The bluffs are my spiritual homeworld.​

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I was born and raised between the cold rocky shale coastline of Montaña de Oro and the warm sandy sediment of Morro Bay. Part of the splendor of this quiet little stretch of the central coast of California is its kaleidoscopic ability to shapeshift with the weather patterns that blow in from the Northeast Pacific Ocean with the California Current, a cold current that brings water from the Gulf of Alaska to the wind-bitten coves of North America's furthest-western edge.

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In the summer, the prevailing Northwest winds, which pummel the shale and mélange bluffs and carve them into sand, push the sea surface water along, creating a marine upwelling effect which brings colder water up from the depths, and with it, an abundance of nutrients.

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This upwelling of nutrients is our source of life along this coast. It makes a living possible for not only an abundance of fish, but also the various bluff-dwellers: the crying gulls, the black oystercatchers, the local triplet of cormorant species, the migratory geese, ducks, and pelagic wanderers, the pigeon guillemots, the brown pelicans coursing wave crests in their troupes, the turkey vultures, the hungry California condors awakening from their long slumber, and of course, us humans.

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Something about the sight of California's coastal bluffs swathed in fog is deeply comforting to me. With the horizon obscured by moisture overtaking the air, the world becomes neverending; it becomes a humid cocoon of shimmering grey. Colors are dimmed, the air is softened; the entire world becomes a gentler version of itself. Life is renewed deep in the coastal fog, and I am safe.

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