My Life as a Naturalized Weed

I am a proud San Diegan. But while my feet are firmly planted on local soil, I can't leave out the root of the matter that I stem from afar. However naturalized, I am a weed.

San Diego is a gosh-darn popular place to live; 8th most popular city in the country, in fact! Our three million residents (2012 Census) love the weather here, making it a great place to live for many an organism (San Diego Natural History Museum). Astoundingly, our county is home to more birds (492), more plants (1,573), and in total more species than any other in the continental U.S.! That diversity is thanks to our variable geography of sea, sand, mesas, and mountains that we people like for surfing, volleyball, suburban sprawl, and hiking. This multitude of wildlife is also thanks to - our favorite - the steady sun and steady temperatures of our placid Mediterranean climate.

There's just a handful of other places around the world that have this same mild climate, and they too have a cornucopia of indigenous species. In California we boast the stubby yet resilient biome of chaparral. The stony, fragrant shores of France's garrigue, Spain's tomillares, and Australia's mallee also have a diversity of organisms despite limited rainfall. My upcoming travels include two Mediterranean climes: the regal fynbos of the South African Cape, glory of England's best botanists and home of the King Protea; the batha of Israel, which supported the development of wild plants into fundamental crops like wheat, grapes, and olives in the birthplace of the most popular of religions: Despite their arid climate, these are productive regions.

Funnily enough, residents in these botanical hotspots still identify with plants of other regions. For example, native Israelis call each other cacti, or sabras, after North America's prickly pear cactus. For them, this signifies their adaptability to the arid conditions of their country. San Diego is also very hospitable to newcomers: a quarter of our plant species are weeds, and they come from other parts of the world.

<ode to Opuntia> O Cactus, king of the scrub, regal profiteer of the scarce, careful guardian of the precious, steward of ¡WatEr! - I admire you so!

Let's get into the thicket of it. Say, last month with the San Elijo Lagoon Platoon. We Platoon goonies are a team of volunteers who get down and dirty to restore native wildlife habitat in the San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Reserve. One morning last month we pulled a lot of weedy radish on Escondido Creek. Some wild radishes were better rooted in the sandy soil than others. We piled up those gigantic daikon-like roots until we had two chest high mounds steaming in the sun. Every week for the past three years I've pulled an exotic weed or planted a native shrub. I've been lucky enough to lead a group of people who truly love the wilderness in their own backyard. Together, we get to know the weeds that take up residence here, and also the amazingly biodiverse natives which inspire us. When you're in the midst of the coastal sage scrub, it's easy to experience the interstellar oddity of chalk dudleya (Dudleya pulverulenta), the intensely sour flavor lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia), the curving elegance of San Diego pea (Lathyrus vestitus), and the pungent aroma of black sage (Salvia mellifera). (Sorry about the scientific names; it's habit now. Click on the highlighted letters to check out neat pictures of these plants)

We can't hope to get rid of these weeds altogether. But, we do make it easier for our lovely natives to thrive. Funnily enough, many of the weeds we work with come from those same Mediterranean locations I typed about earlier, popular semi-arid landscaping plants like the grand Canary Island date palms in our driveways, or the South African iceplant which coats our freeway slopes. They are travelers just like we are. We Lagoonies love this place, we live here, many of us were born here, but we hail from elsewhere - Back East, Vietnam, Italy, Africa. I'm evidence of that, with my grandparents' accents, from Brooklynese to the Queen's best South African English.

I am a weed too, but I'm naturalized. I believe in this stunning place and want to make my life here. We San Diegans all live in a gem, and we know it. It's our pleasure to live here, and it is our stewardly duty to keep its beauty shining. We'll adapt our needs to this place with the best of our ability. To get there, we'll have to draw on where we came from. This journey ahead of me will be an adventure to recollect my roots and bring them back home to good ol' San Diego. I want to see where these weeds come from, to learn what it means to be a transplant, and to set foot into this eternal summer.

Stamps in place

This morning I sorted through my dad's stamp collections. Stamps. One by one, carefully torn from the edge of an envelope, delicately glued to an impassioned letter, faithfully sent around the globe in the hands of a stranger, patiently waited for in a distant hemisphere. 

One stack for Argentina, another for Finland. I sit here waiting for Skype to ring from England or Israel and am struck by these tiny pieces of paper, their intricate illustrations packed between four small serrated edges. With a buzz, I am interrupted by a text message; I speak to my cell phone and effortlessly send a text to a friend in South Africa. One stack for Thailand, another for Senegal.

Where my dad grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, he felt in some ways more isolated than his grandparents may have in their boggy Eastern European shtetl. Not only was he confined to the edge of the earth, next-door neighbors with Antarctica. He was also suffocating under a wicked government. During the Apartheid years, the South African government would not allow certain foreign music into the country, nor South African money out. This racist system was a magnificent prison, both for the darker-skinned peoples who were oppressed by the it, and the pale pricks who benefited from it. All were locked in. My dad, a chlostrophobe to the core, could only dream of traveling and traveling and traveling the world. He peeled off these stamps, one by one, until at the age of 25, he encountered those countries they were sent from. On that grand voyage, my dad gathered the experiences that shaped his life into the American he is today.

Now I am ready to stamp around the globe.