I took over 2 hours to go home on Wednesday. I couldn't help myself and I took Piuma Road again. At a nice pull off, I pulled over and stood on the picnic tables looking out into the Valley and towards the ocean. The sun had just set and the sky was a Richard Mizrach pallet. I looked at the orange slice moon rising just over the hill to the southwest. A path was pointed out to me. I remembered my travels in Virginia when I would go for work and inevitably find myself out on some back road in my business clothes. That happened again. Wed I had opted for something a bit more girly than I ever wore in SF. A flouncy black skirt (recently bought in Venice) and a shimmery black top, some kind of psuedo yoga clothing. I was also wearing these great new high heels. I haven't owned high heels (except for my thigh high stilettos) for years and years and I would never have ever thought about wearing them. But, hey, I'm in Los Angeles, I'm someone new, the shoes fit, so I bought them.
Anyway, I step out of the snob in my flouncy sheer skirt and 2-3 inch high heels onto dusty gravely mountain top parking lot. I see the path before me across the road. I walk with precise steps over to it. My foot steps sound differently on the pavement from the gravel/dust. I walk up into the scrub, chaparral, santa monica mountain wilderness. It's sunset time, which means hunting time for cats, snakes, hawks. I know this and ask if I should turn back. My response is a small bird fluttering further down the path. So I walk on. Wearing high heels gives me the chance to be very precise about my walking and walk from my front thigh. It's a strut. It's calling power.
The brush scratched against my legs leaving scratches. I hoped I would not snag my skirt. I found myself not far from the road and still in view of my car on a rock out crop. I stood there, feeling the wind in the sheer ribs of my skirt, blowing my hair across my face, along my back, up my legs. My shoes firmly standing in the uneven rock. I looked at the traffic on Malibu Canyon below. I looked at the mountains. The sky. At the cars passing by.
I watched the sun set on the last day of summer. And I told my dreams to the wind.
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