Summer Wine

Let me tell you a story.

A story of friends, through thick and thin, through decades and distance, through love and life. We started together, added and subtracted from our number, and moved apart with the ebb and flow of careers, celebrations and circumstances.

A story of coming together more often than drifting apart. A story of parades and floats, of wine and festivals, of the elastic bond that keeps us together.

A story of tears and laughter.  A story of our personal time machines, where memories take us backward in time and dreams propel us forward.

This year, two events collide on one day. During the Soltice Parade, look for the TARDIS, complete with The Doctor atop the structure. If you have an extra bottle of water, find the small slit in the side about eye level and press the bottle through, and clap when it goes by.

Later that afternoon, we'll be enjoying the peacful surrounds of the Museum of Natural History, complete with wine and food. We will regale each other with stories of our lives since we last saw each other, catch up with our rapidly moving present and plan for the future that awaits us.

Once again I am fortunate to be one with the group: meeting at the appointed side street for final assembly, eventually making our way up State Street with the parade, then heading for Mission Canyon and an afternoon of more fun and companionship. As with last year, I can tell my compatriots in crime, my longest lasting friends, my past and future companions, that I love each and every one of them myself. 

Let me tell you a story. Because, in the end, we're all stories. And we are making it a good one.

Infinite Potential

The story of this house begins like most. At one point it was an empty piece of land at the edge of a rise. Above the reaches of a lagoon that filled with a combination of high tides and rain, it was a logical place to put a street, safe from the ravages of water. Eventually a house was built upon it the lot, but was lost to time, possibly a fire. It then became a large garden, providing an immigrant family with fresh vegetables.

Eventually another house rose on the site of the original, crafted by my grandfather and father. The first renters were family friends. When they moved out, my parents, with my sister and me in tow, moved in. We would walk to the market down the street for bread and submarine sandwiches and to the one around the corner for candy and ice cream during the summer. I see my grandfather's handiwork in things like a pocket door between two rooms where a conventional door would have always been in the way. I see the improvements my father made, such as removing a wall to make a more open kitchen.

Over the years it was a home full of stories, of joy and sadness, of history. Small in stature, it is bigger on the inside, holding memories enough for many lifetimes. It contains futures that were never lived, days that should have been that never were, an infinity of unlived days for every day we lived.

Much like where it started, the house is again a rental. We welcome a new family into our corner of the world, and hope they will be as happy there as my family had been.