Olive

I had one day to myself in Peru and on that day, I did what I do best: I went for a long walk.  Lima is a city that relies on taxis and my legs were in shock from the sudden inactivity.  I headed on foot in search of an olive tree park that I had only read about in New York and admired through a glass window of a tour bus earlier in the week.  Unfortunately, I didn't remember its name so I hoped for the best and followed a rough map I had torn out of a small hotel guidebook.  A small green circle marked "Parque something" looked promising.  "Parque something" turned out to be none other than a big concrete circular intersection where an impressive Catholic church stood next to every American chain restaurant you could imagine.  D'oh.  Exhaust fumes from passing vehicles mingled unpleasantly with greasy wafts coming from its neighbor, Chili's; the bright red of the restaurant's chili pepper logo matched the fresh flowers someone had lain at the foot of the towering stone saint statue that stood before the church entrance.

I eventually turned and took a parallel route back in the direction I had come.  (Cue Wisconsin accent) DONT-CHA-KNOW, fifteen minutes later, I turned the corner emerging from a small residential side street and looked up to see the prettiest stretch of greenery and trees.  I couldn't believe it, but less than twenty feet in front of me was a cluster of olive trees.  And beyond that were rows and rows more!  I had literally stumbled into San Isidro's famous El Olivar, a tranquil sliver of Lima where old olive trees lived, some more than two hundred years old.  "Somebody loves me," I said to no one in particular.

I made my way through the carefully laid out grid of trees and sauntered about.  I left my earphones in but turned off the music.  Silence was nice.  I was alone.  With my camera.  Happy as a clam.  I patiently tested the settings half guessing, half knowing like only an amateur would.  I had no idea where to start.  How to capture the regal presence of these olive trees; their thick trunks wound tightly; the fluttering smooth leaves of their branches?

I don't think I had ever seen an olive branch up close before.  I recalled a biblical tale.  After the floods, Noah releases a dove that returns time and time again with nothing until one day, it returns with a single young olive branch in its mouth.  A sign of new life after God angrily flooded the earth.  Then there's a rainbow, God's promise that no matter how angry he might get, he would never again destroy as he did with the flood.  As I continued to admire the olive trees, the enormous hulking trunks of the older ones reminded me of The Odyssey.  Odysseus' bed was carved from the trunk of an olive tree, its thick intertwined roots still grounded in the earth.  God, I love Homer.  It's time to read that poem again.

My mind wanders so.  I am so good at this, this being alone in my own world rambling silently with aimless thoughts.  I could go on forever.  Then I somehow blink back into the present and realize that hey, it's time to go back.