westside au natural

Did you know that early in the morning in June if you drive east on Jefferson Bl. through the Ballona Wetlands, visibility is less than ten feet and the ground is enshrouded in white?

At dawn, 5:30am, the moon is full and brilliant, the sky velvety like midnight blue in a Crayola box, only growing paler. The swaying plants either side of the road are nearly invisible and you have to trust against all evidence that the road keeps going and so you roll, five miles an hour, every so often dim headlights to the left offering the possibility that somebody is sharing your private white cloak -

At the end of the block outlines of gaudy new condo developments materialize, the square glass Electronic Arts building becomes a possibility, and over to the left, where the wetlands have been permitted to continue briefly, you can see that like dry ice the blanket hovers only above the plants, four or five feet of dense mist, ghosting off at the end where Lincoln Boulevard rudely interrupts.

And you keep going and you think that now, now you finally know what June gloom is, and why didn't anybody tell you? Were they hoarding it all for themselves?