Sunday, November 28, 2010
Arriving Home and Entering It!
The last two days of our trip across country - through the Steinbeck-ian rolling hills and fertile valleys of Central California, have been two of the most visually amazing of my life. It thrills me to realize that I can still be thrilled, simply by opening my eyes and seeing what's all around me...by just looking at what the world has to offer, I can find the balance I've been missing.
Lots of farmers are angry at the US Congress, and the many signs we saw along the way say why: they feel that Madams Pelosi, Boxer and others have created a 21st Century Dustbowl, by denying certain subsidies, I guess, and maybe by dabbling mischievously in water issues here in this naturally arid part of the country. And we did see a fair amount of fields lying dry and unused...but since I've no agricultural knowledge, perhaps that's how they run here in these Winter months...but lots of very dramatic dry and untilled fields, with acres of dead growth on them...then further down the road would be a green , lush and clearly healthy piece of land filled with oranges, apricots, lemons, mandarins, grapefruits,grapes, grapes and more grapes, bursting to go eventually go to market: flat canvases of vast mountain-encircled land, covered in ecru,beige,brown curves, then dotted with shocking spots of fruity color...i'm telling you, it almost inspired me want to become a painter, just to capture the life of it all. But, then there were those acres of deadness too. Equally picturesque, but telling an angry story.
It all seems like a movie that Peter and I were shooting and acting in, this entire drive, day after day.
We've been on the road 11 days or so...and finally, when we did cross the Bay Bridge and enter into San Francisco yesterday, it seemed more like a dream than anything else, because it hardly felt real, it was so gloriously in front of us: this new city that was (is ) now our home city. It had rained hard, about an hour outside Oakland, giving the obviously thirsty fields a chance to drink their fill, if the soil could take it in. And then, as we approached urban areas, the rain stopped, but hung around to see how the sun would dance with all that insistent grayness. And of course, powerful and diamond bright, the sun sliced through the clouds like butter and we were on our dappled way into a gleaming, moist, shining and alive City by the inescapable Bay! I tell you, i could hardly stay in the car, i was so excited to enter this by-now-familiar city. We drove along the Embarcadero - busy with holiday strollers as usual, but this time, they were holding open and dripping umbrellas, that's how fresh the rain fall was: it's like Nature decided to rinse off the City for our home-coming! Get it all shiny and clean just for us.
Which is exactly what our two darlings Paul and Stephen did with our new home at 1320 Lombard Street: before going to Nashville to spend Thanksgiving with Stephen's Momma, they spent two weeks in our totally empty apartment, as if it was their own, and gave it a thorough cleaning (even the windows!), and what i call the "Daniels/Cole Treatment": they filled it with groceries and other goodies from Trader Joe's, made sure we had a good complement of cleaning supplies hidden away in our front hall closet, and ...well...let me put it this way: we won't need to buy toilet paper or paper towels for a long time! They even bought us a new sleekly small vacuum cleaner (our VIrginia home had central vacuuming systems) and measured for and ordered an above the stove micro-wave oven for us! THese men are our family, and they prepared our way like we were their very own. Thank you , dearest men...but you know how much we love you. So hurry home and WE will pick YOU up at the airport for a change!
The first thing we saw when we entered #204: two of the decorated fans from our wedding criss-crossed affectionately, and hung where we could see them as a prophetic greeting to our new home. (Paul and Stephen were our Best Men...at least mine, since Stephen did my hair! And, well, Paul practically walked me down the aisle, but i guess we decided ex-husbands probably shouldn't do that sort of thing).
Then, coming into the utterly sun-filled living room, we saw the bright blue "HAPPY CHANUKAH" garland strung across one set of windows and other Chanukah decor strung across the other !! In the dining room was a 12-day chocolate Christmas Advent Calendar awaiting us - Paul and Stephen are equal-holiday celebrators, as are we - along with an enticing kitchen filled with so much food, we won't need groceries for a while: cupboards stuffed with Trader Joe's soups, potato and lentil crispy treats, multi-grain chips, chocolate mint cookies, hot cocoa mixes, fresh coffee beans, boxes of nutritious crackers, rices, spices, curries, turbinado sugar, candies, breads and olive oils. salt and pepper, salad dressings, and almost everything else off TJ's shelves! Inside the fridge were frozen healthy entrees, soy sausages, more soups frozen, apples, cheeses and more cheeses, diet Cokes chilling for our pleasure, cheese enchiladas (Ole! Welcome to almost-Mexico!) , bean things, frozen vegetable things, and more lovely edibles! A new coffee press was sitting there waiting for me to break it in (I shall, later today, without question), and a large bag of hearty coffee beans (we need to unpack that coffee grinder when it gets here). In the bathroom , they'd left bags of Trader Joe's toiletries: herbal shampoos and conditioners, facial soaps, green tea breath mints, skin creams of every variety you can imagine ( floral and herbal), air sprays for a fresh bathroom (oh yes, they also hung a delightful shower curtain and put a nice white rug on the floor), and on and on....these dear men! What a lovely thing to come home to, despite the fact that I have very few ideas about where we 're going to put all the stuff we brought with us! Maybe I won't even open the food and toiletries boxes I packed, but take them right over to the local Salvation Army! So much abundance...others should share it.
Today, we rest, in preparation for the arrival of the moving truck tomorrow, and all its attendant headaches: will the grand piano even fit in the elevator or go up the stairs? Where will we put all those boxes? (Even having gotten rid of half our stuff, we still have one quarter too much!) . And how will we survive this last leg of the seemingly impossible journey we've been on?
