I walk up Twin Peaks to put myself between the ocean and the bay. The elevation bisects San Francisco, and the marine layer coming off the Pacific dissolves into tendrils. I’m scared of heights but feel tethered to the ground from this vantage.

At Glen Canyon I hear coyote pups barking. They are in the brush along Islais Creek, which runs in times of plentiful rain and sustains a lush ecosystem. The coyotes are here; I am here; a man, his baby, and his domestic dog are here; scrub jays, blackberry brambles, joggers, and a pair of red tails circling each other. Along a continuum with the most cooperative impulses of nature at one extreme and our most disruptive social constructs at the other, we humans move backwards and forwards.

I go out of town to look at drier land. Along this road I see small clumps of furry scat at regular intervals yet am still surprised when I encounter a bobcat. I’m sure I leave a trail too, and wonder who investigates it.

The appearance of the sky and the relative humidity and scent of the air are waypoints of memory. The fog, with its subtle variety of color, density, and paths, is a reasonable marker of time and place, but requires attention. At a distance it has a source and a form; up close its boundaries are obscured by constant change; inside it dissipates, particulate. This is a non-binary sort of weather.