between worlds, we are
a weekend in san francisco
Saturday our daughter perched herself high on the edge of a paved trail beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. My husband and I climbed over fences and situated ourselves on separate knolls.
I turned to my left and waved across the paved path at our daughter, her body silhouetted against the burnt-orange paint of the Golden Gate Bridge.
To the right, I waved at my husband on his hilltop, with the broad water of the Bay and the city of San Francisco behind him.
Above us all, six F/A-18 jet planes screamed across the sky. The annual Blue Angels show.
I watched the planes, and I watched all the people watching the planes. Some had aggressively large lenses attached to their cameras, backpacks stuffed with gear. They were straining to see, see, see, determined to catch a jet fly past just shy of the speed of sound.
Others drank beer, smoked pot or crowded side-by-side against the edge of the berm.
And there were times, after the jets flew by, when we all stood there looking. Some turned completely around; others looked towards Crissy Field at the edge of the city.
Searching, searching.
It occurred to me how strange it was to stand on a knoll facing the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the city, feeling like I wasn’t seeing a thing because at that moment, no planes were in view.
And a few hundred yards away ,tourists who may have dreamed of this moment and saved their money for years got to stand right there on the side of the Golden Gate Bridge, turning to take in the bridge, the city, the view, and, today—the planes.
And for us, a child just two months into college and now living two states away was home for fall break. She stood there tall, singular and just a hill away.
Four women, wild. We sat close, so close to the Daedalus Quartet the next day, close enough that the performance was immediate. Almost just for us.
Our daughter came with us to the concert, a surprise and entirely her idea. She sat with her dad during the first part of the program. True to form, there may have been nudging, fidgeting, pinching a bit.
She sat beside me after intermission. We'd heard little-known works by two women composers in the first half; now we sat listening to one of Beethoven’s late quartets.
My daughter reached for me and wrapped her cool hand around my index finger as we listened. We sat like that for much of the piece.
Afterwards, she told us: “that was probably my most favorite [symphonic] piece I’ve ever heard.”
My heart lifted. My daughter, like me, had just bathed in the ache of Beethoven.
I walked out with the memory, no—the afterimage—of the four women’s bodies dancing in their seats, alight and alive. So, so alive.