The Hills Are Dry

Coming home to the Bay Area for winter break during college was like stepping from Kansas to Oz. No more black and white of New England winters, or, far worse, dull brown if the snow hadn't yet arrived. Just lush, green hills, buds on the valley oaks biding their time in the wind and rain, muddy trails, and the start of the vernal pools.

This year, all is brown. It's unsettling. The oaks are bare, but their brown silhouettes blend into the sunburnt backdrop that is the hills. It's not how it should be. We aren't like other parts of the country here, not in summer nor in winter. This is supposed to be our time of regeneration. 

I spent time in the Bay Area as a child during the drought of the late eighties, and I know what to do if it's yellow and what to do if it's brown. I'm expecting that this will come back into vogue. I'm expecting a devastating fire season. I'm expecting water rationing and municipal squabbling over what little run off we get this summer.

But on the way back from Sacramento, we spotted something out the car window that at least gives me hope for my favorite, drought-tolerant trees: underneath those valley oaks, Quercus lobata, within the radius of where their bent, spread branches nearly reach the ground, the grass is green. Little green circles, slight, but there, protected and shaded and fed by the moisture the tree can spare. The hills are dry, but the trees are alive.

Farewell, 2013

It's been a strange year. It began on an off-note, with my husband still in bed with what the Swedes call vinterkraksjuken, or "winter vomiting sickness," aka norovirus. (The Swedes are remarkably direct at times.) I tried my best to light one of those floating paper lanterns off of our balcony, the kind where you're supposed to write a wish on the inside, but it was too windy, and it didn't take off. I left it outside, and the snow and rain turned it to pulp.

At the time, I did my best to avoid the melodrama of the too-easy symbolism of my failed lantern. At least I hadn't written a wish. But it actually has turned been a year of false starts, of almost-theres, of returns, of plans on hold, of another international move, some strange health issues, and of many things just not turning out the way we'd hoped. 

It's also gone really, really quickly. My memory of fumbling behind the couch to find the big box of flattened lanterns is as vivid as my memory of running laundry this morning. I'm also not completely convinced it's not still July, and the persistent lack of rain isn't helping.

But. In the grand scheme, unlike some close friends, I have very little to truly complain about. Just a lot going on, and a lot to carry. But I'm on it. And 2013 brought some pretty amazing travel moments, second and third on the list (in no particular order) being seeing the aurora borealis in Abisko, north of the arctic circle, and going dog sledding on my own sled in that arctic wilderness. And I even got to go to Stonehenge and then watch a high school friend bring Yellow Face to the UK for the first time (number four collectively, if I'm still making a list).

The best, though. The best half day of 2013 was when I stumbled upon the Borough Market just as I was looking for lunch. I ate a sandwich made of bread, applesauce, and pork belly with chitlins. And then I went to the Globe for King Lear.

I've always wanted to see Lear staged. I don't know whether I'll ever feel the need to do so again--it was that good. It was gorgeous, awesome, and heart-breaking. Joseph Marcell as Lear was brilliant. I wandered into the Tate Modern afterwards out of a sense of duty, rode an escalator upstairs, and then rode it back down and went back outside to stare at the river. I was done. Saturated. So good.

The Divide

Silicon Valley, we have a problem.

This just isn't sustainable. And the burdens are falling where they usually fall--on the shoulders of people who can least afford to bear them.

I've Been Thinking a Lot About Place

I’ve been thinking a lot about place. With my life these days, it's a hard topic to avoid. Right now I commute from one valley to another, straight up the peninsula, through San Francisco, and over the Golden Gate Bridge. I go through at least three microclimate zones, and probably more. The fog descends, then lifts. The scents that come through my cracked windows change—dry, golden grass, eucalyptus, low tide, dense fog, and finally, as I get out of my car, stretch, and take a deep breath, bay trees and coastal oaks.

I’ve been thinking about the city workers strike that happened in Hayward this summer, about the union member on the radio who told the reporter that they all just want to be able to live where they work.

I’ve been thinking about my state, the state that theoretically went from deficit to surplus in the year and change that I was gone, the state where housing prices have skyrocketed, but my friends and former colleagues at community colleges are, for all intents and purposes, losing their benefits, slice by slice. This is not just the voice of a woman who wants a full time teaching position (although I do); this is the voice of a woman who is seriously concerned about the health of her community.

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Psychological, Not Sociological

Thanks to Audible's Cyber Monday sale (which would be the only one I actually got it together to take advantage of), I'm now listening to Methland, by Nick Reding.

He quotes Douglas Constance, a rural sociologist at Sam Houston State University, as saying that the US is a psychological, and not a sociological, nation. That is, when there are problems in our country, state, or city, we'll look to the individual as the source of the solution, and the nexus of blame, and not the larger society.

This rings more true to me than just about anything I've ever heard said about this country. A quick glance back through older posts will reveal that I'm not exactly a fan of our penchant for seeking individual solutions to societal problems, which would be exactly where this viewpoint breaks down in its ability to lead to real, substantial change.

However, I'm well aware that problems on the other side exist. A year or so in Sweden, a sociological nation if ever there were one, will do that. Why address problems on the individual level at all if the state will step in? And while I know there are many, many cultural factors at play, it's hard for me to not see this impacting the way people deal with each other in public spaces, when I'm the only person in a crowd who helps a woman pick up her groceries, or my husband is the only one in Ikea who helps two struggling shoppers lift a giant box.

Fascinating. Douglas Constance, if I'm spelling your name correctly, I'll have to check out some more of your work.