The Weekend Report - and a Memoir Snippet

I spent this weekend with family. My daughter and I drove to Grass Valley to see my great nephew in his acting debut in H.M.S. Pinafore at the Center for Performing Arts Guild. It was a fun presentation with the audience and performers having a great time. Afteward, we praised the performers and celebrated with family enjoying a Mexican food feast! Sunday, we hugged more family before returning to the SF Bay Area in a snow flurry. It's nice to be reminded of the importance of family ties in this busy time.

Driving up to Grass Valley and back to the Bay Area, we enjoyed our spring green hills. So I will share a short memory essay:

CALIFORNIA FOOTHILLS

I’ve always noticed the California foothills, since as long as I can remember. They’re remarkable in the spring. Everyone notices them then. After the winter rains—it’s a dazzling emerald green against the intense blue spring sky! Me, I watch them all year long.

You could just wake up one morning and say, “Hey, where’d the green go?” Or you could watch them day by day, week by week. Would they gradually fade from green to pale green to yellowish to gold, and then to brown? Each year I vow to watch them day by day, so I’ll know the exact process of their color change.

We’ve had a four year long drought, so the green hill time has been a bit shorter these past four years. You had to be quick or you’d miss it—the color change. Then this year we had a lot of winter rain—even spring rain. The hills would start to change from their green, but then there’d be some more rain. So they’d stay green a little longer—maybe another week or two.

Then I got busy. End of school year busy. So I missed it completely.

One morning, I woke up and the only green left was the drab green of the scrub oaks in the cracks between the hills—the small valleys in between. And the hills, what color are they now? They’re not really light brown. They’re not tan or khaki. They’re actually a pale gold—my California foothills—golden in the sunset.

 

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