Saturday, January 2, 2010

A Walk In the Woods

On New Year's Day we were alone at last. Just us. It was a beautiful day. It had rained for a day and a half and the air was scrubbed clean and blue. We decided to do a hike in Topanga Canyon that we had not done since we were a' courtin'!

It wasn't the path into Topanga from the top, out of Topanga itself. It was a way into the canyon from below--up a long, wide road off Sunset, near the Center for Self-Realization, just a mile from Gladstones, Dos Banos, and the sea.

We parked. Jonathan couldn't believe I still remembered how to navigate to this random trailhead in a forgotten canyon, near the huge wrought iron gates of a gated community (new and more inpenetrable!)

We walked down into the woods. The air smelled sweet, like fall in New England, and rotting leaves, and fresh water.

Huge leaves drifted down from the California Oaks and other trees I do not recognize. They fell like snow, and caught the sunlight. Our boys ran ahead down the trail. Interesting woodsy trails give them much more energy than dry, desert fire-roads in Griffith Park. They forget they are tired. They forget to whine. They just run ahead exploring.

We were aiming for a waterfall we once knew.

We calculated--it had been 10 years since we had gone--down the path, to the waterfall out of a crevasse. Back then, at the waterfall, (small, but scenic) there had been a rope you could clamber up. It was hard, but we did it. There, beyond the rope was a whole river you could jump rocks on and do what was then a new sport--canyoning. Literally wade upstream through the water. We found another rope, back then, and I managed to swing across the river on it. You had to swing diagonally, then jump off, otherwise you would get smashed as the rope tried to straighten out. Jonathan loved me, so he tried it. And he ended up crashing into the canyon wall and getting a little bloody. And I was such a fucking awful date I just laughed and laughed because I couldn't believe he would swing himself into a rock wall. Part of my laughter was helplessness, part of it was because it really was funny--minus the blood--and part of it was because I was so overjoyed that I had found a man who would try anything with me-climb up a waterfall, swing across a crevasse, and even smash himself into a rockface and not cry and whine and yell, but laugh like a good sport while he wiped the blood off. (I think now he might yell--but he would still try).
I guess he really loved me.

So those were our memories. We walked along on this beautiful trail. It was very quiet. Topanga has been on the list of parks that will lose all funding to balance the state budget for about a year. Every time I read it in the paper I blanche--what happens to parks that are closed? Can you still go in? I love this park. Already it felt like it was being forgotten.

We got to the fork that leads to the waterfall. A sign said: Unmaintained trail ahead. Proceed at your own risk. We slid down the muddy incline and onto the trail. It was overgrown, and had more water than I ever remembered. Often the trail WAS the streambed, which was still filled with water, so the boys (our scouts) and us kept wandering off on little trails that petered out and led nowhere.

It was like walking back into time.

So much has happened in these ten years. When we were here before we were in love, dreaming of being together, giddy with findind a soulmate. There were no children, no marriage, no home, no life together, no engagement. Just the euphoria of finding someone who was on the same path. Or wanted to go down the same path.

Here we were again. So much had grown. So much had been forgotten. No one had been here in a long time. The path had changed shape. We had two boys running ahead who belonged to us. If someone had told me that would happen I would not have believed them. I despaired of ever having children, or ever finding love that lasted more than briefly, if euphorically.

We hiked way off course, back up into the sunshine, across scary rocks with slippery clay stones. We held our boys by the wrist so they wouldn't tumble down the canyon and die. We sat on a tiny trail in the sunshine, lost, with our two boys, wondering what had happened to this once popular trail.

We clambered back down waded and rock-jumped a little, and finally found the waterfall. It was smaller than I remembered, and the rope that we had used to climb up and beyond lay in a pool of water, covered with algae. No one had been here in a long, long time.

I managed to scale the slippery rock (Jonathan decided to remain below this time). I saw the string of linked, clear pools, and looked for the rope we had once swung across on. This trip, with two small boys, we couldn't be so daring.

But the oddest sensation of the day was that this place had closed up after we left. It was as if an entrance to somewhere magical were growing shut, soon to disappear. When we went we could feel how much time had passed--in a way you rarely get to feel. We could reflect on how much had happened, and travel back to the feelings we had had on that one perfect day--because that steep canyon valley held our feelings like a time capsule.

Next time I will bring a rope of my own so we can scale the waterfall and take the boys up and beyond.

It is one of our touchstones and we will return.

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