My husband and I are used to being empty nesters. Our daughters have been living on their own for years, with jobs, partners, plans, and dreams far beyond their childhood universe.
Now we’re empty branchers, too. Along with the cornbread stuffing and apple cake we brought to Thanksgiving, we delivered Emma’s collection of Christmas tree ornaments we’ve been accumulating since before her birth to her and her fiancé.
Emma’s sister Ally got her ornaments in 2019, the first Christmas she lived with her then-boyfriend, now husband. They had a tree higher than the knee-high ones from the supermarket–the criterion for the hand-off. And now so does Emma, so the changeover is complete.
My husband and I thought maybe we’d have to get a knee-high tree ourselves to accommodate our significantly depleted inventory. Luckily, though, I’ve been collecting ornaments since long before I met my husband, long before we had kids. So we did all right, and didn’t even have to dig into the stash of the last-resort ornaments.
I admit it was hard to relinquish one ornament, though–my all-time favorite we got for Emma’s first Christmas.
Emma knew of my attachment, and very thoughtfully said, “I’m not sure I’m ready to have this one yet, though.”
But we both knew it was time. Now my baby in the cradle is in her forever home, just where she belongs:
My husband and I recently saw the Taylor Swift film. Since tickets to her San Francisco show cost $49-499 (plus fees), were hard to come by, and averaged $3,801 on the resale market, we got quite a bargain with our senior rate of $13.25 each. Even the risk of a parking violation for exceeding the 2-hour limit would have made it a steal. And we got much better seats!
Here’s the sum total of my Taylor Swift knowledge before I saw the three-hour film of her last 2023 Eras Tour concert in the U.S, in LA’s SoFi stadium:
She is about the same age as my daughters (who could pretty much care less about her)
She is a young, pretty singer-songwriter who makes the Beatles-era screaming, underwear-throwing audiences seem tame
She is super-rich
Pod Save America host Jon Favreau’s wife, Emily, is a huge fan
Heeding Taylor’s call, 35,000 people registered to vote in one hour
She seems like a nice person
She is either dating or not dating Travis Kelce, an NFL tight end, but is definitely messing with the media
Actually, they both have pretty tight ends. That much I picked up from the movie, as Taylor strutted her stuff, musically and physically, non-stop for an energetic 3-hour extravaganza. Early on, I leaned over and whispered to my husband, “Is this a prequel or a sequel to Barbie?” Taylor and her fellow female blockbuster bear a strong physical resemblance, and both can be interpreted as either sexualized objects or the embodiment of feminist power.
At any rate, my husband and I only made it through the first two hours not because we didn’t like the movie, but because (a) bladder size; (b) we were worried about getting a parking ticket; and (c) we wanted dinner. We didn’t feel we were missing out on that much since there’s no plot or character arc to complete in a live-concert film. We got the gist of her pleasant music, generosity toward her fans, sexpot/wholesome vibe, and fabulous production values.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Taylor ever missed the time when she was just a girl with the voice and a guitar alone on a stage.
Joan Baez was that girl. To a large extent, she still is. Right after we saw the Taylor Swift movie, we took in the new documentary, Joan Baez: I am a Noise (senior rate: $9.75 each). It makes for an interesting double feature if you’ve got five hours to spare and no fear of parking tickets.
The two—the films and the women–could not be more different. Although there’s music in I am a Noise, it’s by no means a concert movie. But it is a portrait of a full and complicated person—a sister, a daughter, a musician, an artist, an activist, an ambivalent lover, wife, and mother.
