Apr 27 2003
Sunny Sunday
Most people read the Sunday New York Times, but I read the Mendocino Beacon, which has headlines like “Shark-Bitten Sea Otter Rescued”, and contains the always-entertaining Sheriff’s Log. Gotta keep up with all the things happening in the small town where my brother & sister live. For such a small place, lots happens. Enough to keep an EMT and a volunteer fireman occupied, anyway.
Here in the uneventful city, I woke up to a strangely blue sky and something which, if memory serves, is sunlight. After my ritual coffee and tangerine juice, I headed off to the gym before it turned into the weekend madhouse, and when I was done there, I walked down to Aquatic Park. I sat on the sun-warmed stone steps with my bare feet in the sand and watched the members of the Polar Bear Club, those intrepid souls who swim the Bay year-round, fearless of cold and bacteria. A huge tanker swam by slowly on its way out into the Pacific (next stop, Hawaii!), making me wonder again about physics and how something the size of a building can float.
People walked by with their dogs. People ran by. The wild parrots flew overhead, their green and red wings shining in the sun, and their distinctive voices, at once harsh and bright, echoing across the water. The grand sailboats at Hyde Street Pier moved gently in the water, their old timbers and ropes creaking gently with the motion as they have for more than a century. Though these grand ladies no longer venture into the deep ocean or around the dangerous Horn, their stories and those of the men who served on them will always live on in the wood and the heart and soul of these great ships.
The Golden Gate Bridge was red in the sun, and sharp against the blue sky and water. I thought of how many times I have driven across that Bridge, on my way to visit my brother and sister, or my mother, and I know that I have never crossed it without seeing and feeling the extraordinary beauty of this place. When I’m coming home across the Bridge, and I get that first glimpse of the city, my heart always rises with the joy and pleasure of living somewhere so very beautiful.