Category Archives: Relationships

The Bridge

Drive over the Bay Bridge, eastbound, meaning out of San Francisco. The second half of the bridge is all new construction, white and clean and nothing special, except for those killer views of the water. But look to the right and you can see the skeletal remains of the former Bay Bridge, the one I knew so well, the one that used to be strong, but is being disassembled. Ripped down.

Watch it as you leave the city, and think about how much it carried. All those people, all those stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re safer on the new bridge, but doesn’t it make you a little sad to see something so important coming apart? Look closely, while you can. It’s a ghost town. It’s an entry in a history book.

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At the beginning of 2005, I moved from Berkeley to San Francisco. I worked in the East Bay, which meant a daily commute over the Bay Bridge. Getting to work was easy, a reverse route that took me past rows of frustrated drivers, making their way slowly into the city, while I breezed along, blasting music and sipping coffee.

After work, I got in my car to go home, and that was the best part of the day. Getting on the bridge, realizing I lived in this amazing city, watching the buildings appear in front of me. Coit Tower, Alcatraz, the triangle-topped Transamerica Pyramid, Sutro Tower. The Bay, just rippling along, catching whatever light bounced off the city. Read More>

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Dispatches from Tahoe

Sunday afternoon, Easter: Our mobility-converted Honda Odyssey is climbing into the Tahoe area, and we can see snow flying off of the windshields of cars coming down the mountain on the other side of the road. We keep climbing and suddenly we are in the snow, light flakes falling, but enough to inspire Scarlett to launch into Let It Go. It really doesn’t take much to get her to sing that song. “Snow glows white on the mountain tonight!” she crows, and when she has finished the song, she starts it again. And again. Also again. I blame jelly beans.

Monday: We’ve come to the snow for our spring break, although I’ve discovered via Facebook that everyone else we know seems to be in Hawaii this week. After a tough season in Tahoe with barely any snow, there are now “two feet of fresh powder at the summit.” Those words are in quotes because I heard someone else say them. I don’t talk like that. I was always a reluctant skier; once I got going, it was fun, but I never loved it. You can read about my last ski experience here. It will clue you into why skiing is not something I miss very much. But having written that, I feel it necessary to add that there were times, skiing down a simple blue run, when I felt so graceful and so peaceful that I could see why people obsess over the sport. That doesn’t change the fact that chair lifts are scary.

In the afternoon, we teach Scarlett how to play Old Maid. She wins two games, and Rob has a talk with her about sportsmanship. Read More>

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Jodi

I’ve lost another friend to ALS. Jodi Oliver was diagnosed in May 2013, at 44 years old. She died last week, on April 2, 2015. It was just two weeks after our friend Trickett Wendler died, and so it has been a particularly rough time in my ALS life.

Jodi was another mom from my Facebook group. You’d think there were a lot of us, based on the writing I’ve done about the group, but there were only five original members. Now there are two left. Two. I’ve equated it to a squadron of soldiers, but really it’s not. We didn’t enlist, and no one ever tells us that there’s a chance we will get out alive, go home, start over.

But if we were a Band of Sisters, then Jodi was our Sunshine Girl. She lived in Orange County, California, had a golden smile to match her hair, and loved sunflowers. After her diagnosis, she befriended a producer for the movie You’re Not You, about a young woman with ALS, played by Hilary Swank. When the producer, Alison Greenspan, invited her to a premier, Jodi was so excited. “I will probably have security surrounding me cause I tweet constantly,” she told our group. Read More>

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