Cross sections

As I had done twenty years prior, I had traveled across country alone to visit my Ampie Gail. “Ampie” was my attempt at Auntie, in a mouth too young to form the sounds, and “Ampie” she stayed. The week we spent together was a cross section of her life: we visited friends; attended her writers’ group; stopped by the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores in search of bargains; and prepared meals together.

Gail introduced me to Mei, the proprietor of her favorite restaurant, Tian Yuen in Cloverdale, and a close friend. We walked with Mei, her son and nephew in a wilderness area tucked behind a housing development. We paused by a stream and Mei pulled out a red tablecloth for us to sit on. She offered simple sitting instruction, tailored to each of us, and we sat in meditation while the boys threw rocks in the stream. When she broke the silence, Mei lead us in tui na, a form of acupressure massage. We ate at Mei’s restaurant, which offers a delicious sampling of pan-Asian foods, and left with mind and body nourished.

Together, we also embarked on a cross section of northern California. Rte 128 leads west from Cloverdale winding through the vineyards and orchards of Sonoma County before climbing into coastal redwood forest. We pulled into a turn off amid the redwoods and turned off the car. Wood Sorrel bloomed, dark pink, in the shade of the tall trees. We stepped into a circle of trees and stood in silence. Tall and straight, the trees remained supple, dancing lightly in the wind.

We continued west, back into the sunlight and pulled into the Navarro Winery for a tasting. There, I found the juniper in the Muscat blank and the pineapple in the Gewürztraminer. I swirled Navarrouge across my tongue and sought out the spice and berries in the Syrah. I bought a couple bottles, wrapped them in two wool sweaters and a down coat and buried them in my backpack, praying they’d last the three thousand hot miles home.

From the winery, we continued out to the coast. About ten miles inland, the fog began to swirl; by five, it had enveloped the sun. We turned up Rte 1 and headed north to Fort Bragg and the Mendocino Botanic Gardens. The gardens were a well-planned tumult of color and texture. As we ate our lunch on the patio just inside the entrance, I heard a woman comment to her husband “We should have come here before re-doing our lawn!” Decorative grasses mingled with monkey plant and butterfly bush. A kidney of heathers, blooming in a profusion of pinks and purples kept bees busy, while the neighboring plot held cactus and succulents, well spaced in their sandy soil. A covered shed housed fuchsias and begonias, carefully tended and in peak bloom. One begonia, rare in having a scent, smelled of Gewürztraminer, a strange perfume, and only recently familiar.

At the Mendocino Headlands, the wilderness of the sea greeted us with the sky-tossed calls of Western Gulls. Oystercatchers, Ruddy Turnstones and Surfbirds sought out their meal following each retreating wave. We paused to look out over two offshore islands and found them crowned with Pelagic Cormorant and Common Murre colonies. Several cormorants were still on nests.

And then we turned east. Away from the coast, out from under the fog, through redwoods and vineyards. After a night in Cloverdale, I continued my cross section east, through Napa and the snarled rush hour traffic of Sacramento into the foothills and finally the high sierra. I was headed home.