Scenes From The City

We generally refer to San Francisco as "the city" - never San Fran or Frisco - but if we say we're going to "the city" people generally know you mean San Francisco. Andy and I spent two nights there this weekend and we love the many perks of the city - new food, interesting people, and beautiful sights. But, OMG, the traffic!! We were wistful for the convenient country train ride and the easy walkable streets of Melbourne. Still, San Francisco is a lovely city.

They have cakes here too.

It was Pride Weekend so the rainbows waved everywhere.

One of the things I love about being in a city is the variety of political statements. We noticed this sign up in the palm tree: Free Leonard. This is a common sign you will see in random places all over the country, referring to Leonard Peltier, considered by many to be a political prisoner, convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. The movie Thunderheart is loosely based on Peltier's story. The demonstrators in the next picture are protesting forced circumcision.

The Ferry Building in San Francisco is full of food markets, similar but smaller than the Victoria Market. The Blue Bottle coffee shop requires only their iconic image to elicit two long lines of devotees.

We sat outside at the pier and watched the ferries load and unload. I took a few pictures from our bench.

Coit Tower in the distance

A protective mama and her chicks

"bike rack"

 We spent the day down at the Embarcadero before heading to the Giants game. They lost to Cincinnati and it was freezing in our top row seats, but the views from the stadium are great.

Bay Bridge to Treasure Island

Fog begins to roll in at the game.

 A few more street scenes on our way out of the city.

Frag ments

 G’day or good morning or somewhere in between.

I have been so full of thoughts, memories, rediscoveries, along with disengaging and engaging, that I have been hesitant to try to capture any of it.

I wanted to have a storyline, and not be randoming about like an overblown balloon with air escaping from its loose tie.

Then again, I have always been a fan of Brownian motion to give purpose to what otherwise might seem purposeless. 

I was recently reading to Ann a passage, part of a paragraph that I liked, from Nicholas Rothwell’s book Journeys To The Interior: “No, the fragment, the symbol-laden fragment, rather than the flowing sequence, was the necessary form for what I had to say: what I meant was in fragments, and dust; it was best told in fragments—fragments were all that I could manage, and even they seemed too controlled, too much a bid to reimpose order on a flux of shimmering, glancing, barely casual connecting chains.”

Our Deakin colleague, friend, and goodbye-for-now party host, Paula’s advice about planning for the Warrnambool end game was well given, and well taken. I was prepared. I had a place inside me for it. Warrnambool is still there, vital and alive, part of my fabric of being.  There is no unraveling now that I am back in the Chico fray, just making new clothes out of it.

I have been struck, and a bit stuck, not by any disconnecting with all that is Warrnambool, but by the lack of consciously or consistently connecting with Chico.

There were many fragments though.

One of the transferable skills I acquired while away was walking. Home has a whole new view from the bi-ped perspective.

My path of travel to the gym is along the Esplanade (a wide tree lined boulevard), and then a bike path that follows a decommissioned freight railway line. And then a pedestrian crossing with a sign admonishing cars to yield to bikes and pedestrians. Good thing, as I’m still not sure which way to look.

I see restored Victorian homes, some as residences reclaiming a bit of faded glory, others repurposed into professional boutique office space.

Blue jays abound and many squirrels in the trees and on the ground. (I smile at thoughts of Kristian and Bernie coming here and meeting our “heaps of squirrels” as they would say.)

Two days in a row of greeting a man in black pants on a bus stop bench who has one hand firmly gripped on the steadying bottle in a brown paper bag, the other hand shakily extended accompanied by the wavering refrain of, “I only need 85 more cents to get some French fries.”

Remnants of homeless camps where the old rail bridge crosses Rio Lindo Channel.  Not sure about the people who were there, how much of them left behind. Or what of those still there.

A beautiful shadow pattern of fence posts along the path.

Hot blue empty skies, with only a tease of clouds over the far distant mountains.

