This afternoon I cut through a little used corner of the
UCSD campus. It was after 5 pm in the
last week of summer school, and there were only a few people along the way. Jasmine scented the air. I chose the path lined with magnolias and
azaleas, just so I could smell the delicate, subtle sweet scents of my
childhood in Louisiana—so familiar that the first time I almost missed
them. Then I passed through a glass
doorway in a shallow hall that connects buildings, and along a sidewalk
alongside the back of the building.
Shrubs blocked my view as I circled a small rise for about 10 feet, and
then I came to a grassy knoll. Three brown
bunnies formed a perfect triangle on the grass, nibbling away, until I startled
them. They sat up, ears alert for my
movements. Their backs have an
orangish-colored fur; their ears are tall and white on the inside. I told them I bring love and peace, but one
bolted for a far bush anyway. The others
started eating again, and I quietly walked on.
That’s one of the best surprises about my new life. I see wild bunnies almost every day. They graze on the hills around the college,
and I usually see them every morning walking to the office and most evenings
too. But I had never seen them on this
hill before, and it was so quiet and secluded, and they were so wide out in the
open that it was startling. On the hills
where I usually see them, they stay close to the shrubbery and are camouflaged
by the grass and bushes. I have to look
for them. This time, I couldn’t miss
them.
I was returning from spending time at one of the sculptures
on campus—a huge stone teddy bear, placed right in a triangle of grass between
the engineering buildings—all glass and metal and high-tech new buildings that
exude wealth and science. Huge granite boulders—8
of them—piled on one another to look just like a giant cuddly teddy bear. Makes you want to hug it—or be hugged by it—and
definitely climb all over it—and run around it and play peek-a-boo. Students have been known to hang a flower lei
on it and a tie. I asked how they got up
there, and one of my colleagues shrugged and said, “They’re engineering
students.” A tribe of Native Americans
in the area—the Pala—donated their sacred stones for the sculpture. The stones are beautiful. Just to be around them feels good. Certain angles where the rocks meet one
another reminded me of Elephant Rocks in Missouri and Enchanted Rock in Texas. It’s like a miniature, man-made version of a
wonder of nature. And it’s a bear.
UCSD is not a cuddly campus.
It’s huge and sprawling and disconnected, with no real center, no
architectural cohesion, no clear flow, and lots of little isolated worlds. But it has stone teddy bears and wild
bunnies, magnolias and azaleas, and the air smells sweet all the time.
