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Photographs: Over the fence
Mar. 27th, 2015 12:44There was a place...
The grass was uneven and patchy, full of weeds, but my young self made no note of it. The chain-link fence at the edge was only waist-high to an adult, short enough that when I was older I could take a short step up and swing over it. We almost never did. It was just a short strip of tall dead weeds before the slope fell off down to the creek far below. On quiet days you could hear the trickle of water at the bottom. One year there was a weed growing just beyond the fence, with odd hook-covered seedpods which the boys tried to put in the girls' hair -- my first introduction to castor bean.
The coyote bushes were also just over the fence. They drowsed in the warm afternoons of spring, small leathery leaves giving off a unique scent, and the fluff of their seedheads drifted on the breeze. In fall, before the weather cooled, sometimes you could hear the cicadas droning in the heat of the day.
Across the gully was the line of eucalyptus trees separating the road from the golf course. Their leaves swayed in the breeze, though the currents were always in the wrong direction to carry the scent over.
The grass was uneven and patchy, full of weeds, but my young self made no note of it. The chain-link fence at the edge was only waist-high to an adult, short enough that when I was older I could take a short step up and swing over it. We almost never did. It was just a short strip of tall dead weeds before the slope fell off down to the creek far below. On quiet days you could hear the trickle of water at the bottom. One year there was a weed growing just beyond the fence, with odd hook-covered seedpods which the boys tried to put in the girls' hair -- my first introduction to castor bean.
The coyote bushes were also just over the fence. They drowsed in the warm afternoons of spring, small leathery leaves giving off a unique scent, and the fluff of their seedheads drifted on the breeze. In fall, before the weather cooled, sometimes you could hear the cicadas droning in the heat of the day.
Across the gully was the line of eucalyptus trees separating the road from the golf course. Their leaves swayed in the breeze, though the currents were always in the wrong direction to carry the scent over.
