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Illusion

 I noticed the leaves on my morning walk today. Not their friendly crunch under my feet, 

nor the way they scatter unexpectedly under Pepper's paws, 

startling her into a sideways skitter before moving back to our straight, purposeful path. 


Rather, I noted their sudden absence for about a block in front of me. 

It was puzzling to imagine a city planning conversation that resulted in a street with trees that shed leaves, then pause, then begin again. 


Until I realized, they had been removed.

for half a block before

and half a block after

a certain community. 

"Santa Barbara" as its tasteful sign announces, offers a decidedly attractive and unwelcoming entrance, 

High, square hedges 

A small, windowless box with signs that warn, 

"15 m.p.h," and "No Soliciting." 

An eight foot tall wrought iron gate encloses the homes beyond, protector and sentry, to all those safely beyond the reach of the street with its Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics, but only the occasional Lexus.

Hearty ground cover in pink and red line each side of the paved road in and out of 

"Santa Barbara."


We live nowhere near the posh ocean vistas or rolling green hills of that California place. 

The attempt to suggest it with the name of this development, while understandable, does not erase the dairy farm two blocks away, whose pungent, almost violent smell frequently invades our neighborhood. 

The red Spanish tiles, and impressive Euro-style fountain just beyond the iron gate do not really distract much from the thick layer of San Joaquin Valley dust,  nor the autumn forest fire smoke that hovers, falls, and rests on every surface. 

No crashing surf here

just regular traffic on wide, paved streets


Highway 99 just beyond, cuts its ugly scar down the center of the state, 

offering belching big rigs, each with their own "My Job Depends on Ag" bumper sticker in a predictable and soothing forest green.

Twice a week, they treat the massive dairy farm a few miles away with a chemical, thick and sour in the back of my throat, as I commute to work. 

I have to close the vents in my car and breathe into my shirt for a few minutes while I speed through at eighty miles per hour

belching my own exhaust, in a trail along the highway. 

I do not know the chemical compound I breathe in on those mornings, nor how it affects my asthma, nor what it does to the farm workers in fields nearby.

One morning, a scientist on NPR detailed a reversal by the FDA to allow what is essentially a neurotoxin to return to use in the fields because agriculture lobbyists had demanded it of the current administration.

Field workers probably could not make it to the capitol in Sacramento that day. 

Their hands and backs had other labor, lobbying soil and rows of crops to yield to their coaxing, so I can make pistachio biscotti for dipping in my morning coffee, and add grapes, red, green, and seedless to my charcuterie board. 

I reach the end of the leafless sidewalk portion of my morning stroll with Pepper and wonder

who pays the man to blow leaves from one block of sidewalk into the street so the residents of 

"Santa Barbara" 

can maintain the illusion, 

safe behind iron,

eating fruits and nuts, greeted by a gushing fountain of cool water in the center of a drought land?


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