Yesterday happened in two parts: the Auburn part, and the Bay Area part. The parents' lives part and the my life part. I'm going to start with the first half, and see how far I get.
This is the house my dad lived in for the first eighteen years of his life. Currently my aunt and cousins live there. I have countless memories of visits there, when we would make the eight-hour drive from Eugene, or longer when we lived in Montana. We spent several weeks there when each of his parents were terminally ill, and have been back only once or twice in the intervening decades. Perhaps it's this relative distance that gives such an air of sacredness about the place, to me. It's so unfamiliar, yet deeply familiar, entrenched in some of my earliest memories.
I woke in the morning and went on a brief jog around the neighborhood, observing, breathing in the air - even it felt different. I knew I was in California. I got to meet my cousin's three-year-old daughter. We read stories, and she is delightful. After they left, I packed up my things, and went on a slow tour of the entire house. Eyes closed, I would touch certain walls, pause in corners of different rooms, drawing on my own memories and trying to reach even further back. This house made my dad who he is, and subsequently made me me. It's really something that the house is still in the family.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Auburn. The temperature was in the upper 50's and low 60's, and the air was peaceful as I went on a small tour of the town. Auburn was instrumental in the early Gold Rush days, and their old town area is nicely preserved. I had one other mission, though.
Up on a hillside just outside of town, a mile away from where my great-grandfather once had a mandarin orchard, lies the Auburn New Cemetery. My grandparents and great-grandparents lie buried there. In a beautiful reminder of the way the world works out sometimes, I happened to be there the day before the anniversary of my grandfather's death. I brought flowers, and just sat there for a while. I barely knew my dad's parents, though the memories of them I have are vivid and real. My grandfather earned a Silver Star in World War II, after which he taught English, and eventually got around to having kids. Even though he died twenty-one years ago today, he was 74 at the time. I wish I had been able to see more of the living link to my father's past as I have grown up. I was surprised at how simply being there moved me. I returned with flowers and set up a picnic lunch.
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