Nature Therapy.1
Hi, friends. Now that social distancing has become the new normal here in Dhaka as well most places from which you may be viewing this post, I don’t expect (or hope) to be going out very much in the coming period of unknown duration. Fortunately, I have some lovely photos that I took on a glorious day out by the coast in Sonoma County with some of my very dearest friends in the world at a time in February before social separation became the new norm. I’d originally intended to stir them into one of my longer posts, with more story about what and where.
But now I’ve decided that I need something non-work to do during these days at home with no defined boundary between work and life. Also, something to remind myself – & perhaps you? – that the world is still out there with its beauty, its mystery, its passion & heartbreak, whenever we’re again able to go out to explore, appreciate and share it with one another. I find nature helps ground me in myself and remind me how small a part of this beautiful universe I am. In some odd way, it usually stirs in me compassion with my fellow humans and other living things. I hope you’ll enjoy today’s first entry in this new series, which I hope to introduce on alternate days ahead along with a few last “Signs of the City” entries which I prepared in advance, during various trips to reinforce my supplies of things like tea and milk for this period ahead. Once we run through those, it’ll all be nature on the Sonoma Coast, until…well, until whatever happens next in our world, eh? 🙂 Peace, compassion, courage, and health to us all.
In The Heart of SoCo
In case you haven’t figured out, my heart lies in the heart of Sonoma County, where one finds such lovely parks as North Sonoma Mountain Regional Park, and Annadel State Park. These are just a few random shots taken during the wonderful two weeks I spent at home in February, prior to returning to work here in BD…at a moment that now feels suspended in a different past before we all quite began to realize how rapidly and significantly the world around was about to shift gears. I guess we’re all doing what we can to keep up in our daily lives now, eh? Peace, health, and prosperity to us all, everywhere 🙂
Signs of the County.13
This is the last post I’ll be making on this particular, lovely holiday with my friends and community at home: this morning I’ll be flying out, and by Tuesday morning I’ll be back at the office in Dhaka. Herewith signs from the middle, west and east portions of one of my favorite long, sunny-day easy rides through my own neighborhood. From the Ewok Sign to the Pole with “No Dogs” and the circular blue signs is maybe 8 miles or so as biked by me — a bit more or less, but roughly that much. The west (Ewok) end is on a creek-side bike trail, while the east end is the beginning of several possible mountain-bike trail loops in the state park nearest to me, Annadel. Goodbye, dear trails — may many others appreciate and explore you in the months until you see me next 🙂
Signs of the County.8
Yes, California’s primary election will be held a week from today (on Tuesday, 3rd March), and I have now obtained the absentee ballot with which I’ll be able to vote in advance, even though on that election day itself, I shall have been back in BD for two days already. Fingers crossed for a year of greater hope :-).
Signs of the County.1 – Pliny the Younger :-)
So smw, slt has landed for a bit of a vacation back home in Sonoma County, where conditions are different in many ways than what one experiences in Dhaka: here, I bike with pleasure and see quite different sites. And, well, unlike Dhaka, alcohol and its consumption are legal though regulated. Since I was having such fun with my daily “signs of the city” photos from Dhaka, I figured maybe I’d do the contrast with signs of the county, here in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa. Today’s offering: from my bike back from UUCSR on Sunday morning, the annual ritual of hundreds of beer lovers lining up to be the first to taste this year’s release of Russian River Brewing Company’s annual limited-output “Pliny the Younger.” It was only through my beer-buff brother than I learned quite how big a deal this is in brewing circles — apparently RRBC is quite the name amongst the brewing community nationwide, and this line gets *long* on the … guess it’s usually the Sunday of President’s Day weekend? The very first February after I set up a home here, I was doing the same ride from UUCSR back to my place early one Sunday and saw this massive long line, and being a former New Yorker I thought “are they buying concert tickets? Or is it a new JK Rowling book release??” Then I remembered it was early on a Sunday, and noticed the crowd skewed much older (all drinking age) and more male than the JK Rowling crowd…plus it was 2015 that year, and hey, she hadn’t had a major line-up type release for quite a few years…so then I biked to see where they were lined up and voila, I learned about Pliny the Younger 😊
(so much world, so little time....) 