Sci-fi

Another KQED Perspective...

It seems to me that recently, my favorite science fiction books are starting to come true . Or that they have always been true, but I’m just now realizing it.

When driving down to LA this summer, I saw smoke and flames blazing in the distance from the Malibu fires. I thought of a novel I had read, where the whole valley is ablaze and refugees flee their homes by foot up the 405, all six lanes filled with bodies moving North.

When walking down a dusty dirt road inland, the winds picked up a my friend and I covered our eyes as a small dust storm blew through. It reminded me of another novel, where environmental degradation leads to agriculture drying up and dust storms rule.

When collecting trash on the beach in Santa Cruz after a big storm, I find such a random assortment of human life washed up from the storm: chairs, an empty can of sardines, deflated balloons. I thought of a book in which one of the last remaining men on earth lives off of what he can scrounge from what washes up on the beach.

Sometimes I confuse reality with the stories I read. In LA, for a moment I thought I could remember a time when the 405 really was filled with refugees fleeing by foot, just like in the book. Watching the dust storm across the dry landscape, I thought for moment that I was seeing abandoned fields, just like in the book. Collecting trash on the beach, I thought for a moment that I saw someone scrounging not for trash, but for food, just like in the book.

These stories sneak their way into my reality. And in doing so, they remind me of how close to reality they really are. Because while the scenes that I imagine are made up...they are quite close to the truth. In California today, fire refugees, agriculture failure, desperately hungry people are very much real. These stories remind me not to normalize what I see. We need storytellers, dreamers of both good dreams and nightmares, to shock us into seeing what is already before our eyes.

Sometimes it takes science fiction stories to see reality more clearly.

Memory

This is my KQED Perspective draft. Edits please! There will be others. --

Late in their long lives, both of my grandmas started to wander away. Or at least they tried. My maternal grandma would repeatedly try to go out the backdoor of the common room of her nursing home, towards the path that ran along the river, setting off the blaring building alarm. My paternal grandma would get on her motorized wheelchair scooter and speed down the sidewalk along the main highway. I was too young to really know my grandpa before he died, but my mom tells me he would walk into town, sit at a bar, and forget how to get home. All my grandparents have died now. During their wandering years, all three had a variation of dementia. When they had dementia, grandparents couldn’t remember where they wanted to go, couldn’t remember to take their pills, then their friends names, then the faces of their family members - me.

Who exactly are we when we don’t remember anymore? What are we without our memories? Our memories. My grandparent’s memories seemed to leave them progressively. But my memories of them didn’t disappear. I’d like to remember my grandparents not just for their individual capacity for memory but for all the memories of relationships that defined them during their lives. Those aren’t forgotten. To the contrary, they’re quite clear and they go on forever in a living chain. They’re alive in my cousins red hair, my love of pockets, taste for red-hots candies, and my impulse to grow parsley.

As my grandparents got older, their lives became more isolated. Yet if I think beyond their individuality and to their relationality, they seem to grow. Though independence is heavily valued in the world I live in, I want to speak for our relationality. At the end, my grandparents couldn’t take care of themselves. Just like a time in my life when as an infant I couldn’t take care of myself. We are far more relational than we like to think. I am a daughter to a mother, a partner to a partner, a younger sister to an older sister. When my grandma got dementia I didn’t become less a granddaughter. So she was no less of a grandmother.

Dia de los muertos

At a taco stand in a park in Oaxaca at night, Kelly and I met a British guy and his Mexican friend - by function of speaking English. We asked how long he's been in Oaxaca and he said since Dia de los Muertos. In the moment I couldn't remember the date of the holiday, not even the month, which made it hard to grasp his answer to our question. But I just nodded knowingly, because it seems that Dia de los Muertos was a day that one should know. I imagine that the city burst into color, food, light, like in the movie Coco. A day to look forward to each year, not to forget the date. Maybe if I knew the date of dia de los muertos, if I knew when to put up my ofrenda the ritual would make death more manageable. Something we can do in this increasingly precarious world.

Montreal

A Bientot I say, and Halie laughs, humored by the handful of French words I know and how separate they are from what I mean to say. I arrived in Montreal early on a weekday, taken by how a North American city could still be so francophone. High-waisted jeans are in and everything is under construction. The Honda Fit is called the Fit, not the Jazz. What a great city for cycling - there are protected bike lanes, affordable rental bikes stationed every few blocks, and beautiful converted paths like the old tow path along the Lachine Canal. Much of architecture seems like it's prepared for winter, but people go outside when the sun shines. Every bar has a parklet. St. Ambroise IPA is tasty and St. Viateur bagels are legit. The Portuguese food and vegan sushi is delicious. There's an independent sports store, Logos, that basks in Expos glory. Avenue St. Laurent has it all. The idea of Habitat 67 is so cool, in practice maybe less so, but all the more worth seeing to compare design with experience.

Family separation is the ultimate expression of state power

Time passes, and finally today California is set to abolish the cash bail system. Can you imagine if your freedom - the very ability to move where you want, read what you wish, eat what you can afford - were curtailed simply because you didn't have a lump sum of cash to go home? Posting bail can't be all that different than buying freedom from slavery; it's simply an archaic reincarnation in modern times. Holding those otherwise eligible for bail in jail is a decision not based on morals or what's right, but on the holding power of money, stacked in favor of those who have it against those who don't. California finally recognizes there is a better way and I hope others follow.

D.F.

What a fun trip to Mexico City together to visit Daniel and Elanna. And what a charming and enormous city. The pyramids, street food at El Faraon and Tizoncito and Mercado Medellin, trajineras in Xochimilco, drinks en un techo, walking in Coyoacan and the parks and running Calle Amsterdam, reading on the balcony after sleeping in, so many good things in one short (and tall?) weekend.

Time Out of Line

It has been nearly a year since our last posts here. I don't know how I let it slip - I enjoy this little dia-blog. What a year it has been. Here we are on the cusp of another transition. How to choose between wants, desires, and fears? What will we choose, and, by extension, what does that say about what motivates us? I look forward to seeing where we end up, as resolution of this last chapter and as the start of a whole new chapter for you and me, for us.