From the Sonoma Marin Coastal Guide, 2018
Places are like people: you might see someone at a party once, trade names and never meet again. You might see that same person and find yourself sitting in a quiet spot hours later, fascinated as she pours out her heart. You never know, do you.
Attention makes intimates of strangers. When you pay attention, you see the nuances, catch the perfume, hear the stories and feelings that close you off or invite deeper knowing. You look into someone’s eyes and he becomes real. Take time to listen, and even your most beloved, best-known child will surprise you with ideas, dreams, secrets you could never imagine.
Places are like people and Bodega Head is a changeling. On sunny days, it’s a bold, good-looking stranger at a holiday party: heavy petting in a secluded closet. Strong sunshine, the crashing sea surrounding you, and every plant conspiring to seduce, breathing pollen and perfume directly into your nostrils. The wind pushes you around and laughs in a friendly way.
It’s not a subtle spot, above dramatic cliffs and raucous gulls: it’s grand, wild, entrancing. An ideal tourist destination, it demands nothing and gives a lot, like an extroverted hostess. You don’t have to work to be enchanted with Bodega Head, on a sunny day. All you have to do is show up.
But I love the misty days. In early afternoon, I drove the winding road with my friend, Yis. Fog poured over the hillsides like frothed milk into coffee, and when we got to the parking lot, there was no ocean; just a rushing sound and salty scents. A wall of gray-white cloud curtained the hills, leaving only an open circle under a white sky. This Bodega Head is the quiet stranger who catches your eye from a silent patio: the one you want to dance with.
The day I went with Yis, we were worn and weary, wanting only peace. Exhausted by traveling, we’d disagreed all day, every day, on pace, timing and activity. Hilltop, draperies of fog surrounded us. The scent of the earth and unknown herbs rose on warm drafts of air.
I picked up a book. Yis went hiking, returning hours later and flopping down on the blanket beside me. He had seen virtually nothing in the way of scenery, but he didn’t seem to mind. The fog had soothed his restless seeking; smoothed my jangled nerves. Restored, we talked quietly about music, singing old songs, teaching them to each other, in call and response, in rounds.
There must have been people passing by, but the feeling of privacy, of being in a special place-time was all. Here, we could talk about failure and faith; the spirit in water and trees, in other people, sometimes—new paths. We sang old songs from church camp, an intimate healing for people who still feel awkward saying the word “god”.
None of it could have happened in sunshine.
Bodega Head is a sandy outcropping, a unique ecosystem on the edge of a continent abruptly disengaging itself from Earth’s heart. Plants are twisted or tiny, with fleshy leaves adapted to tempest and salt, constant change.
The following week, I returned with my friend, Joel. High fog roofed a spectacle of steel-blue sea and fishing boats. We ambled the circling trail, asking each other, “what IS that?” A round-bodied brown and gray bird flew at us, landing on a nearby twig; a declarative song to another bird, who responded. The warbling anthem sounded panicked: we moved on.
The sea, was flat, calm, carrying the odor of whales’ breath—fishy, weedy, a little rank. From the island, a thousand barking voices; seals, interrupted by sea lions’ rumbling growls. We sat on a picnic table, resting back to back, and the hidden sun warmed us. We stayed until we felt like going.
Cats, coyotes, deer and raptors make the Head their home, but seeing them is a practice of patient silence, and time.
Places are like people. Bodega Head is as outgoing and undemanding as a skillful socialite, as interior and mysterious as a monk. Like everything else in life, what you attend to determines what you find. When you go to Bodega Head, bring sweaters and socks, a blanket. Bring your friend, a story, a flask of hot coffee. Turn off the phone and tune into what surrounds you. Stay until you find what surrounds you is alive, breathing inside you. Then, you can take it with you, when you go.
Places are like people: you might see someone at a party once, trade names and never meet again. You might see that same person and find yourself sitting in a quiet spot hours later, fascinated as she pours out her heart. You never know, do you.
Attention makes intimates of strangers. When you pay attention, you see the nuances, catch the perfume, hear the stories and feelings that close you off or invite deeper knowing. You look into someone’s eyes and he becomes real. Take time to listen, and even your most beloved, best-known child will surprise you with ideas, dreams, secrets you could never imagine.
Places are like people and Bodega Head is a changeling. On sunny days, it’s a bold, good-looking stranger at a holiday party: heavy petting in a secluded closet. Strong sunshine, the crashing sea surrounding you, and every plant conspiring to seduce, breathing pollen and perfume directly into your nostrils. The wind pushes you around and laughs in a friendly way.
It’s not a subtle spot, above dramatic cliffs and raucous gulls: it’s grand, wild, entrancing. An ideal tourist destination, it demands nothing and gives a lot, like an extroverted hostess. You don’t have to work to be enchanted with Bodega Head, on a sunny day. All you have to do is show up.
But I love the misty days. In early afternoon, I drove the winding road with my friend, Yis. Fog poured over the hillsides like frothed milk into coffee, and when we got to the parking lot, there was no ocean; just a rushing sound and salty scents. A wall of gray-white cloud curtained the hills, leaving only an open circle under a white sky. This Bodega Head is the quiet stranger who catches your eye from a silent patio: the one you want to dance with.
The day I went with Yis, we were worn and weary, wanting only peace. Exhausted by traveling, we’d disagreed all day, every day, on pace, timing and activity. Hilltop, draperies of fog surrounded us. The scent of the earth and unknown herbs rose on warm drafts of air.
I picked up a book. Yis went hiking, returning hours later and flopping down on the blanket beside me. He had seen virtually nothing in the way of scenery, but he didn’t seem to mind. The fog had soothed his restless seeking; smoothed my jangled nerves. Restored, we talked quietly about music, singing old songs, teaching them to each other, in call and response, in rounds.
There must have been people passing by, but the feeling of privacy, of being in a special place-time was all. Here, we could talk about failure and faith; the spirit in water and trees, in other people, sometimes—new paths. We sang old songs from church camp, an intimate healing for people who still feel awkward saying the word “god”.
None of it could have happened in sunshine.
Bodega Head is a sandy outcropping, a unique ecosystem on the edge of a continent abruptly disengaging itself from Earth’s heart. Plants are twisted or tiny, with fleshy leaves adapted to tempest and salt, constant change.
The following week, I returned with my friend, Joel. High fog roofed a spectacle of steel-blue sea and fishing boats. We ambled the circling trail, asking each other, “what IS that?” A round-bodied brown and gray bird flew at us, landing on a nearby twig; a declarative song to another bird, who responded. The warbling anthem sounded panicked: we moved on.
The sea, was flat, calm, carrying the odor of whales’ breath—fishy, weedy, a little rank. From the island, a thousand barking voices; seals, interrupted by sea lions’ rumbling growls. We sat on a picnic table, resting back to back, and the hidden sun warmed us. We stayed until we felt like going.
Cats, coyotes, deer and raptors make the Head their home, but seeing them is a practice of patient silence, and time.
Places are like people. Bodega Head is as outgoing and undemanding as a skillful socialite, as interior and mysterious as a monk. Like everything else in life, what you attend to determines what you find. When you go to Bodega Head, bring sweaters and socks, a blanket. Bring your friend, a story, a flask of hot coffee. Turn off the phone and tune into what surrounds you. Stay until you find what surrounds you is alive, breathing inside you. Then, you can take it with you, when you go.