The woods here are unlike that of where I grew up. Mature slender figures that rise up higher then the southern palms of Huntington Beach that raised me. The apical meristems of these trees adorn each trunk like crowns. The souls of these trees pull towards the sky reaching out through space, to the distant corners of our shared world. Their awkward limbs and perfect unfurled leaves effortlessly sway to the chocked sound of the Bay’s fog horn. Throughout the day a brisk cool wind rustles each leaf and chills the sun kissed bark. The dancing of these trees is accompanied by the crashing of foamy northern pacific waves. Each swell gushes along the shore of Baker Beach and upwells nutrients back into itself.

Red tail hawks circle above me, above them turkey vultures, and above us stars beyond our reach. All three are always looking down into my eyes, and down on to the hundreds of retrofitted barracks that make up the Presidio. These housing units once housed soldiers, sergeants, generals, and their families for more then a hundred years. The one toned units make this neighborhood blend in to the woods, bark of the pine, cypress, and eucalyptus match the soil beneath adding to invariant walls of these abodes.

I imagine that off the shore of Baker Beach, upon a boat, if someone were to look upon these quarters that their eyes would have a difficult time distinguishing one from the other. Each apartment is unique with its inhabitants, just as each tree is unique with it’s own forest dwellers. Both harboring tunnels, valleys, and rivers of emotion. That leave each body through breath or rising smoke.

Beneath the ground that these houses are built upon, are hundreds of thousands of living organisms that maintain the chlorophyll in each leaf. Each morning a thick layer of fog settles on to the thicket of these topiary trees. The Bay’s heavy dew created by the fog weights down each leaf until it bows and surrenders an individual water drop, which then falls hundreds of feet into the canopy cover and dissolves into the fertile soil.