Fishing matters a lot to me and my dad.
Not because either of us actually likes fishing - I know I don't, particularly, and I suspect he doesn't either - but rather because it's just...I don't know, it's our way to be together. Out on the water, in the air and the quiet, talking when we want to and throwing a line out into the ocean when we don't.
It matters.
A few days after my daughter was born, I was sitting outside by the pool with her, watching the light filtering down through the trees and listening to the sounds of Kendrick and Indy playing in the water, and I suddenly thought to myself how much I wanted her to remember that exact moment, even though I knew she never would. And so I set down my phone next to her head, pointed up towards the clouds and the trees and the scarf I'd draped across the top of her carrier, and I recorded a video. Just a few seconds of light and sound and sky, just so she could see what life looked like to her way back when.
Every so often, Indy will pick up my camera, and start taking photo after photo after photo, and I have this kneejerk impulse to stop him - no honey, you might break it, careful not to fill up the memory card, please don't mess around with mommy's things - and then I realize: wait.
How beautiful, to have this record of what life is like through his eyes.
Our one not-house-hunting, non-quarantined day was spent in Berkeley with Francesca and her brother, and we packed in enough good stuff that I went home feeling like, you know: we rode old-fashioned steam trains through the hills. And saw dolphins. I had the best latte I have ever had in my life (at Cafe Med, on Telegraph). And we ate Burmese food and played in the sand, and got ice cream whenever possible. And even a trip to urgent care is…well, it's its own kind of memory, right? (The steam trains were better.)
Oh, also: we made a quick stop into Industrial Tattoo and Piercing, and I finally went ahead and pierced my nose (Indy got to choose the jewelry; he went with a diamond over a gold stud; good man).
Yesterday Morgan and I took our kids down to the beach next to the Golden Gate bridge, and laid back on blankets and watched them running around discovering crabs and making sandcastles and high-fiving - god, they are cute together - and I told her how strange it was to be leaving a place that I know so well for a place I don't know at all, not even a little bit. Sure, we live in the suburbs now, but we're still right there next to a city that feels like my city. Every corner I turn is filled with memories that I don't only "remember," but feel. And we're moving to another suburb next to another city, but when we drive through the streets of San Francisco I don't see a single signpost I recognize. I don't know where to go to get a cup of coffee. I don't know which direction to drive in if I want to see the water.
I'm nervous to be leaving a city that feels like a part of my bones for a city that doesn't even contain a whisper of a memory for me. I know I'll get to know whatever small town we end up in well, but I wonder if I'll ever really know San Francisco the way I know New York, or ever really feel like it's "home."
So we were laying there in the sand, talking about these things and watching our kids splashing down by the edge of the water, and all of a sudden I saw it:
I was SO EXCITED to play with a GoPro on this vacation.
I mean, have you seen the images that people can take with that thing?
Anyway, it turns out we might need just a teeny bit of practice. Because see that video up there? Approximately 75% of those shots were taken when one or the other of us thought that the thing was off and were just holding it.
