Manigong bagong taon! I welcomed the new year with my sister and her family in Idaho. It snowed lightly the day after I arrived, and we took advantage of the weather to make snow angels and snowpeople and a snow ramp for sledding. I hope the year ahead is filled with as much laughter and fun as we had today.
Since coming home from a mini-holiday in Northern California, I’ve been thinking about the road trip to Mexico the following weekend where a friend was married by the ocean and of the snapshots I took with more friends as we walked around downtown. I wanted to write about that tonight, but my heart just wasn’t in it.
The first round of layoffs took place at work this week. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and morale has been low for many months as we waited for the decision to be made. While I am grateful that I was spared this time, my department was hit hard; I expect to hear of how others fared in the next few days. One young woman that was let go, who is very much a younger sister to me, came to my office after they broke the news to her. All we could do was cry quietly behind a closed door. I left the office as soon as the clock turned five.
I have a short commute — maybe twenty minutes when traffic used to be heavier, when the economy was stronger — but today I stopped at the library and then the credit union, all the while wondering “what if it had been me?” Then I sat in my car, not knowing what to do next.
So I bought plants. I drove to the garden center at a nearby home improvement store and stood among the cacti and succulents, examining their spines and shapes and colors in the late afternoon light. I walked out with a box of four small plants to fill some pretty pots that were waiting at home. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise that I wanted to surround myself with things whose very existence symbolize how I wish to feel within: hardy, strong, able to thrive under adverse conditions.
After a leisurely breakfast of blueberry pancakes (the pancakes won) and a sorely-overdue haircut, I spent the afternoon roaming through the Monterey Bay Aquarium:
The jellies were a popular exhibit and definitely my favorite:
The moon jellies were particularly pretty:
The tube anemones were peculiar, delicate, and beautiful:
The giant kelp exhibit was remarkable, with specimens — dozens of meters tall — reaching skyward as sharks and fish swam about:
Not quite un-wound enough to mingle with the crowds downtown and along Cannery Row, I opted instead to head west to the shore for quiet and solitude. At Asilomar State Beach, I ate lunch before loading up the old Yashica I had used for a b/w film photography class I took earlier this spring. These, of course, are from a digital point-and-shoot I always carry with me:
Is 17-Mile Drive actually seventeen miles long? I have a terrible sense for estimating distance, but enjoyed the winding drive south through the trees where multi-million dollar homes emerged from and retreated into the forest. With gray skies overhead, the shaded road felt secluded and mysterious.
Turning back north, the road hugs the coastline with views of the endless Pacific on the left and golf courses and country clubs on the right. Just past the Pebble Beach Golf Links is the Lone Cypress:
Further up the road at Fanshell Overlook, my trusty traveling companion takes a breather while meditating on the vastness of the ocean:
