Sailing to Byzantium

1-24-2011 0730 Muir Beach.
On weekends the vast expanse of parking lot for the commuter ferry from Larkspur in Marin County to the Port Building in San Francisco is largely vacant; a good place to practice driving perhaps. We pulled the brand new 2010 Prius level 4 (Level 5 gets you the automatic parking and guidance systems; scarily 'nanny care') that we bought last week to replace the 2004 that was declared a total loss back in Woods Hole following an encounter with an out of control Camry on Thanksgiving day. That purchase was in itself quite a voyage, involving air travel with a lapdog, a fair amount of hitchhiking and borrowing, insurance payments ‘in the mail’, and finally a wonderful Ethiopian saleswoman named Divine who developed a severe case of very itchy hives as she was completing our paperwork. But there we were, Joaquin in a booster seat, Amalia the Big Girl age 8 and big enough for seatbelts alone, and their doting grandparents, arriving on time for a voyage to the fabled outdoor Saturday market at the SF Port building, aka Byzantium by the Bay.
No one was there to survey our expectations, but based on outcomes, I would say they varied from breast fed chicken and the passion of perfect brussel sprouts through yea a boat ride and kettle corn and including my own unpurposed time with the grandkids and the water.
With the usual amount of grandparental chivvying (‘pay attention Joaquin; I need you to help get your shoes on. Amalia, if you don’t remember your book, you will not have it when you want to read’) we exited the Prius, leaving it to cluck and sigh as it settled its feathers, turned off its zillion electronic systems (average replacement cost over $1000 each) and finally subsided into a steady red blinking of watchful waiting. The sun was high in the winter sky, and there was a long straggly line of casually dressed families where in the gloom of a weekday morning stand the silent suited stalwarts of the financial empire of The City. Yes it was warm, yes it was balmy, yes, all ye East Coast minions’, it was was…California!!
Youths and Elders are the same $4.10 one way; Joaquin at 5 was free. And freedom’s just another word for constant activity..swing on every metal pole, walk one very wall, lunge across every adult path. In his defense, he also sits in intense focus writing amazingly difficult to pronounce entries in his journal. He’s not hyperactive, he’s just very much in the moment, we tell ourselves as I restrain him from yet another adventure with yet another metal gate.
The ferry loads rapidly, and the sizeable crowd settles into a variety of seats. The donuts smell way to sugary good to be missed, and the understanding saleswoman offers to cups to help with sharing the orange juice. The coffee is drinkable. The vibrations of the deck increase, and Hey!!, we are moving!!. Slide out into the mudbanked channel, and back into the approach channel, with a gaggle of rowers in shells of various sizes stroking out of the way. The ferry turns smoothly, and heads out past San Quentin. Amalia listens to my explanation of what a prison is, and what life in prison might be like. We can see them, just another crowd, mostly black in grey clothing, shooting buckets and gathered in groups behind the multiple fences that surround the really small exercise yard. We are free, and they are…prisoners. Later, passing Alkatraz, Amalia remarks that California seems to have a lot of prisons. Yes darling, it does.
The ferry picks up speed and vibration as we leave the channel, probably doing 26 mph at this point, and the turbulent effervescent tumbling of the wake stretching behind us brings exclamations of delight from Amalia. Joaquin is more interested in climbing on things that are not specifically labeled ‘Do Not Stand’. He is not quite able to get his head through the openings in the railing. The Bay is slick and gently rolling; no wind this morning except the wind of our passing. Sea lions break the surface traveling or fishing. They are hauled out on the large navigation bouys, taking the sun. The huge crowds of sealions that lived at Pier 38 have gone…not enough herring anymore to support that kind of a population. A lesson, perhaps.
