A View from Anderson, California

Rain clouds forming over the mountain range near Anderson, California

The woman who owns the house where I am staying for a few days in Anderson, California, in an area she calls the Sacramento River Valley, is planning to install a 75-gallon aquarium in her living room. Because she doesn’t have a TV. Fish are interesting to watch, she says, and she’s right about that. It’s so quiet at this house at 1,000 feet elevation that after her husband died 5 years ago, she had a few nights when she left his oxygen tank running until morning to enjoy a comfort noise.

Staying here in Anderson, California, gives one a different perspective than living in Land Park, an urban area of Sacramento close to downtown. Just the view itself is incredible. The house is located on a raised flat table; my friend calls this a hogback. Mostly weed-whacked brown straw scraps trampled flat surround the house. The view is panoramic peaks, with a bit of smoky haze, from Mt. Shasta to Mt. Lassen. Areas of this place in Happy Valley go back to the mid 1800s, and some residents are still attached to 17^th Century.

I was joking last night about her lawn art — old rusted objects that have died and remain in place — suggesting she shoot photos and put the items for sale on eBay. There are people who will pay thousands to secure those types of treasures. On her counter sits a tin pan filled with scattered bullets, old shell casings, an odd metal lid slightly curved on its edges almost like a bowl, a tiny plumbing pipe erected like a skyscraper; it’s the sort of thing she accumulated for a reason and left in place.

This speaks of male aggression, soothed by a feminine hand and seasoned with common sense, I said, explaining her art installation, soothing to the soul in a world passed by, a place that time forgot. Yes, a fine example of her metal meets paper movement. My eyes fell on the plate of discarded vegetables, which had not yet met fate. There are many seeds attached to the inside bottom of a green pepper, an onion with the dice marks intact on top, sporting a tail of splayed roots, all resting on a bed of discarded garlic skins . . .

The sun is coming up, and yet not one person has called to ask about that house. What house would that be? It’s white, on a street with a lot of other houses, and it has a white picket fence. Do you know the name of that street? Well, it could start with a K. Do you know the name of the city? I would much rather ask if the caller knows who is the president. That’s the sort of thing they ask when you wake up from a coma, right? But that kind of comment would simply insult their intelligence.