Still

I just got back from a three-week trip to the U.S. This time I was skirting the south, west, and southwest regions of that huge land mass.  That huge collection of states, towns, regions, landscapes, cityscapes; political, religious, ethnic, economic, dietary, culinary, sports team loyalties or default associations; family and friend connections from near and far, recent and deeply rooted.  Yes, it was overwhelming.  I've been in Australia for almost seven years now, seven years away from the U.S., and it is getting harder and harder to have a foot in each place. I'm not even sure if it is a reasonable thing to try to do.  But, I think that we need each other.  I want to continue to be part of the bigger story.

I have left and arrived at so many places.  I have moved, sometimes like a migrating bird, sometimes like a ball in a pinball machine, to find new things, see the world, and hopefully find myself.  I have always thought that I wasn't fully leaving anyone.  I thought that I was branching out but staying connected at the stem.  But lately, I feel a pulling apart, a gradual weakening and loss of connections.  Not just my own, but I see it happening to and between people who are close to me.  

Some of it is natural - everyone's life is evolving even as we overlap, the world is getting more complicated and difficult, putting added strain on most people, all of us are getting older, and some of us are dying.  Some of the disconnection, sadly, is the result of anger, pain, miscommunication, conflicting beliefs, divergent loyalties.  I don't know if threads have been pulled so hard that they have snapped, or if people just got hopeless and tired, gave up and let go. 

I don't know if being far away has made me more keenly aware of the importance of long-term friend and family relationships.  Maybe I am just a person who has always seen myself most clearly as part of a whole. But with my dad dying recently, and my girls becoming more and more their own adult persons, my thoughts are brought back over and over to the idea of lineage, legacy, interconnectedness, personal impact, and human relations. 

We are effected by, and we affect each other. Trying to make these relationships positive seems like a worthwhile goal.  Sometimes the links are strong and sometimes they are weak. But like a plant that is in cold storage over the winter, they hold past life, never really die, and can come back to grow for our children and grandchildren.

Hulya's flowers in Oakland

Here are some of the pictures from the trip. Hopefully this will help to share the experience with the people I didn't get to see, or didn't get to see enough of. Love you all.

the Ferry Building and new Bay Bridge

morning quiet and mist

We stayed at the Embarcadero in San Francisco.  The perfect weather and beautiful water made a nice contrast to the urban grind.

I almost finished it!

a store selling amazing Luchador masks

David and I went to the Mission and had burritos at our favorite taqueria.

on the Larkspur ferry

exhausted mood lighting

I was so happy to reconnect with Maureen Fitzgerald. We took the ferry to Marin, wandered around Union Square, and crashed in our hotel room.

David, Nick and Joanie

enjoying perfect weather

the fog rolls in by the GGBridge

we happened upon landscaping goats!

Joanie and her fiancé Nick came down from Sacramento and we spent a lovely day walking from the Ferry Building to within feet of the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was so precious to be able to talk with her about her new life (working as an attorney just after passing the California bar!) and about what her mom (Peggy) was like as a young girl and woman.  It happened to be Peggy's birthday.  It meant so much to me to be able to have that time connecting and acknowledging a common bond.

☀☁☂★☾☀

***Just like the trip, this post is long.  So I will stop here and post the rest of the pictures and comments next week.