K had her the last session of her Berkeley class yesterday. I, as usual accompanied her. As usual I walked in the hills seeking out the pedestrian paths common there. There is a nice map published by the Berkeley Path Wanderers, but I am lazy, so I just wander into likely cul de sacs. I quite like wandering the paths. It short circuits in sometimes interesting ways the distinction among neighborhoods. Arriving on a street from a walking path feels like entering a restaurant from the kitchen side. Mostly the paths are unadorned but once I passed a bulletin board with xeroxed poetry tacked to it.
Yesterday I started out in the Elmwood district and soon found myself on a trail the Claremont Canyon Regional Park behind the old School for the Deaf (now Clark Kerr UC campus). This was not exactly an urban path, but it suited. It was cold and clear and the views of the Golden Gate were spectacular.
I got to thinking that my walks were not just about locating physical paths, but also an attempt to locate some of the paths not taken in my life. I think I felt this could help me with my current quandry with work. If I could only resurrect meaning and neglected possibility from long ago, perhaps I could trace it forward. It seems to me that most of those paths originated in Berkeley, or were abandoned in Berkeley when K and I followed my jobs to the South Bay.
It was good, remembering. Of course the idea of being able to take up those old paths was foolish. K and I have occasionally talked of moving back to Berkeley, and maybe we will some day, but we will not find the Berkeley we knew. Those paths are washed away. The answer to the conundrum lies in the future, not the past.
- J
No comments:
Post a Comment