It's my birthday . . .

. . . and I'll cry if I want to. Oh wait . . . wrong sentiment. My gift to myself was a day off, and I went hiking at Charmlee Wilderness Park in Malibu. It was very windy, but an otherwise perfect day.



I didn't do a thing. I hiked out to the edge of the park, and sat and watched the ocean and the oak trees for three hours. I really needed the time alone to decompress.



The poison oak is coming back nicely from its summer hiatus. Did you know that poison oak is not poisonous to deer, and it's one of their favorite foods?



There are fossils of shells on the rock I always sit on, and it's many feet above sea level. Was the ocean once that high, or was the rock once that low?



I watched the clouds, which looked like lace and whipped cream.



The wildflowers are starting to bloom. I don't know what this plant is, but I call it Snake Plant because rattlesnakes have been known to lurk near it. I didn't see any snakes today, though -- only lizards.



This is the trail leading out of the park.



I did have some profound thoughts while I was sitting and contemplating the ocean, trees and clouds. I was thinking about art, and thinking that it's ironic that our culture values art that isn't functional, like wall art, more than art that is useful, like baskets and bowls. Some ceramics and basketry are priced as fine art, but only the ones that aren't functional.

Think about that. What does that say about us -- that we have so much that we can afford to collect items that have no functional use? If I were living in more primitive conditions, I would much rather have a basket, bowl or blanket than a painting to hang on my nonexistent wall.

Then I was thinking about how I could make art if I lived at Charmlee and could only use the materials there. No paper, no canvas, no paint, no pencil. Lots of rocks, dirt and plants. Basketry was the first thing that came to mind. I could make baskets out of the native plants.

There's not much else available for creative expression, except perhaps manmade crop circles in the meadow grasses. Or maybe Earth art. I could rearrange rocks into a design.

Why do I even feel a need to do these things -- to make my mark on an otherwise beautiful landscape? Why aren't humans content to leave things as they are? Why must we muck with it?

Anyway, it was a fabulous birthday, and I feel so much better after being in nature all day.