Driving into Big Sur in the early Spring of 1998, when most of the roads were closed and the remaining ones open for only a few minutes at a time, was probably the orgasmic consummation of my long love affair with this voluptuous section of coast. The place had worked its charms of me since my first visit in the late 60s, but at first it was only a boyish flirtation, an excited rush whenever I had the rare opportunity to journey there.
It didn’t become a relationship until the 80s, when I lived close enough to make more frequent sojourns. In fact the turning point came when, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I decided to drive down for a weekend. As appropriate to Big Sur, I arrived without an agenda, committed only to experience and enjoy.
I stopped at a little beach area, part of Garapata State Park, at the northern end of Big Sur. A small stream flowed under the highway, cascaded down some lovely, sandstone rocks, then over a waterfall to the beach. The colors of the low-growing, coastal plants drew me to walk down among the rocks, by the waterfall, and down to the beach. Among the stunning spectrum of colors, I spotted a tiny succulent clinging to the rocks, one I’d never seen before. It was a dudleya, a low growing, grayish plant with little yellow flowers. Its delicate beauty and unusual color fascinated me, as did its ability to live in the tiny cracks in the bare rock. I wished one lived in my yard.; however, I was too much a conservationist to even consider digging anything up from a park, so I went about my wanderings, losing myself in the way the rocks fractured and folded over one another.
Walking out on the hot, bare rock above the waterfall, I noticed a very tiny dudleya that had somehow become unearthed and was lying roots dry and exposed, on the rock face. I didn’t know if it could be saved, but I knew that every minute would count in the mid-day sun. I grabbed the plant and walked quickly to my car. There was a milk carton on the floor, a victim of my driver’s thirst. I went to the side of the road and scooped up some of the sandy soil. Then I poured in some water from my canteen and propped it up between the front seats.
The plant not only survived, but prospered, growing lovely flowers and flourishing until one particularly brutal summer in my central valley exile. But, in those several years, it served as a constant reminded of the magic and beauty of Big Sur.
A decade later, my relationship with Big Sur had grown to a big, passionate, heady kind of love, and I courted her constantly. With the roads closed in many spots from the huge el nino storms, I saw my jealous opportunity to have her to myself. I knew the only possible way in would be through Fort Hunter Liggett and over the mountain, the very long way around.
If there had been any doubts about the quality of the trip, entering Fort Hunter Liggett would have dispelled them instantly. No sooner did I make the turn and pass the unattended guard shack, then the meadow exploded into my senses. The meadow extended to my right for perhaps a quarter mile, before starting to climb the oak studded, gentle hill. From the edge of the road to the first rising of the hill, the meadow was bathed in bands and swirls of brilliant yellows and oranges, deep violet and rich, vibrant hues of blue. Poppies and lupine fought for dominance. At the point where the flowers wind among the scattered, freshly leaved oak, the lupine won, creating a wide and meandering river of blue blossoms.
And beyond the last flowers there were more flowers, the dusty pink and lavender pastel tops of the lush, deep grasses that undulated slowly in the breeze. These were screened by a soft haze of the millions of tiny, flying and feeding insects.
The fragrance was overwhelming. It was a chaos of incense and perfume, syrup and honey. So thick and full it was, that breathing was like drinking some magnificent merlot. The air was so redolent of blossoms that it seemed to take a physical shape, spiraling in and around, creating an ecstatic vertigo.
These are not wildflowers; they’re mildflowers. The wild isn’t in the softly rioting meadow, but in the spirit it releases from the human who wears his civilization like a suit of armor. Once the flowered fields wash over you like a Bay of Fundy tide, your spirit breaks its chains, sheds its clothing, and bounds like an exuberant Icarus into the sun-filled sky.
Less than two miles further, and over a one lane bridged creek, the meadow becomes less flowered and less open, as giant oaks start to gather. Suddenly it is a true old growth oak woodland. Trees with trunks like ancient pillars, twisting and spreading to interlocking canopies that anchor the sky, their gnarled, wooden arms reaching to embrace the totality of the heavens. Each of these ancient giants are covered in new-leaf green, each robust and healthy, ready to outlive our great, great grandchildren.
Over the thickly wooded mountain and the summit; suddenly a view of immensity. Dark, steep, wooded mountains fall away for miles, down, north, south, ridges, and gullies, cascading over and over, downward and onward, like folds in a flowing gown. And stretched out beyond the range of the best peripheral vision, the pale pacific, flecked with flashes of white. The mountains drop like waterfalls to a sea that seems to go on forever, beyond the planet, beyond the galaxy, beyond the edge of the universe.
With the closed roads, this is a Big Sur in celebration, rejoicing the assertive reemergence of the native, harmonious life. The road is an empty reminder of the late era of man, an era quickly forgotten as the richest spring in years feeds, nurtures and reanimates the subtle Big Sur population. Small mammals stroll brazenly along coastal bluffs, hawks circle scant yards above the ground. the ferns, grasses, vines and poison oak hurriedly obscure the human trails, while the deer make new ones of their own. A solitary human stands in the middle of a deserted highway and shouts in exultation.
