Karin Fisher-Golton

My family and I are making room for the coming multitude of My Amazing Day board books, so on Sunday we had a garage sale. We did fine with sales, but when it was over there was also quite a lot left. Gung-ho to clear space we made some quick decisions, and packed most of it in the car to take for recycling and donations. My husband Joe found out that the recycling center was open until 4:30pm, so while he finished cleaning at home, I quickly headed off with the Oakland A’s division-clinching game on the radio.

The woman in the back of the Goodwill truck was helpful. I handed up bags, boxes, and loose items. She explained that she couldn’t take aluminum lawn chairs but they could be recycled in a nearby bin. She pointed out another bin for electronics items.

It wasn’t until I was on the way home and the A’s were celebrating, that I reviewed what I had just given away and began to feel anxious about giving away a few of those items, particularly some decorated enamel-on-metal bowls. My mother and I had bought those bowls long ago at a small store, called Peking Duck, on Solano Avenue in Berkeley. Long gone now, the store sold imported items from China. Not the “made in China” stuff that could be from anywhere, but real Chinese crafts which the friendly proprietor often had something to say about. We appreciated the variety of designs in those bowls, the way they stacked so neatly, and how sturdy they were. They ended up following me out of the house, through various meals, camping trips, potlucks, and relationships.

As the evening continued, the anxiety about the other items faded away, but the emotion about the bowls was distinct, not just in my head, but fluttering in my chest, and heavy in my stomach. After decades of experience being a sentimental person, I usually am quite good at identifying the items I don’t want to part with. It bothered me that I’d not even noticed an inkling about the bowls until it was too late. I told my Mom and Joe about this, ending with “…and there’s no way they could even be found in that big truck.”

When I woke up this morning, and the bowls drifted into my thoughts, it occurred to me that since I had dropped the boxes at the end of the day, as of this morning the bowls’ box might not be buried in the truck. What seemed impossible last night, seemed possible this morning. I decided to put my mind’s chatter about overvaluing material objects aside, and just go for it.

By the time I walked my son to school, attended the brief morning assembly, walked home, and drove to the recycling center, it would have been open for nearly an hour. Getting there earlier would help, plus I wanted to minimize the impact on other parts of my day. I asked my ever-more independent, third grade son if he’d feel comfortable being dropped off at a gate. He answered, “Sure!” After some discussion about how weird it felt to drive and debate about where to drop him off, we did it. I watched him walk off on his own, struck by how much more okay that felt than the one other time I did it a few years ago. My confidence that he would reach his classroom this time was complete.

I drove on to the recycling center. As I’d hoped, it was not crowded. Another attendant was in the Goodwill truck, equally helpful. I briefly explained my situation. He asked me to describe the box, as I wasn’t allowed to look for it myself. It was a pretty regular box, but I’d handed it up yesterday with a dish drain sitting on top. First I spotted my son’s little-guy sleeping bag. It was very close to the front. Then I could just see the edge of dish drain. The attendant handed me the box underneath.

At first I’d thought I had the wrong box. I’d expected it to be full of kitchen items wrapped in paper. But then I remembered stuffing that mattress pad on top. I started to reach under the pad to feel for the shape of the bowls wrapped in paper, but instead found the whole stack of bowls right there, stuffed in a fold of the mattress pad. I’d forgotten, that the decision to give away the bowls and their packing had been that hasty. I pulled them out, glad to feel them in my hand, then went to the car and reviewed all the designs, remembering places where they had been and people who’d shared meals served in them.

I drove home on this sunny morning, in awe of how this thing that had seemed impossible had happened, wondering what it might come to mean to me. One thing that struck me is that this is a story of overcoming false limitations—the bowls weren’t impossible to find in that big truck, I didn’t have to wait until after the normal school drop off to go. After I got home I felt a little sad I hadn’t taken a photo of the old sleeping bag. I realized that was because it was linked to my son’s first camping trips. For the second time in twelve hours an emotion hit me hard, again in my chest, but this time with warmth, and it brought tears to my eyes. These objects mean something to me because they are linked to memories of often seemingly simple moments. I got how profoundly sweet it is to have so many precious memories.

