In the Bay Area for a few weeks. It is so beautiful and so familiar.  And yet, having been in the Southwest for the past 10 years, looking at the City is less automatic and its beauty even more evident, surprising, outstanding. Did I just not notice these neighborhoods I drove in for decades? Or has contrast and difference sharpened my appreciative eye? There are so many new high rises and the reality that this beautiful place is occupied primarily by the very wealthy evokes very mixed emotions. I was lucky to have been here from the mid-sixties to the early 2000's. That it is still a leader in progressive thinking seems a miracle when looking at the gold-plated neighborhoods and sleek facades. Marin as sunny as ever, and Mt. Tam, the local "shakti" as one friend remarked, serenely cascading toward the ocean. Today the Golden Gate Bridge is 75 years old and there will be a huge metro celebration while I sit in the audience of a theater watching a friend's teenage daughter (a small child last I saw her) in a dance performance. Driving either way across that structure is truly participating in living art on a vast scale. The colors of the water, the endless variations, the often mystical fog . . .  "Home" as ET says.

And yet, I have also grown to feel at home in New Mexico. Sometimes there are wisps of this mystical fog interlaced in the ravines of the Sandias that always remind of Marin and the Bay Area. The Sandias have  their own particular magic. It is nice to have to two "homes".

Jean Paul Gautier is showing at the deYoung, William Morris at the Legion of Honor, and modern interlaced with ancient at the Asian. I will go to the Legion as Morris is a personal favorite. Hoping to make it to Inverness and the Limantour Spit.