Restoration

A new-becoming friend takes me to a place called Fossil Bluff.  It's rather amazing and kind of an adventure.  It's in Scotia (the land of PALCO timber).  The path to the bluff is right across the road from the gargantuan Very Yellow Palco mill building that's seen from 101; and reminds me quite a lot of a dinosaur.  This is the first time I've set foot on the devil's soil.  The clay bluff has many fossils of sea shells.  I'm astounded: once upon quite a long time ago the ocean was up that far on the land; currently it's about several miles away.

To get to the bluff requires crossing a longish railroad trestle.  Hoo shit.  For awhile I'm walking the open ties which have rather large spaces in between allowing for a view of the distance between trestle and terra.  Them's some hard earned sea shell fossils.    At various moments, I consider stopping and turning around.  So I change this walk into an extreme challenge strolling meditation.  Suddenly revelation comes and what the new-becoming friend has said, gets my attention.  There's a supporting beam to the side, under the ties so it blocks the sight of land far below.  Phew.

As we return to leave, we see a guy closing and locking the 10-foot high chain link fence gate; he hasn't seen us.  I think to my self that while I probably could climb the fence if someone is chasing me, I'd really prefer not to clamber over the obstacle.  He still hasn't seen us.  He gets in his landroverish SUV, drives a bit away, stops at her car; gets out of his vehicle, looks in hers.  We both are waried by this so I distract him by yelling in big voice:  We're here.  Thereby I'm overlooking that draws attention to us, and temporarily forgetting we're on the devil's soil.

While he's backing up, I'm staving off images from a Massachusetts memory of an idyllic moment being created between two women lovers on the brink of fully expressing that love in a patch of woods surrounded by the Fall scent of maple and oak leaves.  Apparently this patch of heaven is owned by a New England farmer who comes to check out who isn't supposed to be and who is on his land.  He has a shot gun in his hands.  This is an uh-oh moment; such farmers aren't reluctant to use their shot guns and the general population at the time isn't reluctant to hate lesbians.  We get out of the jam with wit.

In the present moment I'm calling out to a guy who also is a guard of property, and also is about to encounter two lesbians, albeit friends.  He returns to the gate, leans out his window.  There's kind of an awkward pause moment.  I ask him if he's going to let us out.  I say this with a bemused and perhaps slightly charming smile.  He kind of smirks as he exits his SUV like he knows how to drive trucks, Very Big Trucks.  He approaches jeaned and big buckle belted; he lets us out, mumbling something about trouble with tree sitters so he's been locking the gate.  I get an awkward silence in me.

He sees our rock picks and surmises we've been fossil digging and then goes into a brief acknowledgment of his childhood memory about going to the bluff.  I show him one of my gifts.  And I don't know what comes over me:  I note that the bluff is all shell fossils so the ocean musta been there.  Even though he's one of the my-family-has-been-here-for-four-generations timber-people, a look comes from his eyes like he's never considered that.  He looks like how I feel when I realize that reality at the beginning of this adventure.

I ask if he supposed the ocean would come back.  Standing on the devil's soil, the devil comes into me:  I note that would be a true restoration.  Again I speak with the bemused smile.  Then cross-stereotype and conveying a sense of nostalgic loss, he protests that would mean the end of the trees.  Nothing is said about the loss of the people or of the mill.