July, 2013: Left Coast

July 10: San Francisco and points thereabout:

At the airport

Another trip, this time to the Bay Area to revisit old friends and old haunts, and the long-awaited trip to Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula and Ranier. Much less fidgeting with packing and frighteningly little planning. Early morning ride through sleeping Charlottesville to the airport. A parent of a former student, who is now in Post-High, was there, and is much calmer about her daughter now than I remember when the girl was in elementary school. We all struggle less now.   

           

Cloud Shadows over Colorado

Irrigated crop circles in the midwest

        Flying over this great land, we could see long serried ranks of clouds, checkered fields of varying shades of green, with round patches here and there, winding rivers, mountains, deserts, lit-up highways, improbably blue swimming pools among mazes of suburban houses. As we drew close to San Francisco, small planes zipped around far below, cloudlets and their shadows, the sere California landscape, bleached brown dotted with eucalyptus and scrub climbing the hills. On the side of a hill, a huge sign: South San Francisco: An Industrial City.

 San Francisco has changed and stayed the same. I realized how little I actually came to know this place when I lived here. There are new highways; earthquake damage has led to areas of urban renewal. SoMa is getting gentrified, and the Embarcadero is now an expensive tourist zone, selling fresh exotic mushrooms instead of cotton candy. Still full of voyeuristic midwesterners, though. We had lunch there with the Sheldons-- oyster stew-- facing the bay and two bridges, watching the boats go by. Superfast, the Oracle catamaran, a contestant for the America's Cup, but which certainly doesn't look like a yacht to me, zipped back and forth.

Pier 1

Pacific Avenue

                                                                                                Presidio is now a huge managed-wild park, financed by the rental of some of the old barracks and buildings. It is so lovely, in a way completely unlike Virginia. From the point there were views of the Golden Gate, sailboats, and Marin in the distance; and it was chilly, windy, and like no other place.

Embarcadero

It's been seventeen years and everyone is older. People seemed calmer and generally happier, less desperate, with less to prove. I didn't visit any of the old places in Oakland or Berkeley. I went sketching at Lake Merritt-- so near to where I lived, but I had never been there, to that end of the lake.

We had a frantic (for us) social calendar, at least two meals a day with various friends, press people, and so on. But it was fun! With some, there was a sense of wrapping-up, but there were some new people I'd like to know better; seems unlikely though. Nancy and Jack have a lovely old craftsman house in Point Richmond, full of interesting objects; they seem so settled and domestic.. Port Richmond is another place I never knew existed, It is like a movie set or elaborate toy train town, with a real sense of place, including a movie theater, several restaurants, library, Post Office and so on, all in its 2-block downtown. We visited the Rosie the Riveter museum, which celebrated the stories of women working in war materiel factories in WWII, had brunch in a repurposed factory, and walked along the water. T's friend is an inscrutable felophile, whose life, and to some extent T's, revolves around caring for local feral cats. Inscrutable because-- that can't be the whole focus! T spends much of the year traveling all over, but never with his partner since someone has to be around to care for the cats. Bet he never pictured that life growing up.

We stayed in Oakland with Ned and Marnie, who seem much the same, but Ned is retired, Marnie working less. Their garden has evolved, and their time is focused on family and the Oakland and country places. Children have moved on, and the parents are less responsible and worried about them. On the whole, this seems to be a golden age-- people are mostly in good shape, if not in our first youth, but feeling relaxed and appreciating what we have. These are the things that happen, if we are lucky.

We stayed in Oakland with Ned and Marnie, who seem much the same, but Ned is retired, Marnie working less. Their garden has evolved, and their time is focused on family and the Oakland and country places. Children have moved on, and the parents are less responsible and worried about them. On the whole, this seems to be a golden age-- people are mostly in good shape, if not in our first youth, but feeling relaxed and appreciating what we have. These are the things that happen, if we are lucky.

Lake Merritt, Oakland

I managed to connect with the Urban Sketchers' West Coast crawl a couple of times, at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero and at Lake Merritt, and drew a few sketches.. I didn't manage to really connect with anyone since I wasn't part of any of the 'together' activities. There were many people drawing, and some of the work was very good. I would really like to do the big meet, which may be in France, next summer. On the way to lake Merritt, we passed the Oakland Museum, and a very happy man who was and singing dancing in the bear footsteps on the sidewalk. Suddenly his pants fell down; it seemed too hard to figure out what to do about that so he proceeded, at a slower pace, with his pants around his ankles.