I knew a lot about Joan Baez before this film:
Most of her lyrics by heart
Her relationship with Bob Dylan as told through “Diamonds and Rust”
She was jailed, along with my mother-in-law, for a month in Santa Rita County Jail, for blocking an induction center in protest of the Vietnam war–and sang for all the inmates, protesters and prostitutes alike
She was briefly married to the anti-war activist David Harris, and together they had a son, Gabriel
She was ubiquitous at civil rights and anti-war demonstrations
She was Mimi Farina’s sister, and did a set most years at Mimi’s Bread and Roses fundraising concert, which I went to every year at Berkeley’s Greek Theater
Mostly, though, she was the girl on the stage with a guitar and the voice of an angel
What I did not know is that Joan was also a great visual artist; came from a family with extremely complicated dynamics, including a father who probably sexually abused his daughters; had intense love and rivalry with her sisters; and suffered from debilitating anxiety and depression from a young age. She described herself as being great at relating to thousands of people at once, and pretty terrible at one-on-ones. The documentary was one of the most honest self-appraisals I have ever seen.
Although Joan’s inner life is rich with pyrotechnics, her stagecraft had virtually none. When did this change? Was it MTV? Skyrocketing ticket prices demanding more than just a great musician? Audience attention spans of fleas? More likely I’m just another old fogey who thinks things were better in my day. I am definitely of the Joan Baez rather than the Taylor Swift era.
Taylor Swift’s tour was built around her albums as eras, while I am a Noise covered the sweep of some of America’s—and Joan’s own–more turbulent eras. It is more of a Coming to Terms movie than a Coming of Age one. And how could it not be? Joan is in her 9th decade, Taylor just mid-way through her 4th. She hasn’t lived long enough for a true retrospective, but is as important to her era as Joan was to mine.
Long may they both reign. I hope they always hold dear the era of being the girl with the voice and a guitar, alone on stage, and already enough.
The numbing horror of a world gone mad is an apt time for a solar eclipse dubbed “ring of fire.” That describes the doom spirals of Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Gaza, the accelerating climate crisis, and the House Republicans. I feel so much that I feel practically nothing.
As a hassle-averse person, I am not one to look to the heavens if it involves crowds, special glasses, and going beyond my house. Perhaps this leaves me awe-averse, too, missing out on the unity that comes from rare moments of shared mass wonder.
NASA’s incredible photography layers awe with dread: confirmation of a world afire. Then I chanced upon a photo spread in The Atlantic of people all over the world viewing this month’s annular eclipse. At least for a moment, they had escaped the gravitational drag of the world’s heaviness.
I could see them, but I felt apart. Only the lone dove on a power pole in Brazil, silhouetted against the eclipse-bitten sun, broke through to me. A fragile, gangly emblem of the peace I hope for, so stark, small, but somehow here.
When I was in grade school, I desperately wanted a Barbie. My parents, opposed on principle, got me a Midge doll instead—brunette, freckled, and definitely not Barbie. I was devastated, but had to act grateful for this clearly inferior model. (The same held true when, instead of a Barbie Dreamhouse or even a normal center-hall colonial dollhouse, a play gas station awaited me under the Christmas tree.)
My second-rate Midge had a first-rate wardrobe, however. Not because my parents made up for their failures by buying lots of Mattel outfits, but because my friend Tim’s mother, an accomplished seamstress, constantly gave me exquisitely sewn miniature costumes. I don’t know why she did this. Did Tim have a crush on me? Was his much-older sister far too cool for Barbie? Did my parents secretly pay Tim’s mom to keep further profits out of Mattel’s dirty clutches?
Somehow I overcame my devastation. The Barbie years left little impact other than making me careful about how my husband and I handled our own daughters years later. Since I’d taken to heart that thwarting wishes for the real deal only increases desire, we bought no Midge dolls for our girls. Or possibly any Barbie’s—not out of principle, but because they got plenty as birthday presents. At any rate, the furor over Barbie Lust and the people who decried it had died down by the time our daughters were of age. Just as First Wave and Second Wave feminism evolved into something less compelling, Third Wave Barbieism just wasn’t as fervent.