We wander around, read for a while. Pass along the Tiburon peninsula, across Raccoon Channel and around Angel Island, and then past a container ship loaded and bound for somewhere across the pacific. Alkatraz on the right and Treasure Island on the left, and then, with the Bay Bridge looming overhead, we make a 90 degree turn and head in towards the Port Building. A market goer’s dream; the market has come to Mohammad! Sala can debark, shop, and return without any of the car bourn street straitened suffering that usually intervenes!!
We shuffle and wait for the clanking and grinding to end, and then stream out of the departure port and down the hydraulic and efficient gangplank system. And there it is!! There is an indoor (posh) section, and then the outdoor (also posh but less obviously so) part.
It begins with cheese, led by the Cowgirl Creamery of Pt Reyes Station. Then there are the stalls with samples of bosc pears and many apples, blood oranges and thick skinned grapefruits. The nut and candy people are not offering samples, but one of the bread stalls does, and sampling is also big with the provender's of spreads and remoulades.
The kids are audibly bored with serious shopping within moments. This happened last week when we took Amalia (without Mr. H) to the D’Orsay Impressionists show at the DeYoung museum. What works best, for me and them, is to abandon all plans and simply enjoy the time doing whatever the kids want to do. Such as playing 'I spy' with a Gaugin. So we arrange to meet in 90 minutes and separate.
What the kids want to do immediately is sit down and read their graphic novels. Amazing what a relabeling can do for a comic book!! Why didn’t I think of that when I was restricted to one a day? The bench is well constructed, the sun is warm, and the din and visual impacts of the streams of people are sensational. As crowds go, it's pretty fit looking, much fatter than anywhere in Europe or course, and let’s not talk about Ethiopia! No begging, which is nice. Lots of dogs, despite signs inviting people not to bring them. And of course, lots of eating. And lots of eating styles, if you take the time to look, discretely of course. Still, people become aware of your interest, as they do on the beach when I get fascinated with the movements of the body during normal breathing. So I raise own graphic novel to eye level, and discretely continue people watching, being careful to avoid the very young or the single female.
Now its time to get moving again. Both kids are checking out the circumstantial evidence closely, and greet the sight of Kettle Corn in the hands of a passing family group with joy. Clearly it’s only a matter of time until we find it! In the meantime, there are more grapefruits and oranges and a tapenade stall to be sampled.
The Kettle Corn salesperson turns out to be a grandfather himself, and we get an extra bag, so as to finesse the sharing lesson for another day. They self impose a tax of one kernel each for me. Grandfather bliss!
There is a statue of a bald old man wearing sandals and a dhoti and walking with a staff placed on a cement pedestal in the middle of the market space, and we read the accompanying plaque together. ‘Those are good ideas’ says Amalia as we work out what non violent protest might consist of. ‘He seems like a good man’.
Out in front of the ferry building, after we purchase 3 each honey straws in different flavors, the kids climb onto a pediment, bracing against my back, and observe a demonstration. ‘Why do they have dead babies on their signs?’ Amalia wants to know. Actually, it’s a graphically effective black and white sign of a fetal skeleton. The annual Right to Life Rowe v Wade memorial protest march. Later Sala comments that their songs seemed quite attractive since she couldn’t make out the words. After some discussion, Amalia offers an explanation. ‘Its not like we are wanting to kill babies, it’s that women are wanting to save their lives’.
Ah, how little I miss having the last word in the face of such growing wisdom and energetic climbing of pediments! And how grateful I am for their health, and their intelligence, and for the chance to be with them. And still, how easy it is to do my share of annoyed over controlling, and even argumentive interactions leading to tears or slammed doors. Thanks, Mr. Gandi, for your own last word. May it become mine.
We meet Sala to organize our return, as planned. The kids are reasonably full of kettle corn and samples, secure in the knowledge of a bottle of apple juice in my backpack.
The gate past which the arriving passengers stream is beautifully comfortably large diameter metal tubing. ‘This is the best gate ever!’ Joaquin proclaims from his high perch. And he scrambles obediently right down when the ferryman arrives to swing the gate and let us back into our lives.
Hope you are all well.

Alan