Egret
We drove over to Livermore this morning for lunch with a group of Jay’s high school pals. Heading north on 880, at a point where there are 12 lanes of traffic, an egret flew across the road just a couple of car lengths ahead of us. It flew as egrets always fly, with grace of a sort, seemingly at leisure, and with no apparent concern for the doings of the humans below it. Egrets have almost surely flown around the bay for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And thanks to David Lewis of Save the Bay and hundreds of other dedicated and passionate visionaries, there is still a beautiful bay for them to fly around. In the midst of all that traffic it was lovely to be reminded of the natural world that still has a toehold here, lovely to see a creature who could care less about our traffic.
Even with the relentless construction, there are still beautiful hills and valleys on the drive from Palo Alto to Livermore. Kate Wolf wrote a haunting song about the golden rolling hills of California, and I always think of it on this drive. It’s good poetry, but not an accurate description of the color. Seeing the egret reminded me to look carefully, to look beyond the man made world. The closest I can come to a color for the dry summer hills is tawny, the color of a lion. The wind stirs the dry grasses, and they ripple with whites, pale yellows, browns, tans – a subtle pallet. The hills are dotted with oaks, most of them alive, but a significant number are not. Is it sudden oak death, or something else? Whatever is killing them, it’s sad to see.
This landscape is so different from the lush green of Otsego County. And the sky is different too. Mars has been at its closest to earth recently, and even here, with light pollution and lots of trees blocking the sky view, it is big and reddish. But I’m sorry to have missed this close passage on our dark hill. One of the biggest differences between night in Hartwick and night in Palo Alto is how many of the lights in the sky here are in motion. I look up, wondering what that bright star is, and realize it’s moving – heading towards SFO or away. When I lived here I was pretty oblivious to how busy the sky is, night and day. But now, after months when a plane in view is notable, the Bay Area sky seems cluttered with its own traffic.
Last night we sat under the busy sky with Blythe, Fiona and Cian after services, eating Rick’s fabulous ice cream, and remembering Grandma Nancy. Before services we had been to a lively and delicious dinner with Blythe and the kids, Carrie, Felicia, David (our minister from CSL) and Mauricio (his partner). On August 6th it will be the 10th anniversary of Nancy’s death, and we had her name read at Beth Am this week as we have done since around 2010 when Jay joined the congregation. We sat together under the trees at Beth Am’s outdoor summer service, and stood together at kaddish. We walked up to the wall of memory and touched the raised letters of her name, and I suspect we each thought of how her death had changed our lives.
Our lives change and change. Walking Charlie in the quiet summer mornings on Thomas Drive, I think of how my future looked to me when Joe and I moved here nearly a quarter century ago. The street hasn’t changed much, and I still know many of the neighbors. It’s still me walking the dog, as I walked Penny back then. But the chatter inside my head is different, calmer perhaps, less focused on the immediate demands of work and raising a teenager. Now I have the joy of watching that challenging teenager raising her own two boys. I can see some of my Mom’s parenting in hers, and some of my own. But as it should be, she has built on what she learned, adding her own unique and thoughtful stamp to the task. But there is this lovely continuity. Her boys know an egret, as does she, as do I, as did my mom. The chatter in my head on my morning walks is more focused on the things that endure even when the people we first shared them with are gone.