Personal Essays

For almost twenty five years, I lived in rural Kern County, California. The landscape was one I knew intimately and loved fiercely: tawny hills dotted with huge oaks, the soaring granite peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada, the sharp smell of mesquite after a summer rainstorm. The landscapes I found when I first moved to southern Oregon seemed diminished in comparison.

Rather than see my new surroundings for what they were, I saw what they were not. The mountains weren’t as high here, the sky wasn’t as vividly blue, and the bird species were nowhere near as diverse as they were in my former home. Everywhere I looked, images of that California landscape blocked my vision of the land I now inhabited.

But that was before I discovered the serpentine landscapes of southern Oregon.

Serpentine areas seem barren at first, populated only by stunted trees and a few sparse shrubs. There’s a simple reason for this - the soils are toxic for most plant life: high in nickel, arsenic and chromium and low in essential minerals like nitrogen, calcium and aluminum. Yet despite these daunting conditions, the area is a hotbed of botanical diversity. Every spring, hillsides are blanketed with displays of lovely, rare, and often strange wildflowers. Each of these plants has found a way to grow in, and adapt to, a seemingly hostile environment. The symbolism both delighted and inspired me – I was immediately smitten.

Because I had no comparisons for this landscape, I looked at it as it was. Filled with wonder and curiosity, I wanted to understand how this place worked. I opened myself to the spirit of the land. In doing so, I learned how to look and listen again, forging my first relationship with this wild and wonderful place.