pylons

The Bernal school, which is not on Bernal, is another that is right up against the edge of the Santa Teresa hills. They put these Oakridge schools as far out as they could, it seems. Across the street are those hills, and the Bernal ranch house, and a historical plaque too. The hills, they rise up. Towering might be too strong a word for them; their rise is just a bit too gentle for that, but they have a nugget of drama and are beautiful in their own way for the slopes and the rounded tops and their smooth shoulders. There is a bit more of the valley plain in one direction, which puts a bit of space, a small amount of distance between us and the hills from the school yard vantage, and that flat contrasts nicely with the hill. You can take it in just that much more. The Santa Teresa hills are not large ones in anybody’s index of hills, which makes it easy to forget that all prominences worthy of the name “hill” are enormous on a human scale. From here, at the Bernal Intermediate School, with that bit of space between us, the relative enormity of the hills can be appreciated.

Standing here at the foot of the hill, at the tip of the toe, and looking up the incline toward the top, trees and rocks and high tension pylons are forced by the perspective into fooling shapes. Huge oaks are regular sized oaks, but closer. Walking up to the top, or a particular tree part way, does not seem to be so far. Surely it would only take an hour to get there, or at most the afternoon.

The same cannot been said for the view across the expansive valley plain. That always appears to approach the infinite. Perhaps it is just that being slightly less than infinite that drives the illusion of the hills. The distance up the hill is obviously finite: there is a top up there. You can see it.

The front tip of a ridge reaches out and just touches the schoolyard. It rises, inviting, all the way to the top and the power lines up there could be any size, any distance. Surely I could get there before dark. And maybe even back again.

jg

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