In fact, the last time I remember my daughters playing with their Barbies was when they were 13 and 10. In honor of my recently joining Weight Watchers, Emma and Ally fashioned a hilarious skit with their Barbies seated around a coffee table, mimicking a day-time women’s talk show. The Barbies extolled the virtues of “FatZap,” a miracle new weight loss pill. “I lost 200 pounds overnight,” Ally’s Barbie gushed, as Emma’s doll enthused, “FatZap has changed my life!” The girls concluded the show with their best fast-talking disclaimer voice: “FatZap! Consult your doctor to see if it’s for you. Results not guaranteed. May result in serious complications, such as sagging skin, heart attack, vanishing, and death.” My mother would have been proud.
Now Barbie is back with a vengeance. In movie theaters near you, in every commentary piece in the country (here’s my favorite), in Mattel’s bottom line, in Greta Gerwig’s Oscar prospects.
So off I went to a theater near me, with Emma, her fiancé, and my husband in tow (Ally had persuaded him to give it a try instead of the latest Mission Impossible, which he’d planned to see in the adjacent theater before he ditched Tom Cruise in favor of family togetherness).
Mainly I thought Barbie was pretty dumb, enjoyable, and enormously clever. I loved the opening homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and no doubt missed many of the other cultural references. The production values were great, as was the acting. Ryan Gosling as Ken and Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie were spectacularly funny (and marketable). The ending credits, featuring the entire stable of Mattel’s Barbie creations, were awe-inspiring (in a sick kind of way) in their own rights.
Mostly, though, I was deeply disturbed throughout because the movie Midge was pregnant, which my Midge—or the doll I thought was Midge—definitely was not. Had my entire childhood been premised on a lie?
Of course, a major theme of the movie is that everybody’s childhood is premised on a lie—if not the whole of society, both BarbieLand and IRL. So maybe Greta Gerwig was just blowing my mind as part of her five-dimensional-chess tour de force. Luckily, Wikipedia set me straight soon enough—Pregnant Midge was introduced in 1980, long after the days my Midge, with her brown hair, freckles, and clear inferiority had been abandoned in favor of other pursuits.
Lots of people, including my daughters and plenty of my friends, loved Barbie’s strong messaging about feminism and patriarchy. I personally found it lazily scripted. Through one pat diatribe after another, it was too much tell and not enough show. But then again, what did I expect from a plastic world, humans and dolls alike held hostage by it? A script by ChatGPT? Possibly Master Chesswoman Greta was weaving in meta messages about AI and the Hollywood strike. Or possibly she was just lazy, laughing her way to the bank. That’s the beauty of Barbie the Film and Barbie the Plastic Doll without Genitalia. She can be anything people want her to be, from adult-sex-doll-spin-off to the ruination of girls and women everywhere, to feminist icon, to a flagging Mattel’s latest cash cow. She can even be this:
No matter. I’m glad I saw the movie, and I’m even more glad that its success has given the less crowd-pleasing Oppenheimer a boost simply because they shared a release date. By the way, my husband and I later saw Mission Impossible. Don’t bother.
Recently I asked our daughters, now in their 30s, about their childhood experiences of Barbie.
“I mean, we had fun playing with them,” Emma said. “But no more than anything else. We liked the animals the best.”
Like a lot of people, we had to postpone our 2020 vacation. So before our United travel vouchers expired and the next Covid mutation mushroomed, my husband Jonathan and I finally took our fully boosted selves off to Switzerland for three weeks of hiking. Before you give us too much credit, no, we were not camping or trekking from hut to hut, our clothes on our backs. Every night we enjoyed fluffy duvets and hot showers, then awoke to wonderful Swiss breakfasts also good for cadging rolls, ham, and cheese for lunch.
Enjoy these highlights!
Appenzell Region. I knew it was famous for cheese and gently rolling hills, but it also has high mountain peaks. It was hot, but gorgeous (and the cheese was good)
This photo is from the dining room of our hotel in Schwende, Frohe Aussicht, which means “happy view.” Indeed. They also served up gourmet four-course meals for dinner.
