Home again and settling in. My flights went well once I actually got on a plane. I received a text saying my flight from Cody to Denver was delayed by an hour and a half, meaning I might not make my connection to San Francisco. I looked at rebooking flights but before I could do that, I got another text saying that the flight was delayed, but not as much as initially expected so I should be fine to make my connection. It was funny being in an airport waiting lounge listening to the TSA staff letting everyone in the airport know that the last flight that day was leaving in 45 minutes and they were going to be closing down security screening soon – even though it was only 2:15 pm! We were a little late in leaving, but still got to Denver with about 45 minutes to spare, and my gate was only a 10 minute walk. I was grateful for that as the last time I was in the Denver airport I had a 30 minute walk to my gate with a heavy roller bag. Since I was traveling on Good Friday there were lots of families in the airport, something I had not experienced in quite awhile. The flight from Cody to Denver was a small plane and not full so I got the two seats in the row to myself, unlike the Denver-SF flight that was packed full. I watched Marty Supreme – sort of. I found it pretty boring and ended up mostly watching a few episodes of Friends that the person in front of me had on with subtitles. Soon enough I was back in San Francisco and headed home.
I got myself resettled on Saturday. That afternoon Mom and I went to a San Francisco Shakespeare production of Julius Caesar being held in the park near the Tiburon Library. It was a gorgeous day, so wonderful to be outside. A couple of members from the audience very enthusiastically agreed to be extras in the production, I especially loved the older woman who helped out, she was really into it!
I’m getting used to the gas price sticker shock here. In Wyoming everyone was complaining when gas went over $3.50 a gallon – I wish! I’ve been out on a few hikes, enjoying the green lushness and wildflowers everywhere from the rains. Ring Mountain, in particular, was beautiful. A lot of people were out there on Easter morning, enjoying the views and the wildflowers. I made brunch. It was a very quiet Easter, though we could hear some of the neighbors’ young kids having fun with their Easter egg hunt.
One morning I hiked up from Fort Cronkite seeing more wildflowers and views of the bridge. Another morning was Miwok Trail.
I am looking after Rosco again. He is such a sweetie, I enjoy having him around. We’ve been exploring the neighborhood, even getting out on the Rhubarb Trail. I took mom to Home Depot, where we bought tomato plants and flowers. I got those in just before the rain started. Been doing a bit of baking, made scones for Easter and another day, bagels, something I have not made in quite a while, as well as lemon bread.
Another day I checked out an exhibit from UC Arts students at the Sausalito Center for the Arts. Not really my sort of art, though, I did like a piece called The People Taking Away Our Healthcare Are On Taxpayer funded Gold Plans. The artist had written health insurance premium increases over the last year on beeswax slabs mounted in an old gate. That was a pretty compelling one. I also popped into the Sausalito library which I’d been wanting to check out. I haven’t found a library that compares to Mill Valley’s, which isn’t surprising. But the Sausalito Library was a nice little one, with a great selection of books for sale. I liked their community puzzle swap – take a puzzle, leave a puzzle – might have to do that sometime. They have a wonderful library of things – power tools to tarot cards to a Djembe drum.
One day when I was working at Rosco’s place I took back streets over to the San Anselmo post office, going past a lovely, lush little creek. Afterwards, I went past the place we lived when Emmy was little and Annemarie was a baby. Looks like there’s another family with young kids who live there now. That same day Rosco and I went for a walk around the levee fire road in San Rafael, a place that I hadn’t been before. I’ll definitely go back there – a quiet spot with lovely views. I had a few other hikes with friends planned, but the rain all weekend knocked those out. I didn’t really feel like driving in the rain, so I didn’t really mind, plus it’s given me more time to settle back in. I’ve been doing GANAS work, finishing up things for my last JNE meeting coming up next week, editing my book and contemplating things like my consumption habits and my generation- see my musings below!
How can I not add to the problem of consumption in our society? How can I be giving more than I’m taking? It starts with first being more conscious of what I’m taking – what I eat, how I get myself around, how I clothe myself, how I keep myself warm or cool, where I live, how I communicate with other people. All those things have a cost. And then what am I giving back? Is that more of a ‘what am I doing less of than most other people?’ But there’s gotta be more. What can I do to support ways of reusing? Is it about keeping myself healthy, so I’m not having to use medical resources? Is it moving around under my own power? Maybe looking at using a bicycle, instead of a car, especially as the weather’s getting nicer, to get around places. Educating myself. Is it supporting financially and through volunteering and promotion organizations that communicate the importance of less waste of supporting our planet? Where is my role in all of this? Starting small somewhere, doing something and seeing what happens. Maybe then it will feel like I am more useful. My paid work at GANAS educating and supporting Isabel so she can do her work supporting students and their families and mentoring others to carry on the work is a good thing. But there’s more I want to do. Whether it’s with gratitude, getting people to consider a different life, supporting nonprofit organizations. I don’t feel like I’m doing the deep thought and consideration that I want to be doing. But I want to do more than thinking, I want to be taking action too. Now that I am back home for the foreseeable future, it’s time to start taking more local action, putting down roots. Spending more time connecting with others, that is more of what I need, more of how I’ll find what I’m looking for.
I belong to Generation X. What does that mean? Does it mean something different now that Twitter is now called X? Are we X because we can’t be defined? Some of us are children of the early baby boomers, some of us are children of the ‘greatest generation’. In history class, we learned about World War II, the brave people who fought, the ones who sacrificed back at home. When we were young we wondered about the Vietnam War, something we heard about in hushed tones and on the news, but were never really sure why it was bad. We heard about all the assassinations that took place before we were born or when we were babies, the protests of the 60s. Some of us were children of rebels, born during the Summer of Love, conceived during the swinging 60s or the open ’70s. Gen X, we also grew up with the Cold War, worried about nuclear attack. We came of age in the ’80s when we were expected to go to college, the best college we could go to. If you didn’t, you were a loser, a burnout. So we did what we were told. We went to college, then started chasing success, looking to do what was expected of us, buying houses, getting married, and having children. Women now had power, we could do the same work as men, we could survive in a tough work world. Yes, there was sexism, but we ignored it, went along with it, didn’t want to be considered a shrew or shrill. The men were there, in the background, wearing Brooks Brothers suits. We no longer expected to work for a company for 40 years and get a pension and gold watch. Many of us were latchkey kids when we were younger, we didn’t want the same for our kids. It was daycare for them, or we stayed at home. 9/11 happened when a lot of us had young families and we wondered what would happen next. We got involved in our children’s schools, creating competition – who could put on the best fundraiser, turn out the best children. Our energy focused on them, these poor kids pushed and pushed to succeed at ever younger ages, to excel in sports, volunteer in the community, and get straight A’s, more than straight A’s, 5.0 GPAs! This didn’t make any of us happy.
And here we are now kids grown, edging towards retirement, trying to figure out the next phase of life. Are we still X? Why didn’t we get a name? We weren’t silent. We weren’t great. We didn’t ‘boom’. We were just X, still undefined. So who are we, this X? How have we defined ourselves? Does X mark the spot? X, the least used letter in the alphabet. Will we always be X and undefined? Is that our legacy?