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| Photo by Bill Slavin |
San Francisco's fog hung back from the City as we crossed the Bay Bridge at the other end of town. I smiled at the fog bank, looked ahead to the City's skyline, and realized I felt happy to be coming home. We spent the last three days in Livermore in the East Bay sorting through storage containers at the moving company where we stored most of our worldly goods. After each exhausting day, we spent the evenings at a bed and breakfast inn in the heart of the Livermore wine country. We looked over vast acres of grapevines and olive trees, ranch houses, harvesting equipment, and barns, leading to the rolling hills in the distance. We saw a bucolic, peaceful scene in front of us, so much different from our new life in the City.
In the early morning, we sat outside the lodge in rocking chairs and listened to the birds singing in the nearby trees. A mockingbird captured our attention with its variations of other songbirds' songs. The grapevines hung thick with clusters of ripened, purple grapes. We didn't hear the sound of a fire engine, streetcar, or plane overhead. The dampness from the night was slowly drying as the sun rose higher in the sky, leaving behind the dry heat that we were used to in our former home.
We drove to downtown Livermore, a surprisingly large town in the middle of farm country. The town is bustling with small restaurants and local businesses along the main street. We stopped once for coffee at Press at one end of town and for coffee at Coffee On First at the other end. We ate dinner at Uncle Yu's, a well-known East Bay restaurant with Chinese cuisine. Wondering around Livermore felt so much like our previous life, with people looking familiar to us because they wore similar clothes and were doing the same things we used to do, meeting friends for coffee, getting ready to play golf or ride a bike, or celebrating a friend's birthday.
Since we bought a condominium in the City, we continue to bounce back and forth between thinking our purchase was a big mistake and enjoying all the activities we can now do because we are so close to parks, museums, ballparks, and theaters. We like the mix of age groups, languages, and cultures that are part of our new neighborhood. We are glad we have had the time to think our decision through even though our 3-day trip was filled with fluctuating doubts. As we drove across the Bay Bridge, I had a spark of recognition that the City has become our new home, the place we want to be right now. We can always make a short trip to enjoy country life. Nothing is forever.
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| Photo by Bill Slavin |
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I hope you have all voted or plan to vote next Tuesday, November 5.
I read this opinion somewhere this week but failed to note its author. The person still made an important, thoughtful point:
" This election is about character. It is not about the character of the candidates, but about our own."
