I grew up on a hill.

I return to the foothills of Auburn, California at least once a year. Spring is my favorite time to visit, March in particular. My dad and I, who I miss more than I can articulate, shared a birthday celebration in March. I think he loved the month too. I’m not sure if it was his favorite, and I don’t remember asking.

As I sit at my mother’s breakfast table, I have a view of Folsom Lake brimming with snow melt and winter rain. I can also see the American River gently depositing its precious water into the reservoir. It is a peaceful and comforting sight; not so upstream, where frigid, churning currents race through the canyon like a herd of wild horses to fill the big drink.

Some years it floods, some years it doesn’t. California has fluctuated from drought to excess in a continuing pattern for as long as I can remember. It’s always been a topic of conversation at the dinner table. I think the old saying “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down” originated in California, and it was a motto we lived by as kids.

Yesterday, my two older brothers, my husband, and I hiked down the steep cardiac trail to see the state of things at the river. Along the way there were blue dicks, wild iris, poppies, and hundreds of pipevine swallowtail butterflies working diligently before the California summer sets in.

We followed the path along the old miners’ canals, brimming with life-giving water. The fresh red growth of poison oak glistening in the spring light peeked through the ponderosa pines and oak trees; so pretty that if I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to pull off a leaf. But I do know better, as the dangers of poison oak are taught at an early age in the foothills. So are the dangers of rattlesnakes, but fortunately we saw none on this day.

At each switchback a view appeared. That’s one of the benefits of living in the hills; there’s always another ridge or meadow within sight. Trails like this always beckoned me onward as a child. What’s down there? What’s around the corner of that bend? Trails would lead to a pollywog stream, to the old stagecoach route riddled with discarded antiques, through the manzanita bushes where the smokey quartz crystals lay in the deep red earth. And for the miners, trails like this led to the discovery of gold not too far from here in Coloma.

Hikes here feel very different from my hikes in the hills of Arizona. The trails here may be slightly rocky from time to time, but mostly they’re composed of soft red earth, which often stained the knees of my 501’s in grade school.

The river roared as we rounded the last corner. Hardworking water is noisy, but in 1965 it was almost silenced. Work began here on a 680-foot concrete dam for flood control and water storage. In 1975, construction on the damn ceased due to seismic activity and environmental concerns. As a child, I remember visiting the dam construction overlook, hearing blasting, and wondering what would become of the turbulent water. This was another big topic at the dinner table, but today it is a distant memory.

We found a place to sit beside the icy blue waters, ate a picnic lunch, and chatted about life. The boys didn’t notice, but we were surrounded by hard-working swallowtails. I, of course, took photos in between bites.

After lunch I treated my back and neck to a cold plunge in a little rock pool the river had created, perfect for a dip. I sank to just below my chin and let the water take both my pain and my breath. After some additional exploring, we started the steep climb out of the canyon. Our boots were sufficiently dusty with gold country dirt when we finished our trek.

On the route back to Mom’s house, another view revealed itself; the father of the foothills, and the subject of Donner Party lore, the Sierra Nevada mountains. This time of year, they glow with a crown of bright white winter snow. My mind wandered for a moment as I remembered spring skiing in jeans and coming home with a raccoon face, eyes white from sunglasses and sunburned cheeks.

These views—rolling hills dotted with heritage oaks, green pastures, and the Sierras beyond—were my playground as a child. And it was here where my obsession with discovery and the natural world began.

There were no Spielberg-type neighborhoods where I grew up; no square blocks, no sidewalks, no flat, wide streets where you could ride your bike or roller-skate with ease. Every destination was down a steep hill, around a corner, across a canal, down a dirt bank, and across someone’s lot. Adventures were met with no trespassing signs; some big, some small, some rather threatening. I was never certain that I wouldn’t be shot, or at least yelled at, while traversing a trail from here to there.

And traversing from here to there was a necessary daily activity if I wanted to get to the school bus, or to a friend’s house, or ride my bike or skateboard.

Being the youngest kid of three meant I inherited most of my sporting equipment; except for my softball glove, which was a gift from my dad. He’s the man who taught me how to hit and throw. He spent hours in our driveway teaching me those fundamentals. And the slope of our property played its part; Dad would pitch me the ball, I would hit it, and it would smack into the red dirt bank behind him and roll down so he could pitch it to me again. We did that repeatedly until I got it down. “Watch the ball hit your bat,” he would say.

My skateboard I inherited from my brother. It had clay wheels that were worn down on one side from racing down Silver Bend Way and then quickly swooping left down our steep driveway, over and over again. I was so excited when I finally got a new skateboard, a modern molded plastic model with fat wheels. My best friend Debby was spending the night, and we had a grand adventure planned. We carried our boards down the red dirt path to the neighborhood below that had wider, straighter sections, to see what my new wheels could do.

