North Coaster Writing — Photography — Marin and Sonoma Coast Travel Directory North Coaster A journal for travelers along the Marin and Sonoma coastline Highway 1: A theory by Jordan Bowen, Page 3 “Frogs” and “Baseball hat people” by Jim Pellegrin, Page 5 “No worries” by Samantha Kimmey, Page 5 Russian House #1 by Jordan Bowen, Page 9 Travel directory Page 15 “Coast live oak” by Amber Turner Page 22 Photographs by David Briggs Edited by Tess Elliott Published by the Point Reyes Light Box 210, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 (415) 669.1200 ptreyeslight.com Highway 1: A theory By Jordan Bowen “Once this rocky coast beneath me was a plain of sand; then the sea rose and found a new shore line. And again in some shadowy future the surf will have ground these Highway 1 snakes along the lip of the continent, rocks to sand and will have returned the coast to its ear- winding past the ridges, hills and cliffs thrust upward lier state. And so in my mind’s eye these coastal forms and out of the ocean over millions of years by two plates merge and blend in a shifting, kaleidoscopic pattern in touching. In geologic time, what’s visible to our eyes has which there is no finality, no ultimate and fixed reality— all happened rather quickly. Within the timeframe of the earth becoming fluid as the sea itself.” American imperium, little more than a century and a half Since the historic deluges of California’s wettest win- in coastal California, the landscape seems permanent, ter, a year or so after the state’s driest winter, Highway 1’s enduring in this exact form until a storm crumbles a part steep embankments have been belted together in places of the cliff bearing Route 1 back into the sea. by new reinforcements of like design: vertical wooden The drive from the Point Reyes Peninsula through posts strapped down by a metal band like an architectur- Marin and Sonoma Counties is marked by gut-wrench- al metaphor for a wine barrel in some new wave tasting ing switchbacks and awesome vistas—and by an ongo- room. For someone who cannot bear to look over a cliff ing effort to hold civilization here together. Houses and face without vertigo, the workers who for weeks braved shops cling to the roadway in protective clusters, the road these deadly embankments far from the nearest town itself clinging to a crest of crumbling land shoved rudely deserve some kind of plaque or medal. up from the sea as if in a gasp. Along the roadway, steel cables provide some hope of In “The Edge of the Sea,” Rachel Carson writes, keeping the family car or delivery truck from tumbling 4 NORTH COASTER | Fall 2021 over—but you cannot cable the whole thing, and every week imperial right to leisure. How dare something come along to in the news, it seems, another vehicle makes the trip. For a make it temporarily suck? public works project, these structures are touching in their All of us raised in the ghostly republic of ashes are taught unified aesthetic, as thoughtful interventions that manage our manifest destiny: Kerouac has much in common with the not to mar the natural form. owner of a lifted Hummer. We should be able to drive any- But, well, is it all for naught? It is indubitably awesome— where, on anything, and failing that, drag hundreds of dol- one of the rare good uses of that adjective, awe-some—to lars’ worth of survival equipment into the backcountry and drive the treacherous road. The vast views are suddenly oc- pretend we’re homeless for a bit. For those of us in rental cluded by sheer, crumbling stone faces or bedraggled cypress cars, with hotel confirmations in our inbox, we happily live- windbreaks, only to emerge again above the fog line to a sci- stream our stories to Mom and ex-boyfriends on our phones, ence fiction vista: a white ocean of fog with no depth, or an until, to our shock, the LTE vanishes and we are left alone infinite, pacific horizon, without a single marker of distance. with the cold glass of the passenger seat window superimpos- What right do we have to it, to romp along this remote ing the reflection of our face over the passing landscape. folly? Put aside for a moment the notions of sacred and pro- At least we have some modern comforts to look forward to fane, of violating “nature.” (We are nature, the highways are once we get out of the car, no matter how far we go. White nature, as much as the ant and the anthill are nature.) By sheets, pour-over coffee, hopefully a decent bar! We’re nau- what right, from the perspective of civilization, legally, mor- seous, but here we are. ally, are we here? Order, money, power, force. The Romans Wilderness: a post-colonial mental trap, now part of the built roads to move their troops, but also to reinforce to their bureaucratic lexicon, with legal implications. Designed to subjects who owns the network, who delivers the goods. As erase indigenous history, prevent developers from turning far as you can go on a highway, Caltrans, or C.H.P., or some the beach into another Monterey Cannery theme park, and deus ex machina like AAA, will protect and pave and shelter give righteous cause to the baby boomers whose houses ap- you, or call in a chopper if you topple over. preciate in value at its fringes. Keep it empty, keep it wild, We have a right to be here because we killed for it and keep it untamed and unmanaged, so long as it’s our backyard, paid for it, or someone did, with blood and taxes, in construc- so long as we can drive through it and over it, snapping selfies tion and cartography, with interest on the national debt. The and gearing up for a light walk on a marked trail: the virtuous discomfort when a fallen tree closes a highway, or the road recreation. Sporting Patagucci windbreakers, H.D.R. cam- collapses from the embankment, or the wind takes out the eras and social media sponsorships, our #vanlife lifestyle is power for a few days, is also an uncanny, stupid feeling of truly an American religion—a worship not of land and nature, injustice—some force of entropy, beyond our control, has of- but of our entitlement to every last mile of this conquered fended our right to enjoy this province, has trampled on our continent. Hold my beer. Fall 2021 | NORTH COASTER 5 Frogs By Jim Pellegrin He woke me in the middle of the night— a terrific, booming din, filling my bedroom with his insistent, monotonous yelling, though he, I suppose, would call it singing! I jumped up in bed, turned the light on, and there he was, a small green frog, sitting on my pillow, Baseball hat people croaking away, his throat ballooning in and out, in and out, By Jim Pellegrin his bulging eyes somehow appealing to me. But what a racket, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I scooped him up in my hands (he didn’t try to escape) I sit and watch them on the beach and headed for the front door. And envy them: they are young, of course, Just as I was about to throw him outside into the rain, young and beautiful and strong I caught a glimpse of myself in the window— and happy, though they hardly know it. God, I looked old They sit beside each other in their baseball hats, with my hair all helter-skelter, hands clasped over their knees, my shapeless nightgown, looking out at the waves. the pocked moonscape of loss Both are deeply tanned, their hair sun-bleached. etched into my face— The woman wears a blue and yellow bikini, but just then, he stirred, the man a pair of surfer shorts, tied in front. and I opened my hands They are simple, unselfconscious bodies and held him up to my lips, basking in the sun, watching the waves. and then, oh what the hell, They could be a pair of seals, or otters. he seemed to want me to, The woman lies down, rolls over on her stomach. I kissed him. The man rubs suntan lotion on her back, Yes, I kissed the frog, then stands and runs toward the water, and you know what, yelling as he dives into the surf. I’m glad I did, The woman sits up again, because, poof, just like that, watches him swim out and surf in, swim out and surf in, that frog turned into my dead son, Sam, then she herself rises and walks, slowly, into the ocean, and we stood there a moment together, in the manner of Botticelli’s Venus, (you can imagine keeping her eyes on him, and careful of her hat. how happy I was Later they will get into their pickup to see him again) and drive back to their apartment before he walked out the door into the night. with music they love on the radio. After a few steps, he turned and winked at me, They will pick up some beers and a pizza happily, I thought, and then he was gone. along the way, and enjoy them when they get home, And there I was, staring out into the blackness, then they will make love with their baseball hats on comforted, somehow, oddly willing to let him go.