Oakland

After a very early dinner in San Francisco with Joe and Daria, I conduct them to the train station.  It is important that they see how things run on time.  How the wheelchair lift descends, scoops me up and deposits me inside the coach.  I stare through the fluctuations of the electric door to see if they are standing on the platform as the 6:56 rolls south.  Why any of this matters and why I want someone else to witness the efficiencies of Caltrain eludes me.  But this has been a decades-long drama of human improvement in my life, the resurrection of the Peninsula trains.  I identify with the betterment of Caltrain and want others to share this experience.  And once the train departs and San Francisco and points south flash by the windows, the spirit drains from the hurtling scenery.  I do not care.  Marlou appreciated this last, fast train in the evening, how it allowed us to get a quick and pleasant bite to eat at the end of a San Francisco day.  Alone, the whole thing seems empty and a little foolish.

I try to read.  Fatigue sweeps over me.  This happens several times a day.  Still, it is remarkable what things get done.  I manage to make one, in fact, several phone calls, to the California state retirement office.  The people are remarkably pleasant, patient, even indulgent.  Most of the time, I do not snap at them.  Occasionally, I do.  Repeated requests for my name and address prove to me that the world is an essentially stupid and uncaring place.  I let whoever happens to be on the phone know this.  It is not possible to be born twice, I tell one woman.  My address has not changed in the 90 seconds since I first uttered it, I tell a man.  No one says anything.  All tell me they are sorry to hear of my loss.  I am sorry to hear them telling me they are sorry.  Still, we get through it, the paperwork and the forms and the express mail.  There is a sort of progress.

Everything seems feeble, drained of myth, sad and empty in its sobriety.  My landlord, in his mid-70s, regularly sweeps the carport at a morning hour when I, from my rowing machine, inquire after his well-being.  How's it going, Tom?  His answer is always the same.  If he wakes up breathing, or wakes up at all, he counts himself lucky.  Neither of us even pretends this is a joke.  I nod gravely.  He continues sweeping.  I think of the lettuce seedlings I purchased days ago.  They are busy wilting in the raised vegetable garden, still in their plastic containers.  A time to plant.  A time to sow.  A time to refrain.  Fuck it all.

I know longer make the extra effort.  I decide that a play opening in San Francisco in May can open without me.  I am not keen on going anywhere, doing anything.  It's hard to remember the reason for my summer trips.  I am traveling on blind faith.  And I wish to show Marlou's nephews a bit of the world, spend some time with them and connect with someone who has a few of my wife's genes.  A sense of purpose.

Although I have little interest in entertainment, I am making an enormous effort to drive to Oakland on Saturday.  A daylong workshop on mentoring taught by a man I respect.  What on earth is mentoring?  We Americans have an endless capacity for branding.  And yet I know that beneath the jargon, there is still a place for me in the world.  Mentoring, schmentoring.  There must be something there in Oakland.  Why else would I make a 100 mile drive, north and south, in one day?