It is Friday, February 17, and I am driving north on the S-curves. My boots are covered with wet sand from standing on the breakwater at Porto Marina. I’ve discovered that if I walk out to the end when the tide is high enough and I face the ocean, waves crash around me and I am unable to see the shore. It’s the closest I can get to being on my own boat. For now.
My coat is draped over the passenger seat, one side drenched from the early stages of what is being heralded as the biggest storm in over a decade. Two days earlier, my Fernwood friend, Lauren, had warned me. She’d said to get some good movies and stay home. But she knows me better than that.
However, good student that I am, I did e-mail my SMC professor Thursday night with a pre-emptive excuse for non-attendance Friday morning, the first day of Intermediate Table Tennis. Picturing the recent boulders and the world famous 25-foot Topanga Rock that fell in January 2005, I also texted my tenant, suggesting he avoid the canyon commute. But I could not bear to miss the drive myself—as long as there was no traffic. Even I would not be a sitting duck on the S-curves and risk getting caught between a boulder and gravity. When I got up Friday morning, I checked my traffic app. All clear. I guess Lauren had called everyone.
Driving down, I paid close attention to every detail of the landscape, soaking in what I knew could be my last chance for a while. Rocks fall. Roads close. Today the waterfalls flowed like milk and I found a safe spot to pull over and take an iPhoto before heading to the coast. In class, I continued to check the weather, clear that I would take the 405 if I had any doubts at all, but the raging storm still had not arrived so, at noon, I turned toward PCH and made my way homeward, grateful for another chance to soak in the awe and this time stopping at Porto Marina for my tryst with the ocean. While there, the winds picked up. I could not tell if I’d driven into the right time or place, but I knew I was not in Kansas anymore. When my intuition pulled me (and I felt sufficiently soaked), I turned from my beloved mama sea and got back in the car.
Winding up the canyon I witnessed the most beautiful sight: trees, which for years at a time seem to stand almost still, were whipping their foliage tresses like Lady Gaga. Branches flailed in all directions, proclaiming primal liberation! I felt like Alice in Wonderland, a whole new world bearing its soul to me alone. Windshield wipers slapped as I crawled up the canyon, eyes wide as a child’s. Oh, dear Mother Nature, declare your heart’s longing! Rip out those roots and dance! Your day has come!
You may think I’m insane, but I knew I was safe; when I pay attention to my internal knowing, I am always safe, held in Her arms with the most tender love. My soul, fed through my eyes, drank in green, green, and even more verdant green! The dusty canyon clay transformed to rich deep brown, fertilized from the sky’s gushing tears. I was in Paradise.
I arrived home at Top o’ Topanga, the streets covered in the trees’ debris, the fallen clutter these oxygen makers continued to shake off. Pulling into my driveway, I saw that my son’s massive, professional quality basketball hoop had fallen to the deck like a slain giant. My six-foot Honduras Mahogany bench lay on its side, slammed against the back steps, seven feet from where I’d left it. Fronds from my Queen Palm blocked my path to the door. The storm had arrived and the trees danced.
Sage Knight is a local ghostwriter and Literary Midwife. She lives at Top O’ Topanga with her Golden Retriever, Shiloh, and welcomes your visits to www.SageKnight.com.
