A Little Green Spot on the Map

SAN FRANCISCO--"Might I have a bit of earth?" asks the heroine in Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden. A simple enough request to grant, it would seem.

Yet our search for an apartment in proximity to a patch of green proved quite daunting, especially given the dearth of green in our wallets.

A small, relatively cheap place of one's own can easily be acquired, apparently, if one forgoes the pleasure of walking on dirt under trees without first taking the bus to get there, if one forgoes a view of anything more than neighboring walls or concrete.

Just when I was on the verge of forgoing these things, in order that this wandering naturalist could give up wandering for a time, we saw it.

What a difference a patch of green makes! The little park just down the street, Pine Lake Park, though mostly a dog-romping haven more appropriately dubbed Eucalyptus Pond Park, did contain the dirt trails beloved of joggers and birdwatchers of our ilk. And once inside the apartment, the view! That owner could garden. In a mere 12 x 18 feet or so, the profusion of flowers! An angel's trumpet tree laden with peach-colored blooms, big-headed red and yellow dahlias, orange California poppies, a bright purple bush of lisiandra, a bonsai-size Japanese maple--the list goes on. We liked the place. And agonized during the waiting period of credit and reference checks familiar to Bay Area renters. If we hadn't gotten it, we would have felt akin to Adam and Eve, cast out of the original garden.

For us, the trees, the water make a nicer place to live in the city. For wild birds, however--save, perhaps, pigeons, gulls, ravens, blackbirds, house sparrows and starlings--the trees, the water make the only place to live in the city.

So it is good to see you, hummingbirds, robins, warblers, and chickadees! You are just the ones I wanted to welcome me to our new home.