MicroEdens

 The kids were off for President’s Week and, to help, out, I took a day off after the Monday holiday. My wife went to work for the day and I stayed home with the kids. 

The week before the weather forecast had shown snow for Tuesday, and the kids and I were excited to see if there would be any truth to this. But snow is rare on the coast and, as I understand it, the influence of the ocean makes coastal weather notoriously difficult to predict. One day, the forecast showed snow. The next it showed rain, and the next it would be back to snow. 

And there was no consensus among the different weather projections on the various sites for weather that I spend too much time looking at now. Not only looking at my own weather (and predicted weather) but also looking at the weather other places.

I started doing this to get a better sense of the growing season, to be on gaurd against any overnight frosts that could hurt the subtropical garden I’ve got the audacity to cultivate at 40 degrees north. The same latitude as Indianapolis and Columbus, OH, but also of Madrid and Naples. Like I said, the influence of water can make a substantial difference. 

The week before I’d brought home another hibiscus and was waiting until the danger of frost had passed before planting it, so I kept looking at the weather, anticipating the snow, bracing for the cold. 

Monday night we had a rare crack of thunder, one so loud it set off car alarms. My daughter who’d just gone to sleep, came in our room pretty worried, but I think she could see how excited I was about the prospect of a storm and realized it was pointless being afraid of something your parent is so gleefully anticipating. She went back to bed and there was no more thunder nor lightening. 

Snow had been forecast for early the next morning, but when I awoke, it was only cold and wet. There wasn’t even a dusting of frost on the roofs as there had been in January when we had a few really clear nights that brought the temperature down, but then went way back up during the day when the sun came out with no obstruction. After coffee, the wind began to pick up and blew a scattering of hail in. I went out and scraped together a cup of it for my son. He looked at it for a second and asked me to put it in the freezer where I think it still is. 

It was a pleasant morning to be inside, watching the hail and rain blow around. I could imagine too well riding to work in that slop, soaked and freezing. My daughter finally woke up later in the morning and, by then, most of the hail had melted, except in sheltered pockets here and there. 

After my wife left for work. I took the kids out to run errands and pass some of the wet afternoon at the library. I told them they had to be quiet—they have a tendency to bug each other in the car—the roads could still be slick with the hail. And, as we drove, I pointed out little pockets of hail on roofs and even—in a visual depiction of a microclimate—a few block radius where it seemed to have fallen harder than anywhere else and was slushed to the sides of the streets where it piled up in the gutters. 

When we got to the library, I thought we’d really be hunkering down for a while and I found myself wishing I’d brought a coffee. But after I helped the kids pick up some books, read them a few more, I looked up to see the sun shining brightly in through the windows. The kids felt it too and the cozy library spell was broken. We went out into the bright afternoon, shedding coats along the way. 

There had also been a possibility of snow that night and Thursday, but neither developed. The weather stayed colder than usual, and the rain may have been a little more vigorous, but we didn’t get any more hail and the moisture—as it usually does—kept the temperature from dropping too low in the evening. 

On the coldest night, I was happy to see that the temperature was just as low down in Pittsburg, California: home to the world’s northern-most fruiting mango that’s not in a greenhouse. This only strengthened my resolve to plant one in my south-facing backyard as close to the wall as I have room for.  If they can manage it in Pittsburg, CA, we might be able to do the same here. 

The cold spell ended with the return of the clouds and our customary 50-degree weather. Certainly not the tropics, but usually far enough from freezing to support sub-tropical plants. 

Winter could always come back, but I have a hard time believing in winter when it’s not happening, or at the edge of the 10-day forecast. With nothing but overcast 50-degree weather predicted, I spent last Friday putting in a giant bird of paradise I had noticed at the nursery when I bought the hibiscus. Even having this beauty in a pot on the back deck substantially improved the aura of the place. The plant is already five feet tall with fan-like fronds growing out from the center. They can turn into trees and after a few years, they produce the typical startling bird of paradise flower, but without the orange, just blue and white. 

My wife and I spent a while deciding where we could even fit the giant, and then my son helped me dig the hole to plant it right where we can see it from the sliding glass door while we eat where it will continuously snag my attention as similar plants do when I’m driving around, forcefully swiveling my head to get a better look.  

