The blog version of Give Blood Magazine, est. 1972

Is it me, or is it my vision?

My photo
My first memory is of losing my glasses. Had they not been found, folded carefully on the top edge of the sea wall, where would we be today?

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Traddución

(For my friends who don’t need to wade through my bad Spanish, here’s the translation of the original posting below)


There is a famous song in the western United States called “Don’t Fence Me In.” This was the starting point I took in thinking about the theme of the frontier.

I was raised in the state of Montana and I came from a small town behind which were nothing but mountains—it was possible to walk for a hundred and fifty miles without ever seeing a road.

In places like this the inhabitants have few laws, because there are few people and a lot of space between them. Neither do they learn the laws, or understand the reason for them. These people are free, but they remain ignorant of these things. So also was I. It’s an important part of my identity.

Since then, I’ve lived more than half my life in the city and have learned to play with the other children very well. But still I need to walk alone in my world frequently.

Recently I was speaking with the friends of my youth by e-mail. All of us are the same, always searching for our corner of nature in the world. For me, for many years, this has been the beach of Berkeley.

Maybe you know the place that I go each Saturday to walk my dogs—it’s the beach at the end of University Avenue, between the marina and the Albany racetrack. It’s not far from here, nor is it far from Interstate 80 and its thousands of cars per hour that pass by. It was an old dump, filled with shards of pottery from a forgotten factory, covered with bushes and weeds.

This land isn’t pretty, so not many people go there. But it has a marvelous number of birds. I made a list for my friends. On this particular day I saw:

  • A hummingbird, or “fly bird” also known as “toothpick” because their beaks are so long.
  • A lot of sparrows. Sparrows are birds that sit in bushes and eat seeds. We have ones with pink heads and others with brown sides.
  • A kingfisher. This is a fierce hunter that sits above the water and watches for fish. It’s English name probably comes from its crest, which has many points and looks like a crown.
  • Hawks and falcons. Usually there is one type, but on this day, three kinds. I don’t know the name of the one in my photo, but it may be a peregrine falcon, which means wanderer.
  • Three kinds of herons. There is a Great Blue Heron, a Greater Egret, and a Snowy Egret. In north America it is known as this, but in Mexico the name is more poetic—“garza dedos dorados” It’s because the feathers that extend from its wings look like fingers.
  • Thousands of migrating ducks. This is the season. We have ocean ducks, including the grebes (divers) and scoters.
  • Shorebirds. I don’t know these species very well, but there are many.
And more, very many more, doves, crows, gulls, and the blackbirds with red spots on their shoulders that are known as “Sargents”.

It’s a rare treasure that we have in our city. You aren’t able to see as many anyplace. I love these birds a lot. And also this is the place that I go to practice my Spanish. My dogs and the birds don’t care that my grammar isn’t correct.

So why is this story about the frontier? Well, like the character of Regina Swain (in our readings for la clasé) I recently received a surprise. Two Saturdays ago when I went there, a sign told me: “No Parking. Closed for Habitat Restoration”

Not my habitat. In contrast to the song, “Don’t Fence me in,” this Rent-a-fence is excluding me. It’s a personal tragedy. I’ve got a lot of fear for the future, because I know the way people are.

Today already they have scraped the terrain to cut back the vegetation that isn’t native. They have placed pipes beneath the surface to create new artificial wetlands, they are going to build apartments for the owls that live there. It will be just one more park, no longer wild. Picnic tables, bicycle paths. My dogs will be required to be on leashes, not to swim.

Well, these questions don’t have answers. Without doubt my anger and my fear come from my selfish desires. And I don’t want to exclude the pregnant walkers, the runners who listen to CDs. All I want is my dirt and my birds. I want my dogs to shit and not to have to pick it up in plastic bags. That we be able to swim and irritate the ducks that I extol.

Where are you going to go?

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