Palo Alto
We arrived in Palo Alto Sunday, 7/22, as planned, after a pretty easy day of driving. We didn’t get off 101 to drive the Avenue of the Giants, but we saw some pretty spectacular trees. Washington, Oregon, and much of northern California look like the green lungs of the country. It’s reassuring to see so much open country left, but sad to see how little of it is the spectacular old growth we saw along parts of 101.
We were greeted joyfully by Liz, Sean, Asher, Rowan, and Louise (their 45 pound three legged very affectionate dog). Only Juliette (the cat) skipped the arrival greeting. Our house is far from ideal for the Lynches, with only one bedroom. The living room is serving as the boys room, but having them in the same room makes bedtime challenging. Still, it beats being in a hotel by miles. Liz is making good use of our big kitchen, the boys and animals have the yard and there’s a safe street for the boys to bike and scooter on. Predictably, Liz’s remodel is behind schedule. It was clear that if they moved back in on 8/11 as planned they’d be living in construction chaos and danger, without a kitchen. With scarcely a moment’s thought, Jay said, “stay as long as you need to.” They have a hard stop on 9/8 when their newly hired au pair comes to work, as she has to have a room of her own. But this gives them nearly a month longer for construction progress and at least delays the stress of moving back in. For us, it means camping in the trailer parked in our front yard for a month longer than planned.
Living in the trailer in our own front yard is slightly strange, but it’s working. Erin, our tenant in the front unit is in Chicago with her boyfriend for the summer and she very graciously offered us full use of her place and her car – really extraordinary generosity. We’ve just taken her up on using her shower, which is lovely. When we lived here, we had a very nice relationship with Erin, letting her do laundry at our place, often visiting while she did, and occasionally having her over for dinner. She has more than returned the favor.
We have a peaceful coffee and breakfast in the quiet trailer, shower at Erin’s, and then we’re ready to face the liveliness of the Lynch household. Especially in this first week we’ve been busy with things we needed to do for the trailer and visiting friends. Most nights we’ve had dinner with the Lynches and then gone out to the trailer for a quiet evening. It’s a slightly odd living arrangement, and it’s far from the solitude and spaciousness of Sunnyhill, but it’s meeting the family’s needs right now. As much as anything, I miss the night sky on Sunnyhill.
There are so many aspects of being here that are a joy. Everywhere we’ve gone, restaurants, stores, Al-anon, synagogue, we are greeted so warmly. I got my nails done better than I can anywhere in Otsego County in one of dozens of places I could have gone to here. And the Acme Rye Bread is the best. Everything is so familiar, yet also slightly strange for me. The books on the bookshelf are ours, but the clothes in the closet are Liz and Sean’s. Little Charlie shares the yard and house with galumphing Louise. I find myself making pointless comparisons – Piazza’s with Price Chopper, Thomas Drive with Gulf Road, the Green Elephant with The Hartwick Restaurant, and Beth Am with Beth El in Oneonta. These are different worlds, with different advantages and disadvantages. It is certainly not a question of one being better than the other on some absolute scale, it is just a question of what combination of advantages and challenges suits us best at this time of our lives, retired and inching towards 70. Happily, we share the same preference for space, quiet, a slower pace, simpler choices.
Most of the folks we’ve visited on the trip out here have made similar choices. For us, and for most of the people we visited, it has been a choice with other viable options. For a lot of rural people and urban people, it’s just the life they were born into, the life they know and feel safe in. I remember city kids visiting us in Amenia who were so ill at ease with the bugs, snakes, uncharted woods, and nighttime dark and quiet. And of course, I know what it feels like to be almost frozen in fear of city streets, traffic and noise – because I felt that after years in Santa Fe when we came to San Francisco. We are lucky to be able to feel at home in both worlds.
Of all the trade offs we’ve had to make, leaving our great Al-anon meeting and Beth Am have been the hardest after the hard choice of being so far from kids and grandkids. It was a joy to be back at Rabbi Janet’s Torah Study this morning, back with the community of learning she has created there. Jay says that he never leaves Torah Study without feeling that he has just been gently challenged to be a little better person.
This morning the conversation started with the question of why the slaying of the first born in the Exodus story happened at night. I’m sure I read that it happened at night dozens and dozens of times – it’s part of the story we retell every year at Passover. But I’m equally sure that I never stopped to think about why it happened then, and not during the day, when the carnage would have been so much more visible. Rabbi Janet started with explanations from several Rabbis in different countries and different centuries. Immediately, we realize that we are part of a long conversation of learners. I got to thinking about night, and how different my experience of night is in the dark and solitude of Sunnyhill from the experience I have here, with light pollution and the noises that assure me I am not alone. But unlike that fearful night in ancient Egypt, my nights on Sunnyhill are full of the peace of the beautiful heavens, the peace of feeling settled in place. I suppose that one of the great benefits of this trip for me is that feeling temporarily rootless helps me see the value I place on being rooted. But it isn’t really place that roots me – it’s how I feel in my own skin, with my own thoughts. I take my home with me everywhere I go.