The Protuberance of Petaluma

Careening through the thick, shrouding ivy brushes, hiking up the sharp incline through the towering grass and rich mud, surrounded by several blackberry brambles, I find myself standing atop one of the copious hills in the western portion of the town. I lean on an ancient tree that skews sharply to the right direction, barely able to keep its old, weathered roots in the muddy soil, but capable of positioning itself upright for several more generations. I feel the gentle touch of the tree’s rustic bark and sumptuous, dew-glazed moss; I taste the liberated, detoxifying air inhaled through my mouth; I smell the moistened wood of the assortment of plants and trees that surround me. The organisms that inhabit the hill, the birds in their nests, the leaves on their tree, the grass in their ground, continue their deep slumber as they anticipate the sun’s emergence from the hills in the east.

A golden ray of fresh, unadulterated sunlight bursts over the hills of Sonoma, casting its radiation on the sleeping houses, the barren streets, the dormant cars, the slumbering animals, the calm trees, the closed plants, and the waking people of Petaluma. Within minutes, the birds begin to sing; the flowers reveal their faces; the dew rises into the air, only to come back another day. At the same time, the town below begins to wake as well; the drone of vehicles rushing across the streets penetrates the silent atmosphere; the lights in houses and workplaces create an astronomical effect on the indigo horizon; Petaluma wakes from its slumber to start its productive day.

Examining the modest city of Petaluma from the majestic view of the western hillside in the early morning, the rising sun having yet to engulf the town in its bright, lucid radiation, one would say that the deep cerulean hue that shrouds Petaluma gives it an oceanic quality. Petaluma is, in fact, an ocean: the expansive houses and buildings made up the luminous water of the ocean; the bustling vehicles that zoom across the wide, ever-extending strips of asphalt were the turtles, dolphins, whales, and sharks swimming through the ocean’s currents; the barely distinguishable civilians, going in, out, and around buildings, became the small, individual fish that inhabited the ocean blue. Congregations of suburban landscapes surround and encroach upon the hills on which I stood, attached to the roads and cul-de-sacs that leaked from the ocean body in the valley between the western and eastern hills. Like the far-reaching oceans of our earth, Petaluma slowly increases in volume, spilling over the boundaries of the guardian hills, forcing artificial, plastic, lifeless industrial innovations into the wholesome, natural, lively environment that gives life true meaning.

Diving into the depths of the ocean of Petaluma, natural life becomes nonexistent; soil becomes asphalt; stone becomes plastic and metal; fresh air becomes perturbing, alienated fumes. Approaching the middle section of Petaluma near Highway 101, the visual of ocean currents and large sea animals is bombarded by roaring vehicles, blistering across the pavement with the tenacity of an angry rhinoceros, impatiently waiting at stop signals, quickly careening across the caravan of concrete. The previously fluid, water-like buildings become differentiated, disfigured, disjointed blocks of confused architecture, a white-and-red Jack in the Box with plastic benches, plastic umbrellas, plastic tables, and plastic bordering on one end, a burgundy-bricked library with stony walkways and desert-like shrubbery on the other. The engines of vehicles, the generators of factories, the motors of ear-splitting scooters shroud the town with inflammatory, life-draining gases, creating a beige haze of pollution that looms over the city. The metal light posts are cold. The sandpaper sidewalks are callous. The plastic handles on the shopping carts at Safeway are greasily slick.

From the view of the hill, the growing landscape of Petaluma seems innocent, unable to harm anyone, just a simple body of water. But once immersed into the ocean, one begins to sense the true dangers that Petaluma could bequeath upon the innocent environment that the hills aim to preserve and protect. Like the rising oceans that surround the earth’s continents, the expansion of Petaluma can be hard to stop; what began as a minor leak has quickly escalated into a quenching gush of development, drowning these areas of peace, harmony, and biological stability. What used to be a blithe valley filled with salubrious vegetation and wildlife, endowing human life with the gift of a rich, fulfilling life, is now covered with cold, hard concrete, sludge-like tar, pitch-black asphalt, and over-exaggerated three-story homes. What originally seemed like two exceedingly different visions of livelihood is now beginning to meld into one, corrupt apparition of how to live, a direction that we were truly not meant to follow.

~Clayton