The journey doesn’t end when the wheels of the plane touch down. It is only noon in San Francisco, and we will try to push through until evening to straighten out our internal clocks. I have not yet slept and my back is killing me from a muscle I pulled before getting on the flight, worsened by eleven hours of immobility. We move, zombie-like, through immigration and customs. I am always relieved when this is over; some guilty part of me expects to be caught and interrogated (for what, I don’t know). It takes my husband the engineer a while to figure out how to pack all of our suitcases into the trunk of the rental in a way that appeases his sense of spacial efficiency. We meet my brother in Millbrae for dimsum. I can tell by their eyes that the kids are quietly hoping for presents, and show their affection by calling him variations on “Uncle Fart.” Dimsum just makes me sleepier, so we set off down the sidewalk looking for coffee but quickly give up; the South Bay is not scaled for short-term pedestrian expeditions.
On the way back down highway 101 we are surprised, once again, at the shabby state of the road. Scruffy bushes, run down buildings, graffiti-covered walls, and trash dot the shoulder of the highway, and yet there is something invigorating about being back here. Is it the light? The clearness of the air, the crisp blue of the California sky? A tattooed man drives by, reclining a little in his souped-up Honda and I think, “I missed this place and I didn’t even know it.”
My husband and I argue a bit about the location of Peets Coffee. Is it the San Antonio or Rengstorff exit? Having lived here for seven years we trust our memories more than we should and don’t googlemap ahead of time. The beginning of each trip involves readjusting our price assessments — wow, gas is four bucks now! (Still cheaper than Korea.) But a latte is only $2.50! That first sip is the real start of my vacation. I take it with a large dose of ibuprofen. I can’t help staring at all the different kinds of people here: the teenagers wearing flip-flops and low-cut jeans, a couple who mark their affinity for the Southwest with vests and turquoise jewelry, two Korean students whose conversation I can’t help but listen to, the young Silicon Valley cool geeks. It is amazing how many people are just hanging out in a coffee shop on a Thursday afternoon.
Finally we head down El Camino Real. Patio World, the landmark which marked the turnoff to our old apartment, is gone, but most of the other small stores are the same. The kids are bouncing, they are anxious to see their friends. We park on the side of the road and our friend Bob is standing in the driveway while his two daughters ride their bikes in the lawn wearing bathing suits. W is out of his seatbelt before K turns off the ignition, then out of the car, then out of his shoes running barefoot across the lawn. He and Bob’s older daughter H begin right where they left off a year ago, chanting and making forts. “Where’s the hammock?” W asks Bob.
M stands on the driveway and watches them for a little while, holding his blankie. The family’s two big dogs come over and sniff him and he doesn’t pull away, just watches, leaning on me a little bit. The dogs he sees in Seoul can fit into a handbag, so it always takes him some time to warm up to Velo and Fusi. But this time he seems calm and comfortable. After a few minutes he asks me for his sandals, since he is not willing to go barefoot quite yet. He follows W and H as they run through the house, into H’s room, out into the garden, back through the yard, and in and out of the garage. As we unload the suitcases the kids have made themselves at home, knowing the spaces and contours of Bob and Carrie’s house as well as they do our own.
In the last post in the series I wrote about balancing stability and change, comfort and uncertainty. And here is my chance to register my gratitude for some of the sources of stability and comfort in our travels: the generosity of our friends who allow us to stay with them every time we come to the area. Bob and Carrie and their daughters and dogs are part of our extended worldwide family, and being with them at their home allows us to really relax although we are far from our own residence. Their home also allows our kids to experience a kind of life they don’t have in the city. When we’re at Bob and Carrie’s we take the dogs for walks, eat fruit from their garden, run barefoot through the grass, read books in the hammock, draw with chalk on the driveway, cool off in a wading pool or spray from a garden hose, grind coffee with a hand grinder Bob made.
W, a fan of the Magic Treehouse books, has been wanting to build a treehouse, but we don’t have a tree. The ones in Bob and Carrie’s yard are perfect — large, with many sturdy branches. I can see W evaluate their climability with his eyes. I wonder what W imagines when he reads about Annie and Jack running through the Frog Creek woods to their treehouse — does he picture Bob and Carrie’s neighborhood? Or his Michigan friend Leah’s farm where we fed horses and went for a ride through the woods in a Gator? I like to believe that getting to taste different modes of living, even briefly, expands the kids’ sense of possibility.
The kids play through the afternoon, giving the adults a chance to reorganize, unpack, and catch up. K and Bob, who were labmates during their PhDs, drink beers and talk shop, exchanging stories about the rest of the lab, Bob’s work, K’s company, their plans, our plans. Carrie returns and we talk about writing, reading, and teaching. It does not feel like a year has passed even though the kids are a lot bigger. In the evening Bob and K’s doctoral advisor and more lab friends and acquaintances come for dinner. W shows K’s advisor a book about robotics that he is reading, remembering how they toured the lab on our last trip. Over the next two days we make the rounds, visiting friends from work and school, visits which have their own routines: ice cream and the bookstore with Gaby and Danielle, burritos with Sanjiv at his place. The repetition of person and context (Sanjiv’s house, the playground with the concrete slide, Kepler’s bookstore) gives the kids a kind of special, shared history with people who are my friends or my husband’s friends.
We have maintained, to some extent, consistent ports of call — homes away from home. Many of these are family outposts. Each time we visit my father we leave behind some small toys in the drawers and crevices of his serviced apartment. Our first task upon returning there is to rediscover those treasures. We never remember which toys we have left behind or where we have left them, so although the toys are familiar they gain a sheen of newness and magic from the pleasure of the treasure hunt. Going back to a familiar place — my father’s apartment, or Bob and Carrie’s house — is just like that. The place and people are familiar, but rediscovering them is a delightful and magical process.
Visiting these friends and family members also allows us to build on a set of stories. If the kids learn about the landscape of Seoul from their grandfather and father, these places in the U.S. belong to us. The church where we were married, the apartment where we lived, the people we went to school with, the people we used to work with — I don’t know how interesting those things are for the kids as facts in and of themselves, but getting to know (through slow repetition) those places and people may be useful for them later. Because K was an immigrant whose father’s education was interrupted by war, he is very conscious of the network of friends and mentors his father was not able to give him. He had few adults to turn to for advice about careers, academics, or life in general. He feels, belatedly, that his vision of his future was limited by what his father sent him to the U.S. to do without himself knowing what that really involved: get an education. We both hope to be around for long enough to advise our kids but should our knowledge fail (or should the kids resent us too much by then) I hope they remember, and feel comfortable enough with, Bob, Carrie, Professor K, Sanjiv, Danielle, Emily, or any of the others who have watched them grow up. If nothing else, I hope they remember the generosity of our friends and family members and are guided by that standard as they grow up and cultivate their own relationships.
This year is a strange one. In less than two months we will move, so every thought is backgrounded by the expectation of interruption; every act has as its shadow “This may be the last time I do this.” My mother and father have both moved this year as well, and both long-distance moves. My mom’s place, once a repository of the strata of my childhood photos, toys, and trophies, is now compacted in boxes to the ceiling of a garage in San Diego. As we prepare to shift our base of operations I would like to have a few secure positions to fall back on should things go awry, but sometimes the balance shifts more towards change and uncertainty and you just have to trust that your tents will keep out the water while you build a more permanent shelter.
As we head back up highway 101 towards SFO to catch a flight to my mom’s new place in San Diego, it doesn’t feel like a goodbye. Although it will probably be a year or two before we return, as long as friends remain and the Big One doesn’t come, I think we will always feel at home here. The journey doesn’t begin when the wheels of the plane touch down.
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