American Thanksgiving on the road

I am so thankful for this community of like-minded people. For how joyful it makes me to feed other kids and to have my kids fed by other families who care for them. To borrow a can of coconut milk, a sewing machine, a book. To share recipes and stories alike. To feel useful to others outside of my family, to share a bit of what I am good at with others. To feel contentment and fullfilment through that contribution to something larger than just my family. To see my days being filled with spontaneous activites that spring from the group’s initiative. To feel inspiring. To feel alive.

Pinnacles National Park

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The first 2,500 acres of the rugged Pinnacles were made a national monument in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Since 1908, the monument significantly increased in size to 26,000 acres and in 2013, President Barack Obama designated the expansive terrain as a national park.  The park's namesakes are the eroded leftovers of the western half of an extinct volcano that has moved 150 miles (240 km) from its original location on the San Andreas Fault. The rock formations are made of Rhyolite breccia that is composed of lava sand, ash, and angular chunks of rock that were explosively ejected from the Pinnacles Volcano and provide for spectacular pinnacles that attract rock climbers. The park features unusual talus caves that house at least thirteen species of bat.

It was so fun to walk through the dark caves on Bear Gulch Cave Trail and enjoy the beautiful view at the Reservoir while soaking up some sun. Touching the smooth bark of the Manzanita trees, talking with friends as we go, kids exclaiming how incredible this place is... Days like this remind us that this is why we do what we do!

Palo Alto Farmers Market

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It was our first time buying freshly picked local and organic persimmons and pomegranates. There were funky beets and radishes, and the most amazing variety of greens. In november.
Vegan, raw, gluten free and dairy free options were everywhere (actually, my friend Liza told me that when you are invited to eat at someone's place in California, it is tradition to list at least 3 intolerances/food restrictions!). Mathilde watched the woman operate the tortilla press for 15 min, hypnotized. We even danced to some street music. Oh that market was one of the best we have seen so far!

The things you forget...

I had forgotten how wondeful it is to have a 2 years old  helper.

I had forgotten how great it feels to see my girls create amazing gifts for others who truly appreciate them.

I had forgotten how fun it is to have a dance party with other families. 

I had forgotten how great it is to laugh until tears roll down your cheeks.

 

 

The Village Circus

A captivated audience, the funkiest pony tails, cutomized tickets, dirty feet, communal green juice making, shared laughter. 

And at the end of the day, she read to me (in English) and I could not believe how her English had improved in a month of friendship with those beautiful children.

I actually did not even thought anything like this was possible.

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer – anonymous

San Francisco's Golden Gate Park

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This amazing park in the middle of the city is 20 percent larger than New York's Central Park. I could not believe my eyes when Liza told me that Golden Gate Park was once only sand dunes. Thanks to engineer William Hammond Hall and master gardener John McLaren, it is now a real oasis in the heart of the city. By 1875, about 60,000 trees, mostly Eucalyptus globulus, Monterey pine and Monterey cypress had been planted in order to stabilize the dunes.

We drove by the Conservatory of flowers, one of the most beautiful building in SF and headed to the Huntington Falls and Stow Lake, then went to ride the Carousel and visited the Arts Studio, where we got to see stained glass artists and jewelers at work that took the time to explain us how they created their art. 

San Francisco: North Beach district

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We parked the Westy on Lombard street, the so-called “crookedest street in the world” and walked to the San Francisco Art Institute where we could see young artists at work.

This neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy. It is also the historic center of the beatnik subculture and we were quite excited to visit the City Light Bookstore where Jack Kerouac and his friends used to meet for litterature and poetry readings. The Beats' legacy of anti-authoritarian politics and insurgent thinking continues to be a strong influence in the store, quite evident in the selection of the book titles. We actually went to Caffe Trieste, known as the beatnik hangout of the '50s. Their home-roasted coffee is impeccable and its old world charm remains unspoiled.

 

On pupusas and love

When I walked in she said she had just started dinner from what was left at the bottom of her fridge. I said I hadn’t had time to make anything to bring. My hair was dirty and my shirt stained. It felt so awesome to be able to be so real in front of a friend I had met in person only a few days ago. But the truth is, we have known each other for years online and have seen each other’s bare souls more than once.

When she told me that I had been a mentor to her in the early years of her twins, I had no idea how much that had meant to her. And now, I am there, standing in her kitchen and she is teaching my girl how to make pupusas (that dinner was AMAZING!) and I make green juice with her twins, and we laugh and we go right to the heart of what is alive for us in that very moment of our lives.

When I tell her I mourn the girl that thought that finding one’s place in the world would keep her from the suffering, from the hardships, from the doubts, she said: but, love (I love that she calls me love), life is hard, there will always be struggles. We all struggle. And I know how much she is right. That there is no achieving of dreams that will keep me from the rough patches. That life itself is a wild ride and that I better get my seat belt strapped on because there will be bumps and holes, and baby, I will ride them no matter what!

Dia de los Muertos Procession in SF

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Dia de los Muertos is a traditional Meso-American holiday dedicated to the ancestors; it honors both death and the cycle of life. In Mexico, neighbors gather in local cemeteries to share food, music, and fun with their extended community, both living and departed. The celebration acknowledges that we still have a relationship with our ancestors and loved ones that have passed away.

