If it were not for the parks in the East Bay Regional District, I would be going mad, between COVID and the state of our county’s politics, white supremacists storming the Capitol today incited by the so-called President who occupies the White House. Mud runnels between my feet as I walk along pathways in Joaquin Miller Park, named after the American poet who left several monuments in the park, one a mini-citadel called the Brown Monument, erected in 1904 to honor “his fellow poet and friends Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The quiet of hiking amid second-growth redwoods borne from stumps of giant trees logged in the 19th century that were used to build East Bay cities and San Francisco. Pine duffs now at my feet, cones edged with lime green lichen, trails that wind around the park as I approach what Joaquin Miller called “the Hights” where you can see the East Bay stretched between two bridges.
And not in this single park alone–almost daily I walk another trail in this glorious East Bay park system because there is no other place to go as the pandemic takes more lives and paramedics are advised not to transport patients to hospitals who may be likely to die; Leona Canyon, an open space and fire trail behind my house that runs along a gentle stream, trails around Lake Chabot where mallards and egrets swim, trek up the hill to Skyline Boulevard with its Equestrian Center, the Horse Arena trail with sweeping views of downtown Oakland, and Redwood Park where the single old growth redwood still grows, its spire can be seen from the parking lot of the Carl B. Munck Elementary School; I am grateful for all these places, to the people who have been stewards of our park lands, to our doctors and nurses, and to those who protect our democracy.