I went to my ablationist, yesterday and he told me that my ablation procedure is a success and my heart is no longer fibrillating. I realize that I am having a hard time believing – accept may be more accurate – that my heart really has been repaired and I have no idea why (maybe I have become attached to the problem, I hope not). The header that I first wrote said My atrial fibrillation ablation seems to be a success and I had to force myself to make it more positive. Either way, I celebrated by going for a walk at one of my favorite walks, Russian Ridge.

I have been reading John McPhee’s Annals  of the Former World about his discovery of the new geology. Like me, he went to college before the plate tectonics revolution and bumped into it while reading about something else (in my case, I was reading about evolution). The last section of the book is Assembling California and, over the last 40 years, the understanding of California’s geological history has changed even more than California has.

Geologists now know that over the last 60 million years, or so, California has been assembled from a series of  island arcs (that once were parts of the ocean floor that had been uplifted and exposed above sea level). These island arcs – think Japan against Asia – are being swept  into the North American Plate and attaching themselves to North America. (In the process, the Sierra Nevadas got pushed up by the heat generated from the collision.) So, the land that I like to walk at Russian Ridge is the same layers of materials that make up the Pacific ocean floor. It is also to the east of the San Andreas fault, so I am walking on the Pacific Plate, not the North American Plate.

I like that.

I like the walk, too. It starts by slowly climbing around soft, grassy, hills. Last year’s grasses are dry and bent over in clumps in even patterns and this year’s grasses are green and growing between the clumps.

When I cross into the forested area, everything changes.

With the trees covered in moss – that is bright green and growing like crazy – and Spanish Moss which is really a member of the Pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). Then it is back into the sunlight and walking – with a view – back to, the car. An easy two and one half miles.

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