July 19, 2016

The past 10 days spent in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco have been a combination of new adventures mixed with much déjà vu. Yesterday I drove the kids into San Francisco to do a bit of sight seeing and although I couldn’t always remember directions to get to certain places, in my meanderings I came across many familiar sights—a school I worked at, restaurants I ate in, parks I sat in, streets I wandered down, museums I visited, and of course the ocean I love that gives me solace and peace. We wove down Lombard streets like good tourists and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge like even better tourists and finally ended up at Rodeo Beach in the Marin County Headlands where Ernesto and I had our wedding reception. The Headlands are a paradise of outdoor adventures waiting to happen and one where Ernesto and I spent a lot of time first before we knew each other and then when we were dating. I liked to hike the hills overlooking the ocean and Ernesto rode his bike up and down those hills more times than I ever could have hoofed them on foot. The Headlands is the body of land to the north of San Francisco that greets boats as they enter the Bay and is a former military base converted to a National Park but still contains most of the original military buildings that are converted to Park housing, environmental non-profits, an art center (where I would love to be artist in residence!), a YMCA camp, and a quaint little building converted to a reception hall for special events like Julie and Ernesto’s wedding! When I showed the kids the rough-looking, but nice on the inside building, they responded in typical fashion, “You guys are weird!” I so love that my children think I am weird!

Yesterday morning I took them to Urban Ore, which is the largest garage sale/junk yard/treasure hunt/fun house that you can ever imagine. They have building materials next to an assortment of clothing labeled “new arrivals,” next to kitchen ware and bins of bolts and defunct electronics, cassette tapes, old photographs, and every shape of toilet you might ever need. I love this place and my children did too. We wandered around for hours and laughed our heads off at all the wacky things people have discarded for that perfect person to discover. Benjamin found a wheelchair and spent his time exploring while wheeling himself up and down the aisles. The great thing about the wheelchair is that no one gave him a second glance as though it were perfectly normal that a person would choose that method of transportation to cruise the aisles of treasures to be discovered, and when we checked out, the clerk raised an eyebrow and asked, “What about the wheelchair?” We had such a great time that we went back this morning and despite his disappointment, Benjamin could not find “his” wheelchair (I told Elena that they probably hid it after we left yesterday) but never fear, the next time I turned around he was riding a bike through the warehouse and again, no complaints from any other customers.

Whoever makes the signs at Urban Ore must have had the best mother ever because they read like something I want to plaster all over my house:

Clean Up After Yourself!

If you Mess it Up, Clean it Up!

I Can Play Alone

This bin is for trash only—the recycling goes in another bin

We Discriminate Against Bad People

As I cruised through the aisles and laughed with my children and they expressed joy at the simple pleasure of a giant treasure hunt, I thought to myself, “They are their mother’s children,” and I was extremely delighted that they are my children!

After our Urban Ore adventure, we drove to Pleasant Hill, which is about 12 miles east of Berkeley and where we last lived before we moved to Minnesota. It was a trip down memory lane—the house we lived in, the school playground behind the neighborhood where we spent hours and hours playing, downtown where we walked to get out of the house and have an adventure, and the park where I pushed Elena on the swings while Benjamin slept in a sling plastered to my chest. Both Elena and I commented how everything seemed so large when we lived there yet seemed small now, perhaps because we went there from the density of Berkeley, so it made everything seem huge, but when we moved to the spaciousness of Minnesota we got a new perspective on size. It was strange and a bit bittersweet to be in so many familiar places where I spent so much time with my children when they were really young—it gave me a new perspective on that time of motherhood when I often felt isolated from the world of adults but full of the joy and love of my children and my care of them. That time in my life as a full-time mom was somewhat of a blur as I passed the days in endless need of more sleep and constant giving of attention to my children, yet being there today made is seem more clear and real and worthwhile and full of adventure that I didn’t always know was happening at the time. Today, the kids and I told endless stories of things we did, places we explored, and antics we partook of—it was fun to reminisce.

Ernesto, the kids, and Dreamer dropped me off in San Francisco this evening to the home I’ll be staying in for the next three weeks. I still have a hole in the pit of my stomach from missing them the minute they left me here on Texas Street in Potrero Hill. I’ve never been apart from them for this long and it feels strange and lonely. I love being with my family and after having spent the last three weeks driving across the country and staying with them in Berkeley, we’ve created a new kind of connection that deepened my affection for them and my attachment to them. Spending so much intense time together was great fun and I enjoyed being unconnected from the internet, talking with each other, and just being together doing ordinary things like walking the dog and exploring Urban Ore. I know I’ll be busy the next few weeks at St. Gregory’s but I will still miss them every minute of the day.