Hmmm…where to start?

And this is where I get confused…Is this blog a journal? A diary? (Are those two things different?) A travel blog? Just some drivel coming to my (our) brain? Clearly, we haven’t been traveling so currently this isn’t exactly a travel blog – though we do live in a beautiful area and there are plenty of opportunities to see new places and have new experiences even close to home. And a diary, which to me means a daily notation of life, is not at all of interest to me. Which leaves me with either a journal or drivel and those might just be where this blog meets!

We last left you with a couple posts from Glen sharing a few details of his journey back…both literally and figuratively. Clearly, since we’ve been home, our two paths have been different as we have re-entered “normal” life in “The Creek”.

I’ve had my regular Monday morning hikes in the Open Space with Lorraine, Mike and Dug,

trips to Costco and Trader Joe’s,

walks and gatherings with local friends, Book Club “meetings”,

walks in the neighborhood with Blair and Dug,

a trip to visit my dear friends Marie and Bill,

fun exploring Berkeley with Carol,

enjoyed the Lafayette trail with Cherisse,

had fun teaching about the Gold Rush with my “life partner”, Diane in Emily’s classroom,

and a trip to LA to visit my mom.

Plus, you may remember there was an election so I was involved in getting out the vote and working the polls.

I’ve also discovered my new love – Make It Home! Thanks to my cousin, Randy and his wife/my “new” sister, Allison, I’ve been volunteering at this great non-profit and I LOVE it!!! More to come on that in a future post.

I’ll let Glen share about his forays back into life at home, but I will say that he has been addressing his health issues from all angles which means lots of appointments with health care providers of all sorts.

Together we’ve journeyed to Chico for a couple nights to enjoy our work with the incredible leaders of Chico State,

Sunday dinners with Niels and Blair, Saturday college football marathons and now the World Cup, a trip to have dinner in Los Gatos with my aunt and cousins,

a visit here with Glen’s college buddies Galen and Steve

and another from Janet and Galen (Galen was our best man in our wedding)

and of course, our family Thanksgiving Day gathering.

The reason we enjoy staying in places for months at a time is because we like to become “residents” and experience the place as the locals do. I’ve wondered why we treat our life here in The Bay differently. We fall into our habits of living very local rather than getting out and exploring more like we did in Brooklyn or New Orleans. So…

We had our first local “outing” with the idea of testing Glen’s ability to get back out exploring the world. We rejoined SFMOMA and went to see the Diego Rivera exhibit. We drove to BART on what turned out to be a holiday (weird how when you’re retired you sometimes miss those “minor” holidays) and found the parking lot vacant and free. Bonus! We hopped onto an almost empty train and glided through Lafayette, Orinda, Oakland/Berkeley and poof! before we knew it we were in San Francisco at the Montgomery station. It was a beautiful fall day and while I would have loved to walk around the city – maybe head over to Yerba Buena Gardens…this trip was about testing the boundaries for Glen and as we exited BART, it was apparent that his back was already acting up.

We walked to the museum and headed straight upstairs to the exhibit. That’s the great thing about joining a museum, you can take it in small, targeted doses. We usually would purchase the headphone tour guide, but again…we were just testing the boundaries. I was remembering one of the first signs of Glen’s worsening health issues was when we were in Brooklyn and he found he couldn’t stand in one place well – so that bagel line, that ticket line, waiting for the subway, admiring the art at the Met or Brooklyn Museum…all proved a challenge. Walking distances also became painful. Here we were back in that mode – how would he do? The first thing he asked as we entered the exhibit was – Are there chairs with backs in the galleries? Nope. One thing he noticed in Europe (at least at the smaller museums) was that their rooms had chairs in them (they were really for the docents/guards, but they all generously offered them to visitors) so he could stop, rest his back and admire the art. Not so at MOMA.

So while he made his way around the rooms quickly, I took more time and still scadaddled through. Remember, we can go back. (Well, not to the Rivera exhibit as it has ended.) Glen was as always, encouraging me to take my time, and I needed this trip to be successful.

We walked straight back to BART, caught a train and about halfway home as I was reading on my phone, Glen said, “It’s BART”. Huh? “It’s BART.” He realized that the jerky movement of BART was what was triggering his back pain. Ahhh…if he can isolate the triggers, maybe he can address the roots? And we can find ways to avoid the triggers. That’s progress.

Have I mentioned that while we are on a trip/vacation, we have the habit of dreaming/brainstorming/talking about our next trip? Lately we’ve been doing that at home. One of us mentions a place or a mode of travel and then off we go into researching our next trip. As previously discussed…there will be changes in how we travel. How far can we push our physical boundaries? How can we accommodate the changes? Let’s find out…

Next week, Glen will be joining me on a road trip to LA to visit my mom. Then later in December, we will be making our first full trip, catching a plane to visit our dear friends, David and Mary in Birmingham, Alabama. Glen is figuring out the logistics of “eating” every four hours on the road and in a new destination, including transporting the equipment and supplies that he needs and…as he says…We’ll figure it out.

So…let’s “get back out there” and explore the world, explore our relationship with each other, with ourselves and keep learning, adjusting, engaging…living.

And yes, I’m grateful.