"Chiaroscuro," Two

       I write about "chiaroscuro" because it is a valley word in my mind.  Most of the year the skies are not obscured in Southern California so that I can see in the afternoon coming up Reseda Boulevard the hills shaped in graduated light and shade by the declining sun.  You can tell me these hills are building into mountains each time we get an earthquake, but until then, they're tall hills without the jaggedness of mountains, and the light and shade blend into one another like a rolling blanket, comforting and caressing the eyes.  If there's green, as after rain, we've got it even better.