Yesterday, someone—I hope it was a visiter and not a local person—ripped the wild seasonal succulents out of the rocks bordering the sand. Ripped them all right out of the ground! The devastation began a hundred feet south of our path and continued north for hundreds of feet north. These people left a long line of plants littering the shore, tore them out by their roots just because they could. Like the party who started a fire of drift logs and abandoned it to smoke and smolder all night long. Like the people staying north of us who managed to drop their kite all the way over our house and into our courtyard (not the first time), and woke me with loud laughter at nearly eleven the other night. They seem like nice people, but they’re on vacation.

There is a hedge in front of our house, what we call the “front” because the ocean is too vast to be anyone’s backyard. The hedge is mostly salal that grows wild. The local rose, which is thorny and has dark pink flowers the size of quarters, is native too. The cultivar montbrecia, which will pop out in racemes of brilliant orange flowers any minute now, is a thriving but benign volunteer. The same cannot be said for English ivy that threatens to take over the world. My step-grandmother may or may not be responsible for starting ivy on its aggressive path in our hedge. I recall a two-inch pot of decorative ivy. Yes, she might have planted that in her garden as a ground cover. Many people did in the 60s. It was already thriving all over local beach gardens. We religiously remove it from the courtyard and fight to a truce in the hedge.

By contrast, I give Genevieve credit for planting honeysuckle, which has spread but without strangling any other plant. And it smells better than ivy, though its foliage is not such a stunning, healthy green.

The salal was not invited or planted. It belongs here. It grows in the forest and along the beachfront except where it has been pushed out by invasive ivy or deliberately planted rugosa roses. White or carmine pink. The salal has stiff, leathery foliage used by florists, and berries I use in muffins. I like that I had nothing to do with it, that I need not water or spray or tend it in any way. It is what it is.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, the night gay people stood their ground and refused to be passively bullied any more, the night they began a movement. Some call it a riot or a rebellion or an uprising. Stonewall works for me. Gay Pride.

Gary’s co-worker Chris took his draft physical the day after Gary earlier that same year, 1969. Both Chris and Gary failed the physical, Gary for his eyesight. They compared notes at the Book Store, and Gary asked how Chris had managed to flunk his physical. “I told them I was gay.” Oh, right.

When Gary went to Chris’s house to listen to Ziggy Stardust, he knew Chris was gay but he didn’t want to “try something new.” Chris took no for an answer and they remained friends. That’s usually how it goes. I’ve been hit on, so gently that I only figured it out later, and I’ve had gay and lesbian friends going all the way back pretty much forever. I knew who they were and who they were interested in sexually at least from my junior year of high school, but it was never an issue. Like someone being married or in a relationship: It only matters if you are romantically interested in the person. Mostly I failed to pay much attention. What possible difference could it make to me that the girl, who had done me a kindness when we were both six year old, liked girls? Barb was my friend and I valued her for her friendship. I miss her still.

The salal berries I use in whole wheat muffins and the wild huckleberries I use in butter cake are among the best things I know to bake. Published recipes suggest that blueberries can be substituted for these NW berries. Perhaps. Perhaps if they were wild and smaller berries I would love them. Perhaps if I could not get the real thing the substitute would be good enough. If I lived in Maine, it would make sense to me. But I live in Oregon and I am pretty sure that what grows here without my help or interference is the best of all.

We are all visitors here. Letting things be is the theme for today. Allow the natural to thrive and you owe it nothing more, no anger or resentment, no ripping up just because you have that power. A pact of noninterference because we all inconvenience and irritate sometimes. At least allow what lives to thrive. Enjoy it or ignore it, as you choose.