Gratitude

There it is -- The Golden Gate Bridge -- in all its glory. People flock from all over the world to snap pictures of the ochre expanse traversing turquoise blue. At Point Isabel today, I tried to snap this photo from across the Bay, but there was just enough fog still hovering in the morning air to blur the shot.

Several months ago I was in Mexico City, setting the foundation to build a life there. Fresh from a completed two-year teaching contract at an international school in Northern Thailand, we had traveled to DF in December, interviewed at a slew of schools, and by March had accepted an offer at presumably the best school in the region. By June we were back again, meeting with real estate agents and making connections with the faculty before all the teachers dispersed for the summer break.

Flash forward, a few weeks later, on the day before July 4^th, and we're on a plane back to California with all our bags, no lease signed, and an email to the school postponing our contract. Why? The details are actually not as important as the emotional aftermath: my identity as an expat, as a world traveler, as an international educator was suddenly in flux. Major identity shift. As Woody Allen so aptly put it, When man makes plans, God laughs.

Today, in Berkeley, the sun was high overhead by mid-morning, a slight breeze, wisps of clouds over the East Bay hills, the sky a brilliant blue. In short, near perfect Northern California weather. And I woke up light with the buoyancy of blessings, an immense feeling of gratitude, a litany of bounty rather than deprivation. I had an epiphany: take the blog intended for the new life in DF and turn it into a celebration of this moment, this particular slice of my life, in a place of ruggedly landscaped beauty and clean air and amazing culinary delights. A daily tip of the hat and whispered prayer of thanks to this sudden, unexpected life I find myself inhabiting.

So back to the first paragraph: Point Isabel and the view of the Golden Gate Bridge is a perfect place to start. I can not imagine a place anywhere in the world as dog-friendly as the Bay Area and Point Isabel is the crowning glory.

This 23-acre, award-winning off-leash dog park has been my haven since we got back home; who can be disgruntled or downtrodden when walking amid packs of canines all smiling from ear to furry ear? From Chihuahuas to Great Danes and everything in between, everybody romps and runs and wrestles together.

And on clear days, which have been plentiful the last few weeks, the view across the Bay is absolutely stellar with the San Francisco skyline stenciled against the sky, and the two bridges reaching up and across.