Interlaken, the heart of the Berner Oberland. Here’s where we spent most of our trip, the place most overrun by tourists, and for good reason. A native told us it was heaven during the pandemic. Now, despite the sometimes crowded trains, buses, and cable cars and the clouds often obscuring the famous high peaks, it was still pretty heavenly.
Old TownRiver AareParagliders (not us!)
Interlaken is a great jumping off point for hikes throughout the Thunersee/Brienzersee region–all easily accessible via frequent, well-coordinated, and clean trains, free buses, and cable cars. We are in love with and envious of the Swiss transportation system. So many beautiful and varied hikes!
Murren, Northface TrailEiger&Monch from Murren First, above GrindelwaldBachalpseeAbove WengenNiederhorn RidgeWe walked more than 10 miles from SigriswilTo Thun
Plus Trummelbach Falls, an amazing series of 10 cascades inside a mountain, conveniently drilled for an elevator shaft and stairs for viewing the vertically stacked torrents. Bonus: the only cool place on a very hot day:
Our hotel owner directed us to an off-the-beaten-trail hike near Habkern, where she grew up. She said the bakery there had the best nut croissants. When we brought her one, she gave us a box of chocolates in return, saying we were her favorite guests. She also told us she could tell a Democrat from a Republican among the American tourists within one or two minutes (something to do with pleasantness and tolerance).
Lombachalp, near HabkernHabkernMore of the same
Below is the Little Engine That Could, the steam train up to Rothorn above Brienz. But the real Little Engine That Could (and cow-whisperer) is Jonathan, who meticulously planned this trip, spending hundreds of hours researching hikes, travel passes, hotels, and exactly which buses and trains to take where (not to be outdone, I canceled the mail and arranged for a neighbor to water our plants):
Engelberg. The last leg of our trip, still in the Berner Oberland but less popular. It turns out the biggest feature of the town, besides skiing and hiking, is a 12th century Benedictine monastery, which seemed to own half the town, including our hotel and the convent dining room where we took our half-board dinners. A portly, non-English-speaking nun would buzz us in, where we’d be served whatever was on the menu that night. Weird, but fortunately tasty. The high peaks were mostly obscured by clouds the whole time we were there, but it was still gorgeous:
Brunnifpad LoopFour Lakes HikeFurenalp
Flora. It was pretty much peak wildflower season, and the flowers did not disappoint:
Bladder campionBladder Homo sapien
And fauna. This little brown goat had gotten outside its enclosure and was standing on a bridge. A self-described animal lover with a dog accused us of letting it out and expected us to find its proper farmer. Despite the fact that we could use a goat back home to clear brush for fire safety, we most assuredly had nothing to do with its escape, nor a clue about how to locate the owner. Luckily, a guy with a truck came by and the woman persuaded him to take the goat, so we also had nothing to do with its safe return, and the animal-lover let us be.
Cows, of course, were everywhere. We met a farmer riding his ebike up the mountain to open up another pasture for his cows. He told us that the labor of farming wasn’t so difficult, but finding a woman who wanted to marry a farmer was (he had a wife and two kids as well as an ebike–lucky guy!). Wherever we went, the sound of cowbells drifted up from the valleys below, the hills above, the cows right next to us on the trail. In fact, they made such a racket that we pitied the poor and possibly deaf cows, whose lobby is apparently worse than the whale lobby, which at least has gotten sonar restricted. Perhaps the best place for cowbells is hanging from the rafters:
Now it’s Home Sweet Home in brown and traffic-choked California. The final indication of a successful trip? Rain pants never once taken out from the bottom of my pack:
Before I knew better, I devoured Gone with the Wind. As a preteen, I’d stay up all night reading it under the covers with a flashlight, then start over again to best my time. I watched it on the big screen every chance I got. I blame GWTW for my lifelong yearning to visit southern plantations in the full flower of spring. Perhaps the hoop skirts would be gone, but the rhododendrons, azaleas, dogwood, magnolia–they’d be magnificent!
