounds for me to hear, and then returns to hear stories about snakes. I talk to the woman at the desk about Mountain Beavers, wondering if anyone has actually seen one, she tells me she found a sick one, they get sick from dog wastes. Outside on the grounds people let their dogs run free, even though it asks for them to be leashed. No one to enforce it. I go out and walk in the woods, enjoying the silence, in spite of my sore feet. I walk until I am lost.
