The long winter trip
February 5, 2005 | 12:00am
Hello, I am back from a long trip to visit my daughter in San Francisco and my mother in Vancouver. I was gone for around two months, over the holidays, at the height of winter. The strange thing about trips is that they happen so smoothly on the surface. You don’t miss a flight. Everything works perfectly. No luggage lost. Everything is fine. If you describe your trip on that basis alone, why write about it at all?
A trip has many meaning levels, some are for sharing, others are for figuring out and accepting by yourself very early in the morning when jet lag or something like that awakens you and you cannot again escape into sleep. After a stroke you begin to achieve clarity, forced to accept that life is here again, new again. You have to figure it out, determine the road you want to take, and go for it while you still have time and strength enough. In short, it is time to focus on a dream, to work on it single-mindedly, to set the stage for it to happen. But first. . .
How beautiful the Bay Area is! I had forgotten. What a stunning panoramic view from Risa’s kitchen and from her sanctuary, which she assigned to me as my bedroom. Her house is on top of a hill that overlooks everything and finally the bay. Lisa, my other friend who also lives on a mountain and also has a lovely view, looked and said, "You see everybody’s backyard." That was the short compelling view. There is the neighbor’s tent. Oh look, it got upturned by last night’s storm! The strong wind must have ripped it out of the earth and battered it down. The roof is torn. It must distress the owners. They picked it up and dumped it on the deck where their children played last summer. It’s a lovely deck behind their home that is fully ignored this winter. I hardly see people, only old toys, faded and forgotten, buffeted by wind and rain. Wait-till-I have-time-and-spirit to fix you. That’s the mood from that backyard.
But this short view became longer and longer including more homes divided by winding roads, clusters of pine interrupted by a solitary tropical palm, glimpses of perpetual speed on the freeway and finally the bay with what looks like islands dotted with skyscrapers. At night it became endless levels of light in blues and shades of yellow and white with occasional neons. I stared out at that view with nothing particular in mind a lot of the time, just a person letting go, letting this view carry her away wherever. Those were the spectacular moments of my vacation: Doing nothing, just staring out into the beautiful quiet space. I think that built my strength.
Vancouver is a lovely place, to me an extension of the Bay Area, except it has a European touch. It has markets big and small with wonderful food in them. This may not be factual. It is just my memory of Vancouver, which I first visited four years ago. Here I have intimate knowledge of the Plaza 500 Hotel on Camby Road and 13th Avenue? Is that the right number? Anyway, it is four blocks away from where my mother used to live. It is a three-star hotel. People stay here for their convenience. I have sampled the entire room service menu, quite small actually and delicious enough. Anything washed down with two glasses of red wine is delicious enough. I have purchased enough take-home lunches from the small mall across it to carry to my mother’s apartment walking through four slippery blocks of snow bundled up in four layers of clothing, the most external a hooded heavy coat with a scarf that virtually wraps my face. Waiting at the front door of her large apartment house ringing her bell and hoping for her to answer but finally finding a person on his or her way out or in to get me into the building.
In Vancouver I have one thought. I belong to the Sandwich Generation, caught between my children and my mother, the only parent I have ever known, the only one I have loved, the one I have hurt the most. Being human this is what we do well. We love and hurt our parents the most and then when they are old we try to care for them for our own sakes. No one knows what life is without parents. Even my mother in her eighties remembers hers. When asked to choose between our parents and our children – a highly unfair choice – we will choose our children. We are responsible for them just like our parents are responsible for us. But when we privately evaluate our lives, we begin with our parents and never exclude them. Our children? There are portions of our lives when we did not have them. We can go back to those days. But there is no time when we did not have our parents.
The last time I was in Vancouver was a marvelous time. My mother would come to my room and we would watch movies on television then laugh a lot about the movie and related topics. She was late in her seventies then but very chic and beautiful. I remember we were on the bus going to Granville Island and a makeup artist complimented her on her make-up. She was so proud of herself. I remember when she saw me off at the airport. After the heavy goodbye kiss I walked away from her, pretended not to look back. But I did turn around. Sadness descended on me and tears sprang to my eyes as I watched her walk away, forcing herself to walk straight, telling herself not look back. She did not. Only I did. It was the last time I would see her so proud and tall. That realization makes Vancouver zap the strength I grew in the Bay Area.
