Hagar Writes

Tag: life

  • DAY 4 PASADENA > ENCINITAS

    After 17 years in California, the Pacific remains a mystery to me.

    Is there any other place in the world where, on the same beach, at the same time, you’ll see young women wearing bikinis alongside dog-walkers bundled up in a down coat and beanie?

    I’ve tried surfing a handful of times. The only time I wasn’t terrified was in the Dominican Republic with Heather playing the role of cheerleader, and also one time in Mexico with Margi on a hot day with an instructor who pushed us into the waves. I’ve made peace with the fact that it will probably never be my thing.

    I grew up in proximity to the Mediterranean, a warm-water creature through and through. I’m used to sea water cradling me like a baby. The Pacific is like a giant. It’s not malevolent, but it will pummel and squash you because that’s what it does.

    I’m not sure whether it’s related to our leaving, but recently I’ve been more willing to submerge myself in the cold water. A couple of weeks ago, at Muir Beach, Rachel coached me to think of the temperature of the water as information and not some big drama. My skin prickled and my heartbeat accelerated, and I convinced myself to think, how curious. I dove into a wave, feeling its velvety weight, my breath catching, then releasing. Back on land, I felt phosphorescent, energy coursing through every cell, my brain empty and luminous.

    I’m not looking forward to the crushing freeze of a New England winter. Then again, that number on the weather app is just information. What would it look like to stay curious? To wear the appropriate, unfashionable layers and go for a brisk walk or snowshoe in the forest?

    I’ve fallen in love with the Pacific Ocean. Today, we walked down the beach for a mile or two with Jessica and Jordan and then joined the families, retirees, and freaks hanging out on Neptune to watch the sun slink down the sky, unfurling a golden ribbon across the blue. We watched the surfers do their thing, slicing across the water, graceful and impossibly brave.

    It hurts to say goodbye to all this unfettered beauty. Instead, I’ll say “see you soon,” just as I would to a friend.

  • MASS. MIGRATION

    MASS. MIGRATION

    Day 2 SLO > PASADENA

    The first day of our road trip, somewhere around Morro Bay, we started listening to a podcast where Yo-Yo Ma waxes poetic about music and nature. Was it a good podcast? Honestly, I don’t know. I was too tired to take much in, but I did discover that I really like Yo-Yo’s voice and that he seems like a mensch. The thing I remember best is when he tells his co-host that he doesn’t like it when people identify him as Yo-Yo Ma, the Cellist. “I consider myself a human first,” he said. “And then a musician.” He went on to say that he believes one of the things that could help the world right now is for more of us to remember that our primary community is the community of humans.

    I’ve been talking a lot about “my community” these past few weeks. When I’ve talked about the move and the things I will miss most, the people is top of the list, right above the glorious produce, weather, and nature.

    It’s true. I will miss all the moments of togetherness, planned and spontaneous. Running into people I adore everywhere. Invitations to dinners and hikes and movies and sleepovers and gatherings of all sorts. And yet…widen the lens and I remember: my community is everywhere.

    I am writing this in the sweet little guest house of Ellie and Jamie, our babysitters-turned-friends, a beloved duo whose wedding Owen and I got to officiate. We haven’t seen them in far too long, but it doesn’t matter. We talk about life and family and work and the world, and my heart melts watching their kids swinging on a banana-colored hammock and rehearsing a show about a robber and a cop who wears too much lipstick and stomping around the backyard in little boots that are on the wrong feet. Ellie and Jamie are a part of Diego and Pele’s story and I hope that I can be the same for their children.

    One of the things I’m proudest of is that our boys have inherited our capacity for surrounding ourselves with good people and making chosen family wherever they are. Right now, Diego is in Amsterdam 5,558 miles away, where he’s in daily contact with by friends he met while living in Bosnia. Three days ago, he was hanging out with an amazing human he’s known since elementary school, and we were hanging out with the amazing human’s parents who have become dear friends. At the United World College, 734 miles away from where we are right now, Pele has cultivated a web of relationships that wraps all the way around the world—and his Berkeley posse continues to run deep.

    Now I will miss my Bay Area family like I miss my Israeli family and my New York family, like I miss my friends in Rome and Malmo. I will also remind myself that my community is expanding rather than contracting.

    Right now, in Minneapolis—a city I have never visited but hope to one day soon—people are showing us the awesome power of community, braving freezing temperatures to protect and care for their neighbors, for people they might have once considered strangers. I hear the echo of Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major and I allow what aches to ache. I am not really Israeli, not really Canadian. I was a New Yorker and then I was a Californian, and maybe some day I will feel a strong connection to North Adams. I am part of the community of humans.