KELLY DAMIAN
Where the wild things are Photo by Michael Fagans
Collecting tangled wisps of bird nests, making teepees from branches, busting open rocks with a hammer; these are the first bits and pieces in the photo album of my memory. I remember that sharp pain of clay under my fingernails, the paralyzing cold of creek water, the inescapable smell of manure in the spring until it was replaced with summer alfalfa. In that small Utah town where we lived, the crises all seemed to involve large animals. The cow got out and broke up the steps of our newly built porch. A neighbor called with the news that our horses were seen running along the road toward town. Maybe it was this early contact with nature that has made me seek out the open space in whichever town I happen to live. In college at Irvine, I jogged through the swathes of undeveloped land around campus. Living in Lomita, I escaped to the equestrian trails of posh Palos Verdes. And in the Bay Area, I explored the Redwoods that pop up like a pleasant surprise in the middle of that urban landscape. Now in Bakersfield, I have logged hundreds of miles along the river that bisects our town. The bike path is a study in contrasts. There are trails straight out of a Frost poem: bright new grass, downed trees, curling leaves, two paths diverging, etc., while not 20 feet away roars traffic at highwaylike speeds. Fremont Cottonwoods border Lake Truxtun, green and gold, the sunflowers of fall. But just across the riverbed, like witches hands reaching out of the dirt, stand rows of dead trees. Animal life is of the small and skittish variety: rabbits, squirrels, lizards, birds and a beaver (briefly). One creature that will not run at a human’s approach is the grasshopper. It complains endlessly, squeaking to anyone who cares to listen as it pulls oil out of the ground. The middle portion of the 30-mile stretch is urban and industrial. It is bordered by broken concrete and the spheres and towers of the refinery, reminding you that this is a city and this bit of nature is a
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Bakersfield Life
February 2012
temporary guest. The ends, though, open up into wetlands on one side and hills on the other. And you can forget for a while about the smog and the traffic and the acres of parking lots back in town. The trees, the birds and the rabbits, they all wait in anticipation for that capricious celebrity, the water. With it comes an air of excitement. People stand at its banks. White, long-legged birds walk through it with high, careful steps. Dogs barrel toward it as if they are on fire. The river glitters, it draws the eye, it is a necklace at the throat of our city until it is gone, leaving in its place a sandy, wrinkled scar. My daughters will not have the sylvan childhood I had, but I bring them on my bike path runs so they can catch lizards and count rabbits and collect rocks. On a recent excursion, my oldest daughter and I happened upon a tree, much like one that I spent hours in back in Utah. From the outside it looks like a giant bush, but walk past the leafy barrier and the limbs are low and twisting, perfect for climbing and balancing and scheming. This bike path tree, one can obviously see, has hosted all sorts of dangerous activity. Boards are nailed into some of the sides, allowing for easier climbing but leaving bouquets of rusty nails bursting from the trunk. A precarious plywood perch lies in an upper crook. Frayed, broken ropes hang from its branches. Upon inspection, a hammock slung from a limb revealed a black widow crawling across the striped canvas. This tree is dangerous and exciting, not made out of plastic and litigated into safety. There is no rubber padding to cushion any falls. My daughter was both enchanted and afraid. She climbed part way up, remembering, no doubt, a bad fall she had in Yosemite last year. She went as high as she could bear and jumped down, exhilarated. These open spaces, these wild places give us a sense of danger and discovery that we need. Something that no park, no matter how well-designed and no neighborhood, no matter how well-maintained, can ever offer. — Thank you to The Tree Foundation of Kern for helping to identify the Fremont Cottonwoods.
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