Lawns being watered by automatic sprinklers during the day in the midst of a drought.

Trying to make eye contact with passing people, offering a nod of the head or a hello, getting little in return.

The gym itself, the experience is quite familiar. I have a new routine there, but it’s like I never left.

It is at the open house for the Torres Shelter expansion that being away and being back came in to focus. The Chico Community Shelter Partnership, now the Torres Shelter, is an emergency homeless shelter four others and I helped to start about fifteen years ago. It models building community on a foundation of believing in and belonging to the greater good of people. 

It was as if I had left, but I was returning to my country.  Welcomed and well come on in and no escaping being fully back to here and now, with past, present, and future experiencing rolling into one timeless moment. So many old and new not yet met friends contributing to and creating a wonderful sense of place. A place and sense of belonging. Home again.

I heard Bernie’s voice when coming through the door a few days ago, as Ann was Skyping with her. Ever so sweet the tones of “ ‘stralia ” resonating in heart and home.

Ann and I are still creating our home space. This weekend will be our art open house with both Ann and Australian works hung all over, before we repaint.

The solstice is once again at our doorstep.  

Come on in and sit for awhile.

Warrnambool and Chico are getting blended in a most wonderful way.

Bidwell Park

On Sunday, Andy and I volunteered to spend an afternoon hosting a couple of teachers who are visiting from other countries as part of a Fulbright Scholarship program here at Chico. The teachers visit the US for six weeks, with the majority of time spent in the Chico area. We hosted Catherine, from France, and James from Melbourne, Australia. Of course, Andy loved the opportunity to speak French and we both really enjoyed reliving our Australian experiences with James. Even though temperatures were above 100 degrees (about 40 C), we drove our guests to some of the most beautiful outdoor spots. Two of our stops were at Bidwell Park swimming spots. I took some pictures of the public swimming pool called One Mile, but this Youtube video really does a great job of capturing it as well (even though the video was shot in winter). The creek runs through the "pool."

A bridge crosses over Big Chico Creek and underneath it are a dam and a fish ladder.

I took this picture from the bridge above the dam facing the pool.

I turned around on the bridge and took this picture going down stream.

Five Mile swimming hole is on the edge of town, at the beginning of where Lower Bidwell Park becomes Upper Bidwell Park and continues into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Five Mile tends to be a little less developed and a little less populated.

We ended the very hot day with a treat at Shubert's, a 75 year old local ice cream and candy shop.

Chico: City of Trees

Transitioning home to Chico has been good but not without some amount of sadness about what we left in Warrnambool. Andy and I both have realized how much bigger Chico is than what we remember or what we’ve been used to for the last year. Lots of people would laugh at that because it's often described as small but it's not as "small town" as Warrnambool.

I think I am still doing well with my practice of slowing down and as a result I have rediscovered the trees. In addition to being one of the top ten small art towns, Chico is known as the “city of trees.” I've decided it should also be known as "city of squirrels."

Our friend Susie hosted a welcome home party in her backyard that just happens to have a tree house shaped like a ship! Very cool.

Notice the pics from our blog on that great poster!

The trees in our own backyard aren’t too shabby either. 

The first day of my summer class I had students walk silently around our building and take notice of our surroundings. I took some pictures of beautiful hydrangeas and tiger lilies, and some ferns I had not remembered. These Dr. Seussish trees are right outside our building.

This land extends from the Bidwell Mansion behind us, to the side of our building. On the second day of class we did a community building activity on this lawn.

There are a number of redwood trees on our campus. This redwood was long favored by woodpeckers and eventually they got the better of the tree. Although all the branches were cut off, the arborist opted to leave the majority of the trunk standing for future feathered friends.

Chico is probably the most beautiful of all of the 24 California State University campuses, in no small part because it is built around Big Chico Creek. The seven footbridges on campus provide amazing views of grand sycamore and oak trees.

I rarely cross a bridge without pausing to appreciate the gift of a fern-flanked creek that flows through our work place.