This plant focus is one aspect of adulthood I never would’ve anticipated. After I moved to San Francisco from Michigan—where’d I’d lived until 23—I noticed plants in a way I never did before. The electric purple of the princess flower on Nob Hill, the rocket exhaust body of the Mission St. palms, the smell of the eucalyptus groves in Marin. When I was in the Peace Corps in Armenia, I was startled to come upon a windmill palm in Ijevan which had been brought back from Sochi. I stood in front of it feeling this longing for the flora of California but at the same time, feeling so relieved to see a palm, like an old friend after years of being back in a continental climate. And in Paraguay, we spent every weekend wondering among the vast public garden that is Asuncion, collecting grapefruit, guava and avocados along the way.  

But it wasn’t until I had my own house that I began to pay attention to plants in the way that I once paid attention to houses which were for sale. I walk by the front gardens of the houses by the high school and in Sunny Brae gathering ideas, trying to make out which of the trees are avocados and then marveling that they are here at all and wondering how long it will take mine to get that big, and all of this with an eye on the weather. I have, after all, seen fruiting bananas (small and green, it’s true, but still there) on my walks and plump passion fruit hanging from vines in a sheltered area. And I love passion fruit.  

In addition to the changes brought by having children, my life has reopened at this new interest. Each time I’ve had such an all-consuming interest, it is dictated my attention when moving through the world. In my late teens and early 20s, I went out into the rustbelt night noticing places to paint graffiti: rooftops I could climb up to, overhangs I could attain; In my 20s, in SF, on my day off, I noticed taquerias, bookstores, and cafés, new aspects of the city to enjoy. And now, in my 40s, I walk though Arcata, Petaluma, Berkeley, amazed at the plants in gardens thinking “could I grow this in my yard?” when I find something particularly striking. Thankfully the answer is always “yes” because snow might be forecast about once a year, but it seldom actually falls and with freezing temperatures so rare, who know? I might keep a mango tree alive long enough to get see some fruit and it’s an easy place to rest my hopes: Not very disappointing if it doesn’t turn out, but astonishing when it does. 

Meanwhile, my kids are growing up. They will likely have memories of me fussing around in the tiny back garden, creating mountains of dirt, brushing the roots of plants, and mixing fertilizers in with the potting soil I plant them in. If we stay in this house they will grow up alongside all these plants, watching their progress mirrored who know what that mean to them, but it’s fun to think it might mean something when they pluck a passion fruit of the vine which by then has grown stately and gnarled against the wall of the house; it’s fun to put a plant in the ground and think what the moment might be like when it bears fruit. 

Momentito

 My top ten of being a dad would no doubt include a moment my daughter and I shared at the Monterey, California Peet’s Coffee when she was either 3 or 4. I woke early in the morning—as is my wont when on vacation—to have a moment to myself while I had my coffee, and then to wander around in the dawn a little before coming back to the hotel as everyone else woke up. I was as quiet as possible as I slipped my clothes on and looked around in the disorder of luggage, clothes, and unfamiliar living arraignments for my book and shoes.

My daughter was either already awake, or she woke up and asked what I was doing. She’s usually not very interested in exploration; she’d prefer to stay at home, but that morning the prospect of staying the room while everyone else slept was likely too dull a prospect. She agreed to come along with me. I grabbed her Dog Man book to bring with my own. My wife and infant son slept on as we gently eased the heavy hotel door closed behind us. 

Monterey sort of slopes down to ocean. We were staying up the slope and took a series of stairs and walkways through the sleeping pinkish town under canopies of familiar trees rendered unfamiliar by their age and position among the 200-year-old adobe of the Spanish administration. The sun rising behind us, our shadows stretched out almost preternaturally in front of us in the almost tropically clear light. 

Peet’s has been my favorite chain place to get coffee since a trip to La Jolla just before my daughter was born, just before becoming a dad. My wife and I had been swimming in the ocean. We came out of the water into a bright and hot afternoon. Peet’s was the first café we saw. She got an iced coffee, but I’ve always enjoyed hot coffee on a hot day. Maybe it was the swimming- and sun-induced languor, maybe it was the warm salt air, but walking through incredibly bourgeois La Jolla, I felt like one of the upper classes enjoying such a great-tasting coffee and I’ve been going back ever since, though admittedly never quite recreating the experience.

