fog clears

So today was one of those days I had hoped for when I moved here.
Up until now I have been having a really hard time, so many things really.
Missing David trying to re-orientate oneself after moving.All the shit ye know like new bank accounts, doctors etc now doubled because I’m having to take care of all that for the wee man too.
And man has he been a handful, as you can imagine the wee lamb's been all over the place but more of that later I want to dedicate this post to today, a kind of perfect day.

We got up and had a pretty deacent morning, no whining and almost all of breakfast eaten without any threats or loss of privileges.
Wandered past che panise to the lovely Berkeley post office, Gabriel popped the letter in the slot and we headed off down Shattuck past the old dears out for their morning pastry's and messages (shopping), funny the world over a section of the community, pensioners, are only really seen between the hours of 9am and 11am they coincide with the mummies and new babies which I’m sure there is something poignant and prophetic to say about, but not by me.

So we potter on down to Live Oak Park and hang about, both of us keenly people watching. Gabriel is as keen an observer of the animal goings on the playground as I.
Today was particularly interesting, not only for the usual smattering of Berkeley parents who all have a uniform of, rugged go anywhere do anything Velcro secured sandals, yoga pants and soft cotton tops (dads included).
I don’t know where you buy this stuff but I stick out like a sore thumb in my paper denim cloth wide legged jeans and my apparently hysterical (Blanco twins I’m addressing you now) MBT trainers, (I have a bad back!)

Anyway there was some kind of drop in summer camp for kids about 5-10yrs old and I witnessed an altercation between a little girl dressed head to toe in pink and sparkles resplendent with hand bag and some of the other girls who ganged up on her following her around the playground threatening violence and exclaiming "oh know you didn’t" over what I could gather was the first girls utter of 'be quiet' to one of the other girls.

What I found so gripping was the chivalrous actions of obviously the cutest boy in the 6-8yr range there. Who after being pulled aside and asked for help by the victimized girl was throwing himself in the midst of the throng, telling the other girls to back off, and leave her alone.
But not in a big macho peacock kind of way more just a, sincere sense of the injustice of it all, kind of way. He looked like every boy I ever had a crush on in high school, dark hair blue eyes and freckles.

It was such compelling viewing that both Gabriel and I forgot our game of catch and just sat eating peaches watching the drama unfold.
I'd like to tell you what happened next but we had to leave as it was already lunchtime and we had to get our selves fed and across the Richmond Bridge to visit the Bay Area discovery museum in Sausalito.

After a quick lunch, we humped our stuff out to the car and set off.
I hadn’t been over the Richmond Bridge yet and into Marin so I didn’t know what to expect.
As we crested the hill and I saw the water sparkling in front of us, the bridge rising up and to our left the magical sight of San Francisco seemingly floating on a cloud which drifted along beside us. I completely forgot the directions and got us promptly lost.

So of course now we are late. We were supposed to be there at 1.30 and now (2.30) Tracy’s texting 'r u here'
So captivated am I by the landscape in front of me that I completely take another wrong turn. I get off in the heart of Sausalito where I had been before and is now packed full of aging German tourist puffing and heaving their bikes along the water front and walking them slowly up the many hills.

Finally under Tracy’s telephone instructions we find ourselves coming down the windy road toward Fort Baker and the Discovery Museum.
The fort is charming, if that is a word one should ever use in relation to an ex- military establishment. It is all red roofs and white clapperboard; it looks like the hotel in hotel New Hampshire. And the museum. Well we only had 45 minutes to ' soak ' it in but G had a blast it is really great, full of amazing exhibits that the 4-8 yr old crowd just loves. Oh and they had another green screen (what is it with the green screens, and San Francisco museums?) so I have pics of G dressed as crab floating in the ocean. If i ever figure out how to upload pics I will post them here.
We wandered through elaborate tunnels molded from soft pliable birch and G bounced on a huge spiders web. It was really cool and deserves at least a whole morning if not a day to fully appreciate.