This was before the days when kids wore kneepads, wrist braces, and helmets. The biggest danger were cars, but there weren’t many cars in this particular neighborhood. There were no blind curves, either; just a long, gently sloping road with a big dip towards the end.

We navigated to the road and kick-started our boards until we had both feet firmly planted. I always imagined that this must be what surfing felt like. As we approached the big dip, I could feel my adrenaline pumping. Second by second, our boards gained speed, until there was no turning back.

Suddenly, our boards began to wobble. We were losing control. I don’t remember if Debby was in trouble, too; I just remember looking down, seeing the pavement rushing by, and realizing I needed to jump off my board. There didn’t seem to be a better choice. As my first foot hit the pavement, it was clear I had too much momentum to stop my forward motion. I think I rolled a few times, and then all motion ceased.

When I finally stood up, I could feel blood running down my body from various boney parts. My hips, elbows, and knees had been scraped raw from rolling on the pavement. Debby came to my aid. We had to get back home and get some help. We retrieved our skateboards and started back up the road, across the neighbor’s yard, up the dirt path, through my dad’s redwood trees, to my back door. Debby ran ahead and alerted my mom. “Mrs. Walker, Dyana’s been hurt…”

I’m sure my mom feared the worst. She assessed the damage, cleaned my wounds, and bandaged me up. I remember a miserable night’s sleep, as no position was comfortable. Today, the scars bring a smile to my face. A little blood did not deter me from more adventures on the incline. I started to pity those friends that lived in the flat neighborhoods of Roseville or Sacramento. How would they get their battle scars?

Moving by foot through the landscape is both therapeutic and deeply satisfying to me. Being breathless as you climb a hill and are rewarded with a view is almost spiritual to me. There is an element of danger in any adventure involving an elevation change. A trip and fall, a crumbling foothold, inclement weather.

I left Northern California in 1984 to go to college at Biola in La Mirada. Aside from a visit to Disneyland and the Rose Bowl parade when I was younger, I don’t recall having spent any time in Southern California. I don’t think families did a lot of college visits like they do now. I’m not even sure if I had a lot of choices for college, as my grades were dismal in high school. I had friends going to Biola, so that was good enough for me. The day I arrived with my boxes was the first day I saw the campus. I was excited; finally, there would be flat streets where I could ride my bike, and maybe trips to the beach. Maybe I would learn to surf, and become a beach girl instead of a foothills girl?

Honestly, that first year at college was depressing. The landscape was not my soulscape for sure. And although the beach was fun, getting there was no party. The drive through traffic, fighting to find a parking place, hauling all your stuff to crowded beach only to sit under cloudy skies; it was a downer.

What about the Hollywood hills? One night I pried the screen off my ground-level dorm room window and snuck off to Hollywood to dance all night. That was fun, but it did nothing for my soul.

Soft red earth was replaced by hard concrete, and it was hard to escape. Bike riding was easier because it was flat, but the streets were busy and straight with no view in sight.

I learned later there actually were mountains visible down the street after a freak winter storm washed the smog away, but after that I rarely saw them. I went to Big Bear once, anxious to see some mountains and a lake, but the shore was fenced in; only accessible to residents, or something like that. Depressing.

I did meet my husband that year. He was from Arizona, via Illinois, and was aching to get back. I don’t think he hated Southern California as much as I did, but he had made a goal for himself. No big acting gigs by thirty, and he would leave.

I always share a bit about my first trip to Arizona in my talks. It was very memorable. Randy had always been a good salesperson, and he did his best to convince me this would be the perfect place for us. We camped at the Grand Canyon, explored rim country and Tonto Natural Bridge, and drove the Apache Trail.

I began to realize that Arizona was not flat. It had elevations. It had views. There were wide open spaces and plenty of land to explore. There were streams, lakes, wildflowers, interesting cactus, and trails to wander down.

The skies were interesting too. They almost seemed to be landscapes in and of themselves. That was especially evident at sunset, when clouds would take on mountain-like shapes, and the sun’s rays would pierce through key holes with amber strength.

When I left California for Arizona, I worried that my feet would miss those hills. But now, all these years later, I find a deep satisfaction in the landscape of the southwest. The diversity of the land here feeds my curious nature, beckoning me to explore more, learn more, care more.

The sweet spots for me are still rooted in the transitions; the change in elevation, the turn of the riverbed, buds bursting into blooms. I collect experiences here like a birder checking off species. Dots on maps mark places I love, and places I long to go.

And there is always longing.

The foundations of my childhood stomping grounds prepared me for this life. I close my eyes and still see my little hand lifting the quartz crystal from the red earth all those years ago. That little girl had no idea where she was going. She just knew she was going somewhere.

Somewhere between the plains and the mountaintops. Around the bend, down the stream, up the slope. Where foot connects with hills, and pretty things grow, and the sky is clear, and the wind whispers “all is well.”

If you need to find me, that’s where I’ll be, learning lessons and sharing them. And the wind is always right. It truly is well with my soul.

Dyana Hesson

March 2026