“You could take the special tours set up from the point of view of slaves,” my friends who had gone on Civil Rights tours helpfully suggested. (This was when we all said “slaves” instead of “enslaved people.”) Of course I would do that, too, but I wanted the full-on Tara experience. Again, minus the hoop skirts and the enslaved people.
I confessed my guilty wish to my friend Lisa. Disgusted, she said, “Why don’t you just visit Filoli instead?”
Filoli is a 645-acre estate just a bit south of San Francisco. It was originally built in 1917 as a private residence for William Bourn, who controlled the Empire Mine and San Francisco Gas Company, orchestrating a merger that became Pacific Gas and Electric. According to Wikipedia, Bourn’s investment in a water company bought by San Francisco led the San Francisco Chronicle to regularly pillory him as a thief and scoundrel for water rates,
But at least the man didn’t enslave people. The name Filoli, the website explains, is derived from the first two letters from the key words of Bourn’s personal credo:
Fight for a just cause.
Love your fellow man.
Live a good life
Not bad for a rich guy described as a “socialite and entrepreneur.” In fact, the website rather hilariously features a Land Acknowledgment (the estate is “situated on the unceded ancestral lands of the Ramaytush Ohlone,” and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion language is plastered all over the “About” page.
Since Filoli can best be described as a lovely destination for the Ladies Who Lunch crowd, this seems a bit much. But again, at least it’s not Tara. And the owners after the Bourns included an avid gardener whose family bequeathed the estate to the public in 1975.
So I’ve taken Lisa’s advice, and tried to mitigate years of mainlining plantation propaganda by visiting Filoli. Recently I even got a membership. Since Filoli was slammed by the drought and pandemic (and because those Ladies Who Lunch are of an age when they keep dying), they’ve gone all out to entice new members with huge discounts.
Now Filoli’s my go-to place. Last week the roses were in full bloom:
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There’s even a dogwood in full bloom for those of us with that southern yearning:
On this Memorial Day, I am thinking of my mother-in-law, Rachi, who died 6 years ago today, just shy of her 90th birthday.
I couldn’t have been luckier when it comes to mothers-in-law. She did a lot more than give birth to the baby boy I would later marry.
I met Rachi (and her equally wonderful husband Hugh) on a hike at Tennessee Valley, a couple of months after Jonathan and I started dating. Within fifteen minutes, she pulled him aside and declared, “She’s perfect.”
Rachi won my heart, too: during the usual get-to-know-you chit chat, she asked about my siblings and what they did. I mumbled that one of my brothers was kind of embarrassing, not wanting to admit that he was a Rajneeshee.
Rachi ventured a guess: “What? Is he a corporate attorney?” Nothing could be more horrifying to this Old Leftie. Rachi loved the unconventional, so my brother passed the test with flying colors.
So did I. Over lunch at the Pelican Inn, I basked in my future in-laws’ ready embrace, a warm, supportive love that was easily reciprocated and never diminished.
Hugh and Rachi met at Antioch College; their first encounter was an argument over his support for the socialist Norman Thomas for President (despite her own socialist leanings, she was always a pragmatic voter, viewing such idealistically cast ballots as a wasted vote). This sparked a life-long love cemented by politics, a dedication to civil rights, the peace movement, and all manner of intellectual debate. Hugh and Rachi began a tradition of political betting–whoever won got to donate a small sum to their chosen cause. Hugh died a month after Trump was elected president. When we were cleaning out his stuff, we found an index card Rachi had written in early 2016 betting that the Republican nominee would win.
When Jonathan and his sister were kids, Rachi spent a month in jail with fellow anti-Vietnam War protestors who had staged a sit-in to prevent young men from being drafted. The sentencing judge wanted to make an example of them. She spoke highly of the prison food (I suspect she relished the break from cooking) and of the women who were in custody on prostitution charges. In their later assisted-living years, Hugh and Rachi stood with Seniors for Peace every Friday afternoon at a busy intersection protesting the latest madness. Rachi rode an adult tricycle everywhere that sported an “I’m Already Against the Next War” bumper sticker.
