Junipero Serra

Mission San Carlos Borroméo, Carmel, California

I turn onto Junipero Serra, leaving campus after Thursday evening Pilates at the red barn they have painted white.  The tree-lined road with the name of the priest (reminiscent of pungent blue juniper berries) who came to California from Mallorca and built all our Spanish missions.  I have always loved the mission architecture—the inner gardens, the cool, thick walls, the shady arched arcades, the corrugated roofs of red clay tiles.  And in Palma, across the world, I found by accident the church he started from, its gorgeous cloister with orange trees drawing me in.  There is that journey in this road as well, the name taking me back in memory, all the way from Carmel, Santa Barbara, San Diego to the Convent de Sant Francesc.  And that whiff of juniper, or maybe incense in the dim side aisles of the church.

Convent de Sant Francesc, Palma de Mallorca

images:  Christie B. Cochrell