I'm Ada Lemone and this is The Slow Down.

I grew up about an hour away from the Pacific Ocean in a place that sounds made up.

The valley where I grew up is actually called The Valley of the Moon.

We had long dry summers, summers that are now played with wildfires and mild green

winters.

Winters were so green that I was confused when I moved east and everything turned

dead in brown as soon as the days shrank to nothing.

That valley will always be home for me, no matter where I live, no matter where I travel

to.

I like to call it My Valley, though nothing belongs to me.

I have no ownership over the land.

The valley of the Moon is situated between two low mountain ranges, the Mayacama Mountains

and the Sinoa Mountains.

In the mornings we get the coastal fog that hangs thick over the vineyards and it feels

like the actual breath of the ocean.

And if you don't see it, even if you don't look at it each day, you get a sense that the

large pulsing body of water is out there, massive and unknowable.

Today's poem captures what it's like to feel the sea and sense its presence, even when

you are somehow in the middle of a landlocked valley.

Even by Philip Levine, who was, in fact, my very first cherished poetry professor in

graduate school, this poem reminds us of the importance of awe, a feeling that makes

us know we are small, a feeling that is both full of wonder and terror.

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