Rachi always made people feel like they were the best, most interesting person she’d ever met. An accomplished writer and editor herself, she enthused over every thank you note, Christmas letter, and essay I wrote. Rachi loved her grandchildren, though she was never the sappy, sentimental type. When our oldest daughter, Emma, was a toddler, and insisted on pushing her own stroller, stopping every 10 seconds on Marina Green, Rachi fumed, “This isn’t a walk, this is torture!” She found it hilarious when Emma, politely said of the doll Rachi gave her when our youngest, Ally, was born, “I don’t like dolls berry much.” Not so much new sisters, either.
Years later, Rachi gave thousands of dollars to a scammer who convinced her that Emma was in trouble and needed the money to get bailed out of a drug charge. Although Rachi was embarrassed to have fallen for it, she said she’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant helping her granddaughter. This same granddaughter spoke at Rachi’s memorial service about how much her grandmother’s love of the unconventional had meant to her as a quirky artist whose straight-arrow parents never quite got her.
Rachi devoted herself to good causes her entire life. She tutored disadvantaged kids in East Palo Alto. True to her principles, she refused to buy wrapping paper from our kids’ schools’ endless fundraisers, saying, “Kids shouldn’t have to beg, we should raise taxes.” Once when her pearls were stolen after a robbery, she expressed gratitude that the burglar hadn’t made a mess, and thought he probably needed the money anyway. (Rachi cared not a whit about fashion and appearances, and was the least materialistic person I’ve ever known.) A fervent defender of Palestinian rights far ahead of her time, Rachi endured years of abuse from people who called her a self-hating Jew and much worse (almost all these people now share her views).
Despite her clear-sightedness and despair about the world’s injustices, Rachi was generous, funny, and joyful, with a wide circle of friends and family. She was an inveterate writer of Letters to the Editor–the New York Times alone published more than 150.
After Hugh died just shy of his 97th birthday, Rachi was heartbroken, and went downhill fast. Their’s was a life-long true partnership of love and respect. We still have their commingled ashes, and spread them bit by bit on beautiful hikes for commemoration.
That’s what comes to mind on this Memorial Day. Rest in peace, Rachi. You’re the best.
Of all the places we love to go, The Pinnacles is one of our favorite non-local destinations. We first went 35 years ago, and just returned from our latest visit last weekend. Here’s a golden-oldie about that first trip (with new pictures, which is why that gent’s hair is gray)—magical then, magical now.
It’s a steep haul up the High Peaks Trail, especially when you’re seven months pregnant with your first child. But back then, giddy with promise, my husband Jonathan and I floated past the massive boulders of Pinnacles National Park. Cresting the summit, baby bulk and all, I relished the double take of the buff, shirtless teenagers loitering atop the rocks. They paused mid-swagger to glance in horror at my swollen belly as I conquered the mountain in my smocked maternity top.
Our family has returned to the Pinnacles again and again, drawn by the massive cliffs, soaring spires, and lush spring wildflowers. Leaving behind the fragmented kaleidoscope of daily life, we are calmed by the reliable sameness of the timeless, indifferent peaks.
Yet even in this constant landscape, change is under way. The fantastic rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano ravaged by erosion, creeping steadily up the Salinas Valley along the San Andreas Fault. I am grateful that only subtle clues dispel the illusion of permanence. A precariously balanced boulder has fallen from its perch. Spatters of chartreuse and rust lichen toil as alchemists, turning rock to soil. Their magic allows monkey flowers the color of apricots to bloom from dirt pockets hidden in solid stone.
Time has worked its alchemist’s magic on us as well. Two years after our initial trip, we camp at the Pinnacles, weighed down by the accoutrements of toddlerhood — diapers, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, a travel crib. Emma, whose in utero view had been obscured, now enjoys the scenery from the baby backpack that digs into our shoulders as we trudge along the dusty trail.
