Packing it all in and gone
Another day of trying to do too much – packing in a day of work, catching up with a few more people, a few in depth, a few just touching base. One of the things that is clear is that the last ten years of my life have been defining, and I mean this in a very positive way. The people I have met, the lessons I have learned, the ride has been tremendous.
I sat having wine staring across the Embarcadero at the wide bay bookended by magnificent bridges, drinking a delicious glass of Rex Hill Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley and told a colleague that Apple had it right when they decided to design their user experience as aquatized – the feeling one has when staring at an aquarium. An old friend and colleague told me about a mutual friend who is still waging a war on cancer – a tough uphill battle. Then I met up with my friend who was my best man at Steve and my wedding in 1990 and found him unchanged, unaged, which I would have told him, except he said casually he thought T was 20 years younger than me, and I said what? and so I decided he needed no compliments from me. Then another friend showed up with cushy zebra plush toy for Tin he had bought in NY the day he heard the news that T and I had adopted him.
A good portion of my evening was spent speaking about Tin. One stand-out – another mother told me of her experience being a white mother with a brown baby – the challenges, the joy, the search for identity. I said it was something I could relate to as I have always been a fig newton (brown on the inside and white on the outside) and I do understand that kids are want to tease a brown boy with white parents (an oreo) and that I realize we, he, have challenges ahead and I hope that they make us, him stronger and we don’t succumb to other people’s interpretations of how the world is meant to be, instead we accept the world as it is.
I just walked back to the hotel, over the hills and dales of San Francisco from North Beach to Snob Hill and thought about everything and thought – god, I’m exhausted and I have a wake up call at 3:45 am to catch my plane. Ugh.