The Peet’s in Monterey is right downtown, a small area that is both touristy and practical, and in the morning frantic with sea gull cries on stillness. On the way down, I’d been considering different emotions. Was I slightly annoyed that I wasn’t going to get my quiet moment in the morning with my book and coffee, or was I happy to have my daughter with me, even if she only had the patience to stay in the café about five minutes and wouldn’t want anything they had? My kids always seem to think they like hot chocolate, but I’ve never seen them actually finish a cup of it. Would the café be an alien, uncomfortable, and boring place to her that she would bug me to leave right away or, given the early hour, could she hang out long enough looking through Dog Man to let me drink a full cup of coffee?

These scenarios rattled in my head as we came in the back door through the parking lot and walked the hallway past the bathrooms into the small area with counters and chairs. They’d just opened and only one of the five or six tables was taken already. The place was dim and the music turned down as any good café is. 

We held hands while waiting in line, and at the counter I had the inspiration to buy a brownie since they can’t be spilled and would probably be more interesting. We sat at the table for a moment, regarding each other face-to-face and I realized as I so often do when I take the trouble to look someone in my family in the face, that I don’t do it nearly enough: there’s so much to see and appreciate there. My daughter was regarding me in almost the same way, her clear eyes, her small features, this little, new person. What did she see when she looked at me? We tried conversation for a while, but it was a bit too early for that and after we had lapsed back into silence, she smiled at me as if to show that she was alright with not talking for a while.

“Do you want to read our books for a little bit?” I asked. 

She nodded and picked up her Dog Man. For the next 30 minutes or so, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt prouder. Truth is, I wasn’t even able to pay much attention to my book. My thoughts kept going back to the tableau we must’ve made: man and very young child sitting in early morning weekend café, reading at a small table together like old friends, like people who are completely comfortable in each other’s company. 

…

I had my first serious thoughts of having kids in 2016 when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Long days of walking through forest, though varied in terrain, flora, fauna, etc., still offer the mind an opportunity to take the focus off much of the exterior world and turn inward. Somewhere in Virginia, probably about six weeks in, I started imagining hiking with a child. Gradually in this daydream the child became my child and as we hiked, we held hands. This thought kept coming back to me, sometimes with such especial clarity, I could almost feel the little hand in mine. And the more the thought came back, it was like reaching into the future to touch what would be, and the concept of having children lost a lot of the uncertainty which had always made it seem rash and unlikely for me. By the time I got to Maine, I was ready to talk about it seriously. 

…

In that moment, sitting across from each other at the Peet’s, it felt like that trail vision had come to fruition. We weren’t walking through a forest and holding hands, but we were sharing this moment of quiet trust and interdependence. Each time I took a drink of coffee, I glanced over at her and watched her quietly studying the pages of her book and, like a true café habitué, pick up her brownie without taking her eyes off the page she was on. It would have been difficult not to imagine her as an adult doing the same, and, in thinking of this, I gained an appreciation of what it was like for my parents when visiting me in the present. To see someone you had watched grow from an infant to a capable, and better yet, thinking adult. Wow. What would it be like to visit my daughter when she was 35? but no, here I was in the moment. She is three, perhaps recording this memory for future consideration. I hope so, it was one of my best because I was just so solidly there with her. Not questioning, or suggesting, or lecturing, as it’s impossible to avoid most of the time as a parent, but just there with her sharing the moment. 

And if she remembers that moment with all the clarity and wonder I ascribe to it, perhaps it will yet be repeated if she has children. Perhaps it will be something she will hope to share with her own child: a moment of quiet, mutual understanding. After all, what more could we possibly ask of our children than to understand us in turn?

…

That visit to Peet’s was years ago. My daughter is now seven and has begun reading Charlotte’s Web on her own. In just a few evenings of reading before bed, she is already most of the way through the book. She sits up in her bed, her finger tracing over those all-important words which make up what amounts to the United States’ cultural introduction to empathy—thus required reading. I wonder what impression it could possibly have on a child already so empathetic. Hopefully, we’ll have a moment to visit a café soon so maybe in addition to reading together, she can tell me about what she’s read and what’s it’s meant to her.