In San Francisco, Day of the Dead has been celebrated in the Mission district since the early 70s with art, music, performances and a walking procession, which help us contemplate our existence and mortality -- a moment to remember deceased friends and family, and our connections beyond our immediate concerns. (from here)

Read more here about the history of the Day of the Dead celebration.

San Francisco, The Mission district

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The Mission district features plenty of cafés, thrift shops and used-book stores that cater to the college grads, artists, activists and other alterna-types. It also has a very strong Latino influence (taquerias, pupuserias, salon de bellezas... all evidence of the Central American and Mexican families that have been settling the Mission en masse since the 1950s). The first Spanish Mission was created in 1791 (Mission Dolores). It is San Francisco's oldest standing building.

There are lots of amazing murals initiated by the Chicano Art Mural Movement of the 1970s and inspired by the traditional Mexican paintings made famous by Diego Riviera. Some of the more significant mural installations are located on Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley. 

Fort Bragg's Glass Beach

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In the early 20th century, Fort Bragg residents threw their household garbage over cliffs onto what is now Glass Beach, discarding glass, appliances, and even vehicles. Locals referred to it as "The Dumps".

The area was closed in 1967. Various cleanup programs were undertaken through the years to correct the damage. Over the next several decades the pounding waves cleaned the beach, by breaking down everything but glass and pottery and tumbling those into the small, smooth, colored pieces that cover Glass Beach.

The Redwoods

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“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”


― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

The Oregon dunes

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When I told my friend Andy we wanted to see the Oregon Coast two years ago, he convinced me to stick with the mountains of Montana and Wyoming and the Utah and AZ desert. This time around, when I told him we were doing the coast he said: Why do you want to go there? Isn't the Oregon coast always gray and rainy? Of course not, I replied, a bit too quickly... 

Needless to say, I have been replaying this conversation in my head more than a few times in the last 3 weeks, as it rains almost non-stop...

On the bright side, the forest is green and lush, our hair is beautiful and curly, our skin, moist.

But our shoes smell like dead fish and there is sand everywhere (but especially in my bed).
 

 

The sense of purpose

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I used to be so busy. I was, like many, sucked by the glorification of busy. It never was a 9-t-o-5-at-the-office-breaking-a-sweat-at-the-gym-before-soccer-practice kind of busy, but a make-everything-from-scratch-and-tell-wonderful-stories-by-memories-to-the-kids-with-homemade-needle-felted-puppets-while-they-wear-handnits-from-wool-I-dyed-with-plants-I-grew kind of busy. It was the good kind of busy, right? The one that is full of satisfaction. The one that gave me a sense of purpose.

But it still was busy. I still derived my sense of contentment from everything I made happened every day.

So, I aimed for less busy. And the less busy I became, the more bored I became. It’s like I didn’t know how to be happy without being productive. Like my sense of purpose was directly related to my level of busyness, to the end product of that busyness…

As I wrote when we lived in Costa Rica, I realize how much boredom is a luxury in our society and that many people haven’t experienced boredom since they were 12 or 13 yo. But boredom is uncomfortable and unpleasant…

“If boredom is simply a lack of stimulation and the unpleasant feelings that go with it, then the antidote is not finding a source of entertainment – it’s finding motivation to brush away those unpleasant feelings.”– Tsh Oxenreider, Notes from a Blue Bike

When I told my dad I wanted to travel full-time so we could live an epic, exciting life, his answer was baffling. He said: “Your life on the road will become your new ordinary and it won’t be as exciting all the time. Life cannot be exciting all the time. 90 % of life is made of ordinary little things. One has to learn to live the ordinary.”

I thought he didn’t understand. Of course, life could be amazing and fascinating most of the time!

The more we travel, the more I understand what he meant. Our days are filled with beautiful moments together discovering new places, but a big chunk of it is still everyday life stuff. Life cannot be (and probably should not be) exciting all the time. But to accept that, I need to learn to live with moments of boredom, of non-entertainment, of ordinary little events. I am not used to be idle, to not be stimulated by conversations or activities, to not feel productive and useful most of the time. 

I know I am blessed to have the space to wonder what to do with parts of my days. I have no more to-do lists to check, no agenda or calendar to fill, no appointments or classes to drive to. I wanted a low-stress life and I truly created it, but I realize that there is a fine line between too little and too much. I know I have to learn to live with less full days and still find this exciting. To learn to not be productive and feel worthy and good about it.

“If entertainment isn’t our right, does this mean our days have to be drudgery? Well, sometimes, yes. Life has never promised us non-stop parties and parades. But our everyday rituals can also become our entertainment, if we let them. (…) As an adult, my struggle isn’t recognizing the value behind the little things – it’s intentionally setting aside time, energy, and focus to breathe them in, deeply. Sucking the marrow out of life requires that I sit down in the silence, un-entertained.

And then, remarkably, the marrow-sucking becomes the entertainment I crave.” – Tsh Oxenreider, Notes from a Blue Bike


**The pictures have been taken at Lost Creek State Park, OR