But , if low and high deserts taught me one thing, it's that no matter the weather, life survives, and so, I face tomorrow - and the 75 -foot moving van - like a lizard in the sun: wary, poised, expectant, and ready to lick whatever flies by!
Lots of farmers are angry at the US Congress, and the many signs we saw along the way say why: they feel that Madams Pelosi, Boxer and others have created a 21st Century Dustbowl, by denying certain subsidies, I guess, and maybe by dabbling mischievously in water issues here in this naturally arid part of the country. And we did see a fair amount of fields lying dry and unused...but since I've no agricultural knowledge, perhaps that's how they run here in these Winter months...but lots of very dramatic dry and untilled fields, with acres of dead growth on them...then further down the road would be a green , lush and clearly healthy piece of land filled with oranges, apricots, lemons, mandarins, grapefruits,grapes, grapes and more grapes, bursting to go eventually go to market: flat canvases of vast mountain-encircled land, covered in ecru,beige,brown curves, then dotted with shocking spots of fruity color...i'm telling you, it almost inspired me want to become a painter, just to capture the life of it all. But, then there were those acres of deadness too. Equally picturesque, but telling an angry story.
It all seems like a movie that Peter and I were shooting and acting in, this entire drive, day after day.
We've been on the road 11 days or so...and finally, when we did cross the Bay Bridge and enter into San Francisco yesterday, it seemed more like a dream than anything else, because it hardly felt real, it was so gloriously in front of us: this new city that was (is ) now our home city. It had rained hard, about an hour outside Oakland, giving the obviously thirsty fields a chance to drink their fill, if the soil could take it in. And then, as we approached urban areas, the rain stopped, but hung around to see how the sun would dance with all that insistent grayness. And of course, powerful and diamond bright, the sun sliced through the clouds like butter and we were on our dappled way into a gleaming, moist, shining and alive City by the inescapable Bay! I tell you, i could hardly stay in the car, i was so excited to enter this by-now-familiar city. We drove along the Embarcadero - busy with holiday strollers as usual, but this time, they were holding open and dripping umbrellas, that's how fresh the rain fall was: it's like Nature decided to rinse off the City for our home-coming! Get it all shiny and clean just for us.
Which is exactly what our two darlings Paul and Stephen did with our new home at 1320 Lombard Street: before going to Nashville to spend Thanksgiving with Stephen's Momma, they spent two weeks in our totally empty apartment, as if it was their own, and gave it a thorough cleaning (even the windows!), and what i call the "Daniels/Cole Treatment": they filled it with groceries and other goodies from Trader Joe's, made sure we had a good complement of cleaning supplies hidden away in our front hall closet, and ...well...let me put it this way: we won't need to buy toilet paper or paper towels for a long time! They even bought us a new sleekly small vacuum cleaner (our VIrginia home had central vacuuming systems) and measured for and ordered an above the stove micro-wave oven for us! THese men are our family, and they prepared our way like we were their very own. Thank you , dearest men...but you know how much we love you. So hurry home and WE will pick YOU up at the airport for a change!
The first thing we saw when we entered #204: two of the decorated fans from our wedding criss-crossed affectionately, and hung where we could see them as a prophetic greeting to our new home. (Paul and Stephen were our Best Men...at least mine, since Stephen did my hair! And, well, Paul practically walked me down the aisle, but i guess we decided ex-husbands probably shouldn't do that sort of thing).
Then, coming into the utterly sun-filled living room, we saw the bright blue "HAPPY CHANUKAH" garland strung across one set of windows and other Chanukah decor strung across the other !! In the dining room was a 12-day chocolate Christmas Advent Calendar awaiting us - Paul and Stephen are equal-holiday celebrators, as are we - along with an enticing kitchen filled with so much food, we won't need groceries for a while: cupboards stuffed with Trader Joe's soups, potato and lentil crispy treats, multi-grain chips, chocolate mint cookies, hot cocoa mixes, fresh coffee beans, boxes of nutritious crackers, rices, spices, curries, turbinado sugar, candies, breads and olive oils. salt and pepper, salad dressings, and almost everything else off TJ's shelves! Inside the fridge were frozen healthy entrees, soy sausages, more soups frozen, apples, cheeses and more cheeses, diet Cokes chilling for our pleasure, cheese enchiladas (Ole! Welcome to almost-Mexico!) , bean things, frozen vegetable things, and more lovely edibles! A new coffee press was sitting there waiting for me to break it in (I shall, later today, without question), and a large bag of hearty coffee beans (we need to unpack that coffee grinder when it gets here). In the bathroom , they'd left bags of Trader Joe's toiletries: herbal shampoos and conditioners, facial soaps, green tea breath mints, skin creams of every variety you can imagine ( floral and herbal), air sprays for a fresh bathroom (oh yes, they also hung a delightful shower curtain and put a nice white rug on the floor), and on and on....these dear men! What a lovely thing to come home to, despite the fact that I have very few ideas about where we 're going to put all the stuff we brought with us! Maybe I won't even open the food and toiletries boxes I packed, but take them right over to the local Salvation Army! So much abundance...others should share it.
Today, we rest, in preparation for the arrival of the moving truck tomorrow, and all its attendant headaches: will the grand piano even fit in the elevator or go up the stairs? Where will we put all those boxes? (Even having gotten rid of half our stuff, we still have one quarter too much!) . And how will we survive this last leg of the seemingly impossible journey we've been on?
But , if low and high deserts taught me one thing, it's that no matter the weather, life survives, and so, I face tomorrow - and the 75 -foot moving van - like a lizard in the sun: wary, poised, expectant, and ready to lick whatever flies by!
Labels: Cross-Country Journey
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