A trip has many meaning levels, some are for sharing, others are for figuring out and accepting by yourself very early in the morning when jet lag or something like that awakens you and you cannot again escape into sleep. After a stroke you begin to achieve clarity, forced to accept that life is here again, new again. You have to figure it out, determine the road you want to take, and go for it while you still have time and strength enough. In short, it is time to focus on a dream, to work on it single-mindedly, to set the stage for it to happen. But first. . .
How beautiful the Bay Area is! I had forgotten. What a stunning panoramic view from Risa’s kitchen and from her sanctuary, which she assigned to me as my bedroom. Her house is on top of a hill that overlooks everything and finally the bay. Lisa, my other friend who also lives on a mountain and also has a lovely view, looked and said, "You see everybody’s backyard." That was the short compelling view. There is the neighbor’s tent. Oh look, it got upturned by last night’s storm! The strong wind must have ripped it out of the earth and battered it down. The roof is torn. It must distress the owners. They picked it up and dumped it on the deck where their children played last summer. It’s a lovely deck behind their home that is fully ignored this winter. I hardly see people, only old toys, faded and forgotten, buffeted by wind and rain. Wait-till-I have-time-and-spirit to fix you. That’s the mood from that backyard.
But this short view became longer and longer including more homes divided by winding roads, clusters of pine interrupted by a solitary tropical palm, glimpses of perpetual speed on the freeway and finally the bay with what looks like islands dotted with skyscrapers. At night it became endless levels of light in blues and shades of yellow and white with occasional neons. I stared out at that view with nothing particular in mind a lot of the time, just a person letting go, letting this view carry her away wherever. Those were the spectacular moments of my vacation: Doing nothing, just staring out into the beautiful quiet space. I think that built my strength.
Vancouver is a lovely place, to me an extension of the Bay Area, except it has a European touch. It has markets big and small with wonderful food in them. This may not be factual. It is just my memory of Vancouver, which I first visited four years ago. Here I have intimate knowledge of the Plaza 500 Hotel on Camby Road and 13th Avenue? Is that the right number? Anyway, it is four blocks away from where my mother used to live. It is a three-star hotel. People stay here for their convenience. I have sampled the entire room service menu, quite small actually and delicious enough. Anything washed down with two glasses of red wine is delicious enough. I have purchased enough take-home lunches from the small mall across it to carry to my mother’s apartment walking through four slippery blocks of snow bundled up in four layers of clothing, the most external a hooded heavy coat with a scarf that virtually wraps my face. Waiting at the front door of her large apartment house ringing her bell and hoping for her to answer but finally finding a person on his or her way out or in to get me into the building.
In Vancouver I have one thought. I belong to the Sandwich Generation, caught between my children and my mother, the only parent I have ever known, the only one I have loved, the one I have hurt the most. Being human this is what we do well. We love and hurt our parents the most and then when they are old we try to care for them for our own sakes. No one knows what life is without parents. Even my mother in her eighties remembers hers. When asked to choose between our parents and our children – a highly unfair choice – we will choose our children. We are responsible for them just like our parents are responsible for us. But when we privately evaluate our lives, we begin with our parents and never exclude them. Our children? There are portions of our lives when we did not have them. We can go back to those days. But there is no time when we did not have our parents.
The last time I was in Vancouver was a marvelous time. My mother would come to my room and we would watch movies on television then laugh a lot about the movie and related topics. She was late in her seventies then but very chic and beautiful. I remember we were on the bus going to Granville Island and a makeup artist complimented her on her make-up. She was so proud of herself. I remember when she saw me off at the airport. After the heavy goodbye kiss I walked away from her, pretended not to look back. But I did turn around. Sadness descended on me and tears sprang to my eyes as I watched her walk away, forcing herself to walk straight, telling herself not look back. She did not. Only I did. It was the last time I would see her so proud and tall. That realization makes Vancouver zap the strength I grew in the Bay Area.
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