As I walk waste deep in a green tangle, I’m thankful that I love poison oak. It reminds me of the difference between my world now and the one I was raised in. Los Angeles is devoid of poison oak. There are neatly trimmed lawns, neatly weeded flower beds, the little lemon tree and slender pine placed on either side of the yard, the well shaped hedge that marks the property line. The only touch of the wild is the bit of crab grass that clings tenaciously to a corner of the lawn. In L.A. there is no explosion of waving lupine, no clumps of coast monkey flower, no spurts of wild iris, and certainly no spreading stands of poison oak.
The beaches are deserted. One or two cars sit in the camp ground. You can park in the middle of the road, get out and take a walk along the highway, and never have to look up or back. Rather than the drone of automobile engines, there is only the passionate chorus of bird song, the buzz on insects, and the crashing of the waves.
Sand Dollar Beach is as perfect as any place or thing can possibly be. Like an imaginatively used pallet it emerges from the flowered bluffs. The great, dark, monolithic block appears first, then the walls of both points, and then the beach, a sensual and primal meeting of land and sea. All you need to turn the most casual relationship into true love is to walk, hand in hand, down the trail to the beach on a perfect, people-free spring day.
Further north, past the slides that ripped the roads right off the side of the mountains and are now only passable periodically and with the help of hundreds of earth shifting vehicles, Molera Park stands empty, deserted, ghostly quiet, as in some post apocalyptic film, where the last human surveys his silent domain.
Walking to Molera Beach at Cooper Point was like walking it when the state first bought the land and had yet to make a park of it. Walking the trail through a towering, verdant canyon erased a quarter century of human tramping and plodding. This wasn’t a park for people, but a dance parlor for bumblebee and lupine, an aerodrome for song birds, A tanning booth for lizards, a conspiracy of unsavory thistle.
Gaining the headland trail involved bushwhacking the trail, a trail that had been devoured by the greedy appetite of nature. The first violet iris on the trail stood like a gun site against a Big Sur of dreams, a Big Sur quiet, thick, verdant and still. The Big Sur river, alive with glowing emeralds, flowed full and proud to the cove, blue-calmed despite the raging wind that pushed white caps from behind the point rock to the horizon. The rock was a packed rookery, the pocket beach below the headlands was awash with musical pebbles in the rising tide. The main beach was filled with driftwood from slivers to huge trunks. Near the river, at the edge of the driftwood, someone had made a driftwood tent, a place to lie, perchance to sleep and dream while gazing at the little waves lapping the shore.
Biking Highway One from Molera to Fullers was the great opportunity to really see the rich tapestry of Big Sur. Without traffic one can ride down the middle of the road, swerving from side to side to take in every nuance of scenery. In a car there are stretches of meadow, thickets of brush, and clumps of forest . From a traffic-free bike, there is magic at every curve. Each tiny creek has grown waterfalls. The river is so cleansed that the bottom gravel rattles as the mountains sweat their excess water. Each little meadow is a labyrinthian mystery, a winding road to wonderland. Every mature redwood has a hollowed out place in its base that has that lived-in look of a small, comfortable den.
Locals are standing in the parking lots of closed or partly opened businesses, stretching arms to the sky, celebrating the place as it was the day they arrived. No one is in a hurry, everyone takes the time to smile and greet, conversations happen any place two people meet, even in the middle of the highway.
While waiting for a section of road to open, one can lie naked in the tall, sweet grass between the road the and the cliff, watching humming birds dart against the backdrop of spreading oak branches, alone for miles, alone for hours.
I’m painting a picture on the porch of the Phoenix Shop at Nepenthe. The view is making me delusional and slightly manic, and one of the people in the shop is an artist and is discussing the view and the care of good brushes. Some sort of weird rapture is setting in. I’m assured that I’m OK, that humanity has the ability to rise up and perfect itself, that the world is both an aesthetic and pragmatic work of art, and that joy and wonder will endure.
Almost without taking a breath or blinking, I’m in the car again, my eyes tracing the full, rich, sensuous curves of this fecund coast. I remind myself that it isn’t the Spring of ‘98, but the Spring of ‘99. The road is long since repaired, and the rains have been gentler. The season of renewal still wraps me in its arms and sings me to flights of ecstasy. I’m working my way slowly through the erogenous zones of this wild and free land. My watch is left behind somewhere, and the petty stresses and obligations of mundane living are caught in a tree somewhere near Point Lobos. Looking around, I see that nothing is exactly as it was thirteen months ago, but then, nothing will ever be like it is this moment. I know this coast like the inside of my eyelids, but still I see a million things I’ve never seen before. As always, I consider myself the model of self-restraint when I can drive this road without pulling over, stripping naked and running--gibberishly screaming --into the brush.
On the car stereo is the absolute harp-like clarity of Loreena McKennitt’s awesome vocals, embracing each note as if it were the pivotal point of experience. I’m thinking that if Big Sur could sing in a human voice, it would be very much like this, and if my written words could sing, I would want them to have this voice.
I remember someone saying, “I have my faith to see me through.” If “faith” is an absolute conviction without benefit of direct experience, how much greater is this moment than all the prayers of mankind.