Trappings Of Travel

It is hard to believe, but it is less than a week until I will be landing in London, picking up my rental car and heading out on a new adventure to various destinations.

This trip is really special to me.  I have a lot of heritage linking back to the British Isles, including my grandmother who came from Yorkshire, and I will be meeting some of that family while I am there.  I am so grateful for the family and friends who will be playing host to this Yank.

As I get older, I find that the planning and organizing of a trip is half the fun.  Well, I won't say it is half, but it is certainly a fun part of the whole adventure.  There has been a lot of planning, and I have a pretty full agenda.  I won't go into details, because it is my hope that I'll find time in that full agenda to share some thoughts and pictures on this blog, or at the least, some quick notes on Facebook.

But for now, I fancy a spot of tea.

Happy Saturday from Silicon Valley.

Muted Shades of Spring

It is my seventh spring in the Bay Area.  I have to say, I have not tired of life in the Bay Area yet.  Set the cost of living aside, life in here is vibrant.  The beautiful diversity of communities, the unique contrast of a more old(ish) world environment in San Francisco to the funky coastal communities near Santa Cruz to the almost too quickly changing face of Silicon Valley.

Spring 2017, California Coast

Then there is the weather.  For a guy who has lived in many northern climates, the beautiful and consistent weather can become a bit bland.  The lack of drama of the fall gives way to the pastel-grey of winter which is more of a doze than a sleep.

People who come from the north like to say there are no season changes in a place like this, as well as in San Diego, where I lived in the early 1990s.  But it's not true, they just aren't as dramatic.  When I left San Diego in 1992, I was "missing the seasons" and I very much enjoyed my first fall and winter in Idaho.

It is different now.  Maybe it is that I am nearing 60, rather than just being beyond 30.  Indeed I remain happy here, seven years gone.  I've come to appreciate the shades of my favorite season, Spring.  I like the pockets of Autumn that appear when Summer is gone, and I've learned where to find them, here near my Bay Area home.

But, as if to give me a little taste of what was, the Northern California winter was colder than usual, wetter than usual, and the sunroof on my car was planted shut for months.  In the last couple weeks, as the solstice came, the stream of clouds and rain that graced the area for what seemed months without much rest, relented.

Yes, the shades of Spring are still muted here.  The rich smell of the countryside awakening that I recall from Pennsylvania, Idaho, Maryland and Germany will not be equaled by the Bay Area, but there is a richness about this particular March that will remain with me.

Happy Sunday from Silicon Valley in Spring.

Snows Over Silicon Valley

It has been a crazy year, weather wise.  Here, in Silicon Valley, it has manifested itself in fairly prolific rains, which can be a good problem to have, for an area that has gone dry a number of years recently.

In a sense, I've been in a dry spell, creatively.  Not that I'm not pursuing creative endeavors, far from it.  However, my endeavors, of late, have been pretty singular.  My cameras have been cooling off, I haven't written poetry lately, and I haven't worked on any short fiction.

The fact is, I have been focused.  I have been so focused on this one project, that I've deprived myself of some of my other creative loves.  A novel I have worked on for many years continues to need TLC to be truly complete.  Finding where it went wrong, which is really a story longer than the novel itself, has been a journey unto itself.  The things I'm learning go deeper than just this one story.  There are elements of my vision for story telling that are wrapped up in this, and in a sense, there are elements of who I am, here and now.

This weekend, I broke away from that novel, and started a short story, and just in the development of a fresh story, I am starting to see the things I'm learning.  Remember the movie The Karate Kid, where Daniel does menial tasks and doesn't understand how they relate to karate?  Miyagi then show him just how much he has learned.

Maybe it's a bit like that.  Maybe not, but it sounds good.

Whatever the point, after finishing the rough draft of this new story, I went for a coffee with my son Daniel (not a karate kid, as far as I know) and then came back to the house.  On the way, the hills near my house peeked from under rich clouds to show a fresh coat of snow.  We do get snow on those hills, but not usually this much.

I grabbed up my camera, and went to Baylands Park, and shot some photos.  Nothing all that special in the narrative of the photos, but a space in time.  I spoke to a few people in the park about the remarkable weather, and the beauty of the day.  I basked in the sun and cool.  I hung out with some geese.

That novel really does need to be finished.  The puzzles within it need to be solved so I can put it to rest, and feel that I did it justice.  It inches ever closer.

But today reminds me that sometimes we need to take a break from the things we use to take a break from our day-to-day lives.

Did that make sense?  It did to me.  I think.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy these pictures of a space in time.

Happy Sunday from Silicon Valley.