As we were unceremoniously chucked out Tracy suggested we go down to the water to see if we could see any sea lions. As we turned to head to the water we could see that the wall of fog, that had greeted us as we had arrived obscuring any sign of the golden gate bridge, was slowly shifting offering tantalizing glimpses of the bridge. Which from the low angle we were at, loomed out of the gloom impossibly there and then gone in the same instant.

Walking towards the water we could see something breaking its surface and lo and behold there was a lonely sea lion. Nose in the air sniffing and casting its beady black gaze towards us. Just as we had gotten G to see it and be excited about it, like the bridge above, it disappeared.

We sat there staring out to sea scanning the horizon for the sea lion and looking heaven wards for another glimpse of the red scaffold, somewhere above us.
It was at that point that a kid next to us yelled, 'oh gross jelly fish’ well you would have though G had found a bucket of gold. A dead jellyfish to an almost 4 year old is, just like the most awesome thing, like, ever!
So we stared at the dead jellyfish for a while before realizing the rocks beneath us were moving. We had been staring at a colony of crabs, so well camouflaged as to be almost invisible, (they must have been trained at the fort)
G let out a sigh and said that he wished we were crabs, when I asked him why he said,’ just cause, I like crabs'
So fair enough he likes crabs.
He did go on to say not only did he wish we could be crabs, but that we could eat the crabs we saw down on the rock, at which point the conversation turned to where we should get dinner.
After discussing the merits of various establishments it was decide that we should go get seafood in the city. Making or way to the car we saw a real live jellyfish floating towards the rocks. Gabriel shouted, ' watch out little fella your gonna get dead, watch out for the rocks, little fella your gonna get dead!!!"
But the jellyfish did not heed G's strenuous warning and as we left was heading straight for the rocks where his brother was already lying, dead. Perhaps it was an ill-fated rescue attempt that us humans would not understand.

Back at the car Gabriel was very concerned that we not lose Tracy so I tried to follow her in her shiny new car as best I could but yet again the landscape was out to derail me.
As we climbed out of the gully where the fort is situated and headed up toward the bridge, again these shimmering glimpses of the red-ness kept appearing and disappearing in front of us. All of a sudden shards of yellow sunlight punctured the gloom that we were slowly heading into and in my rear mirror I could see the blue skies of Marin county receding out of view.

Windows open we ventured into what for all intents and purposes looked entirely like the clouds that loom over Glen Coe, infact the whole landscape reminded me so much of Scotland.
The dramatic mountains, the mist cloaking things in a pale wash and then the light. A light that many more eloquent writers than I have saw fit to address but the diffusion of the light through the moisture in the air left me longing for home, Scotland.
There is a certain subterfuge that nature plays on you in such conditions. It leads one to ruminating on romantic, wistful things.
It is not the clear unflinching light of goodness, where mystery has nowhere to hide and sin would burn up and shrivel in its unequivocal gaze.
It is a light that causes double takes and leaves room for second guesses, ambiguities and dreams.

As we crossed this imaginary bridge I felt something shift in me. The heaviness I have had in me since the move somehow got moved to one side and something of this curiosity and ambiguity seeped in.

My mind kept turning over something Tracy had said about the coastguard, who are stationed at the Fort, how their biggest job is picking up dead bodies out of the sea. Suicide’s that jump from the bridge.
And I had told her how I could not go near the rail when I was on a ferry because the churning waters seemed to call to me and when I had described that to someone they had said that is what vertigo was.

I thought about those people who leapt from the bridge and I could imagine the rush of air as they dove into that whispering subterfuge to their rather final fate.
And I thought, that despite feeling that I too had leapt into the gloom and had yet to hit the ground, that maybe this move was not me falling off the bridge but maybe, it was like my seeing the bridge from the low angel at the Fort.
With the fog slowly lifting her skirts just giving me a glimpse of the possibility of its shape. Maybe that is what this move is, is a test of my faith to keep heading into the gloom, hoping to catch a glimpse at any minute of the possibity of the future and trying hard to resist the urge to hurtle myself to the comfortable abyss.

So i will keep going forward even though i cannot see what is in front of me and i will be curious, because it seems i must.
Lx