When we return again, the campground has been paved over for more parking. This time, we have two young daughters in tow, barely out of diapers. But Emma and Ally are definitely into sit-down strikes at the prospect of hiking more than a few hundred yards. Not wishing to fight an uphill battle, we content ourselves with the flat path at the base of the mountains so the girls can splash in the creek. Jonathan, impatient with the meandering pace of childhood, sprints to the summit while the girls and I delight in wild bouquets and rocky forts along the valley floor.
The next time the Pinnacles beckon, Emma and Ally gamely traverse the High Peaks Trail. They are enchanted by poppies sprouting out of boulders, the rock that looks like a camel. The girls nibble on miner’s lettuce and strategic bribes of chocolate, scampering around the summit while their tired parents lag behind. Rocks and children tame each other: whininess turns to exultation, forbidding stone becomes an infinite playground.
Although the incline invites vertigo, the girls clamber up and down, up and down the footholds chiseled into the rock, swinging from the metal banister as if nature and the Park Service had fashioned monkey bars just for them. Jonathan and I must squeeze through the narrow cliff passage in an awkward crouch. But it is just the right size for Emma and Ally, who march through boldly upright, giggling as their crooked parents bump their heads against the rocky overhang.
We are not the only ones who find the Pinnacles a good place for families. Condors, recently reintroduced to the park, build nests in the sheltered crevices. While they teach their young how to catch thermals, we show ours how to catch the shine of buttercups on their chins in the warm sunlight.
Now our daughters have taken flight too, soaring and wavering in their own grown-up landscapes. Alone again, Jonathan and I make our pilgrimage to drink in the riotous wildflowers and steadfast rocks whenever time allows. As always, we stop in Soledad at Pacheco’s Mexican Grocery for tortas — soft white rolls dripping with spicy carnitas.
Soledad, gateway to the Pinnacles, has sprung up even faster than Emma and Ally. Twenty-seven years ago, it consisted of Pacheco’s, a prison, a few dusty streets of dilapidated houses, and a fleabag hotel with a cracked, empty swimming pool. Now the highway billboard reads: “It’s happening in Soledad.” Vineyards dot the hillsides, and a tony resort lies adjacent to the Pinnacles. Kids from tidy homes with manicured yards swarm the soccer field at the spanking new school. A vast shopping center dwarfs the original Main Street, but we still head to our old Mexican grocery. Pacheco’s, whose tortas remain a juicy, scrumptious bargain, is as timeless as the Pinnacles.
Fueled by the succulent tortas and memories, Jonathan and I start up the High Peaks Trail once more. Although stiffer and a little creaky, we ascend quickly past the boulders and apricot blooms of monkey flower.
Again and again, we come back to ourselves in the shelter of the enduring cliffs.
April showers bring May flowers. Atmospheric rivers bring mud. Lots of mud. Still, those of us from California who have spent the last few years amid fire and drought have been eagerly scanning our weather apps for a break in the record-breaking rains. Time to try out our newly webbed feet on those blessedly water-logged trails!
At the first indication of a clear weekend my husband Jonathan and I headed out to Point Reyes National Seashore and Marsh Cottage in Inverness. We first visited Marsh Cottage 35 years ago, our last trip before we had kids–I was hugely pregnant with our first daughter, born less than a month later on Mother’s Day. Nowadays I believe that kind of outing is called a babymoon, but to us it was just plain glorious–a sweet, rustic very private cottage overlooking the southern marshes of Tomales Bay, and close to Point Reyes hikes filled with wild iris and purple lupine.
We’d been back to Marsh Cottage a few times since, but the pandemic and a housing crisis banning short-term rentals had made it available only as a long-term rental. Friends of ours from Santa Cruz, whom we’d introduced to Marsh Cottage years before, decided they needed a pied-a-terre farther north on the coast for six months, and said we were welcome to use it when they weren’t there.
It’s still glorious–timeless (though updated with wifi) and charming. Three sunny days of hiking awaited us. Also glorious, if a bit muddy, the wildflowers only just emerging after months of rain and chill.