I’m feeling sentimental about the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Today is the last day it will carry traffic.

My earliest memories of the bridge are as a child, slumped in the back seat on long rides home to Berkeley from San Francisco or beyond, down on the lower deck where both spans look the same. Other than the tunnel through Yerba Buena Island and some glimpses of views between cars and girders, it could be a monotonous ride. But I’d found a way to make it fun. I’d discovered that the underside of the upper deck had sequentially numbered beams. I entertained myself by reading the numbers and seeing how high they would go before they restarted. A few weeks ago, crossing the bridge on the lower deck from my modern-day position in the driver’s seat, I heard my 8-year-old son and his friend refer to “the never-ending bridge” with fondness. I could relate.

The eastern span has been the less glorious half of the Bay Bridge to be sure, and since it showed its vulnerability in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, over half my life ago, its days have been numbered. Not new to sentimentality, I never sat comfortably with that plan—even before the ridiculous costs and delays.

The impending absence made my heart grow fonder. I realized that on the upper deck I enjoy the geometric patterns, changing like a kaleidoscope as you drive along. A few years ago I was fortunate to be sailing under the bridge in a friend’s boat. I noticed that the eastern span’s supports sport the design element of criss-crossing metal between two sides that is in the towers of the western span. I liked that the two halves were visually tied together.

Crossing the eastern span in recent years has offered the opportunity to witness a bridge being built up close (the new eastern span). I am impressed with people who create bridges. There is a certain audacity in building something over water that will hold the weight of concrete and millions of cars and people passing over.

The new span, which I’ll miss getting to view from the old one, is a beauty. Despite its crazy costs and timeline, I am growing fond of it already.

But for today, I say goodbye and thank you to the original eastern span of the Bay Bridge. Thank you for getting me and so many others to and from San Francisco, Oakland, and points beyond—for work, for visits with friends and family, for life events, for sights and music. Thank you for the views and the counting opportunities. Thank you for being part of the Bay Area.

I missed my cousin’s wedding yesterday. It was the union of two people I am so glad get to have a life together. Much of my family, including my husband and son, were there, but I stayed home nursing an ear that would not have done well with the high altitude of the mountain setting.

In March, I had pushed the limit of the RSVP date, hoping some quick acceleration in healing would occur. But that was not to be and my decision was clear—I want to do what I can for this condition to clear, and aggravating it with a trip up the mountains was not that.

And so this weekend I am home alone. A couple people have asked me if I was sad to be missing the wedding. I was struck by how little sadness I felt, as I am, in fact, an extremely sentimental person who is not reluctant to let her emotions flow. I realized that if I wanted to really mine the thoughts about what I was missing and how aggravating this ear thing is etc., etc., I sure could go there. I certainly did some of that when I first saw the four-digit elevation of the wedding site on Google maps. But yesterday, other than sending some good wishes, I didn’t focus on what I was missing. I stand by my decision about my ear, and I might as well enjoy this time. It’s rare for me to have this sort of solitude in my motherhood phase.

As I thought about it this morning, I remembered a time someone told me about seeing a squirrel do an amazing aerial feat at a park and commented critically about all the people present who missed it because they were looking at other things. Though I got that there is a helpful message there about being aware of what’s around you, what struck me is that if you’re at a park looking at something amazing, you are most certainly missing something else amazing. Chances are that while the squirrel was impressing, butterflies were flitting their crazy-colored wings through the air, flowers showed intricate patterns, getting down low you might see an ant carrying something five times its size, birds were singing complex songs. It’s everywhere. Even in abandoned parking lots, wildflowers grow in cracks, at night twinkling starlight reaches our eyes over vast distances, and in the day the sun can warm our hair. The park story has been a touchstone that life is bursting with beautiful, inspiring things.

This morning, while savoring a rare, peaceful start to a day at my own pace, I read e-mails from my husband and my mother about how fun and meaningful the wedding was, and saw the connection to the leaping squirrel story. It was comforting to remember that even when what’s right in front of me isn’t my first choice, I can always find plenty of sweetness.