Views from the Other Ocean

It is two months of Sundays since I arrived in Northern California; this one is grey. The blank water and sky are interrupted only by shadowy forms and sailboat masts in the harbor and the bulky strip of monotone hills disappearing into vapor in the distance. The light and air are flat and still. It feels like a snow day.
    While the rest of the country swelters, my thermostat is set at 65. For heat. The furnace rumbles through the walls and warm air blows on me as I sit zipped into my Sherpa fleece-lined sweatshirt. I try to imagine summers in Hilton Head when my sticky legs stuck to the car seat and I had to finger test the steering wheel to see if it was too hot to drive. Can sweat glands atrophy?
    The anonymity of Sausalito has begun to part and reveal things that locate me in this new world. The yellow diamond sign that says "Scottie Crossing" tells me I've made it up the longest hill on my daily walk and reminds me of my friend Pam. The red awning and floral graffiti on the yellow brick corner building says "Slow down-this is your street."  I know the bank tellers at Bank of America (my son's bank for deposits) and Wells Fargo (my bank for withdrawals).  On "Bridgeway St.", Sausalito's main drag along the water, I've met the owner of the flower shop where I buy irises and sunflowers, and I've made friends through Habitat, the independent book store. I've sat at an outdoor table at CafÈ Rome drinking Sauvignon Blanc in the late afternoons, when I need to escape myself, and gone to dinner or drinks with new friends at Spinnaker-with its water-side view across the bay to San Francisco-and Poggio-with its street side view of passersby who are visiting or live in what Coastal Living describes as one of the "Top 3 happiest seaside towns."
    I now have favorite walks, favorite houses, favorite drives, favorite views. Each time I re-visit a particular "favorite" it becomes more firmly "mine". In the beginning I was overwhelmed by everything new. Now I am welcomed by what is familiar.  And I've discovered all those homogenous places that make America recognizable:  Walgreens; Starbucks; Best Buy. I've learned the names of the tall blue flowers (agapanthus) and the fragrant yellow bush (lupine), and now I drive over the Golden Gate Bridge down Lombard St. to any place in San Francisco my Google map directs me without a second thought.
    My outer life is a blend of discovery and appropriation: Each new venture helps me claim these experiences as mine; a collection to take with me when I leave. The majority of my days are spent alone at my computer writing or in a wonderful cream colored Eames chair reading. I don't think I'll fully understand what this summer means until I am in another space and time looking back.
    I have had a number of visitors. Their presence requires me to climb out of my head and respond to dialogue that is not of my own creation.  "Diane what should we do for breakfast?" Breakfast? What breakfast? There's a white bag of pre-peeled hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator. "Diane, what's the plan while we're here?" No, no, no. Life here unfolds. My visitors are armed with iPads, apple computers and phones with multitudinous apps to help us negotiate distances and destinations.  I shouldn't complain. A particularly generous friend downloaded a Starbuck's app on my phone-and funded it-saying it made her happy to think of me having little indulgences.  
    I want to share the incomparable landscape. I could drive the scenic coastal route along Highway 1 to Stinson Beach and on to Pt. Reyes every day, but there are equally commanding views in Sonoma and Napa.and there is wine. Lots of wine. I want to take them south of San Francisco to Carmel and Big Sur and into the city to Golden Gate Park and the Ferry Building and Thai restaurants and on and on. There is so much to do and never enough time. Mostly, I wish I could share the sense of expansiveness I've found here; an elevated, illuminated dimension that seems just outside of time. It gives me the perspective to look back on my life and feel grateful for things-both difficult and fortuitous-that got me here.
    One afternoon two friends from Hilton Head and I were on the winding coastal drive along Rte. 1 in the little Mini Cooper my friend left for me. The scattered clouds refracted the light so the colors of the ocean were intense bands of aqua, bottle-green and ultra-marine. The high sea-side cliffs looked wild and inaccessible. A single bird of prey appeared against the sky and my friend, Jane, spontaneously quoted:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed by the azure world he stands
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls
He watches from his mountain walls
And like a thunderbolt he falls.  
-The Eagle, Alfred Tennyson
 
I was in love with my friends and the world and that moment.  I am collecting moments like a beachcomber collects shells. I place them on the ledge of my interior window, which is now wide open, and I say "thank you, thank you."