The ranger had warned us that there was a bit of standing water near the crest of Laguna Trail. By which he meant a body of water somewhat smaller than the Pacific Ocean visible beyond the crest. We met hardy backpackers heading home from Coast Camp, describing their night there in a bog as a bit windy and cold. One truth-teller allowed as how it was awful. But knowing we had a cottage to return to, we were undaunted, and trampled through brush to avoid the standing water. We saw a father and daughter merrily wading through in bare feet, boots dangling from their hands. That struck me as a bit rash, until my own poison oak rash started itching like crazy three days later.
The Coast Trail was much drier, and so green, except for the fire-ravaged tree trunks on the distant ridge line. We had been on this same trail on an August morning in 2020. Later that day, the whole central area of Point Reyes National Seashore was a conflagration. But nature is resilient, even more so than barefoot dads and daughters traipsing barefoot through mud.
Since gale-force winds were predicted for the next day, we altered our route from the most exposed point on the coast and steered clear of mud by walking up through residential streets to Inverness Ridge, then on to Mt. Vision, site of a 1995 fire from an illegal campfire not quite doused by the local teenagers who’d spent the night there. In an early act of restorative justice, the community embraced the remorseful teens even though the fire devastated thousands of acres and destroyed 45 homes. Although I’m sure the Mount Vision fire left scars, there’s little sign of it today–just a lot of beautiful ceanothus on the slopes heading down to the estuary.
Then down, down, back to town on the Perth Fire Road, where the huckleberry was in full bloom amid the stars–man-made and those perfected by nature. A weekend of mud-shiny bliss!
Another night at the Oscars has come and gone, this time without possible criminal liability. Or memorable moments. Or even good movies. In fact, the decision to replace the red carpet with a beige one is an apt metaphor for the whole ho-hum event. As The Cut noted:
Meanwhile, many of the actual people on the carpet were rendered nearly invisible by its shade. The night’s guests, who didn’t find out about the color change until the carpet was unfurled last week, showed up in outfits that matched the floor, turning the carpet into a big, bizarre sea of camouflage.
Camouflage may have been the point this year. Academy bigwigs didn’t want to mention, let alone repeat, 2022’s Slap Heard Round the World. Host Jimmy Kimmel did not cooperate with this wish, quipping in response to the beige carpet that it showed “how confident we are that no blood will be shed.” In fact, Kimmel’s repeated references to The Slap throughout the awards ceremony provided about the only edgy (and funny) material all evening.
But star-on-star assaults are nothing compared to the wish to camouflage the overriding threat facing Hollywood: its imminent demise. The Oscars are always self-aggrandizing, but this year the hyped-up glitz felt desperate. So desperate that the Academy saw fit to run a commercial for this summer’s release of “The Little Mermaid” as part of the ceremony. Anything to get people back into theaters, I guess. But “Top Gun: Maverick” for Best Picture? Seriously? And I say this as someone who very much enjoyed the movie.
Which is more than I can say about a lot of the others. Usually I try to see all the top nominees, but after seeing plenty of them—in theaters and streaming—I didn’t see the point.
And yes, this means you, Everything Everywhere All at Once. I second the Guardian review, which referred to it as Nothing Nowhere Over a Long Period of Time. However, I concede that the exuberant cast and crew who kept traipsing up to collect their statues seemed like really nice and fun people. I also admire Michelle Yeoh for using her moment in the spotlight to run a piece in the New York Times the very next day to shine a light on the deplorable suffering of women and girls in humanitarian disasters.
It’s a far cry from suffering through another season of a so-so awards ceremony and films. Still, with Hollywood run aground on the pandemic and streaming shoals, and trying to break free through CGI, special effects, and lots of noise, I see little on offer to lure me back into theaters. Which is a shame, since I used to love going to the movies.
At least it’s a great achievement that this year possibly retired #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoViolent. Now let’s hope for the retirement of #OscarsSo”Meh.”
