Leaving Oakland

Anthea | Feb. 9, 2023, 2:35 a.m. | USA

The intent of this blog is to keep a record of things we want to remember from our travels; the names of new foods, interesting facts, weird stories or memories, people we meet, etc. It's amazing how quickly things like that, particularly the details, slip away, and it's also nice to be able to look back on notes, even just bullet points or quick sketches of the name of the neighborhood we stayed in, where that one restaurant was, things like that. I sometimes imagine posts will be more like snapshots we want to remember, not always perfectly complete. 
 

In part, the impetus for the blog was because we'll be moving about in Central and South America for the next year (we're about 5 months into that year now, so there's some catching up to do!) but I'd feel a little bit remiss not at least mentioning our departure from Oakland.

We spent about two years in Oakland, moving mid-pandemic while we both job-searched (I'd quit my job at Trident Biometrics, and Jordi had left GE). Obviously, for a big part of that time, there wasn't a lot to do other than for me to go to work across the bay (pandemic traffic was a thing to behold, picture an empty bridge!), and hang out in the apartment. By the time we left, things were going back to normal, and we'd had a chance to take in some of the things that are so magical about Oakland, but I'll always wish we'd been able to even more of those things.

Collectively, if we had to pick highlights, they'd include surfing in Bodega Bay on the weekends, Jordi's runs around Lake Merritt, Anthea's along the SF bay, caving trips, feeding the local hummingbirds and crows, our trip to Zion National Park, Red Rocks, and Joshua Tree, sanding and painting my car, visiting Alicia, Justin, and my Aunt in Portland, Brittany's baby shower and marriage ceremony in Seattle, Half Dome, the miserable failed Shasta attempt, Japan Town, learning printmaking, 3-d printer experiments, OMCA, climbing in the gyms, watching roller skaters by the lake at the pop up parking spots, Istak, all our plants, the dry garden cactus store, Rhodes, Lava Beds, Scuba diving in Monterey Bay, coastal hikes, CLIA-hub, Phage and Phip-seq, Redwood Regional Park, nit wit castle, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, taking the ferry when my car broke down, the Musee Mechanique, visiting the redwoods with friends, and countless other things. 

Leaving was surprisingly emotional for me, mostly because I'd grown pretty fond of people at my job, made new friends in the area, and just in general was reminded of all the things I loved about Oakland right before leaving (Hoodslam, the New Parkway, Colonial Donuts, organizations like the Anti Police Terror Project or Punks with Lunch, and Prisoner's Literature project, Lake Merritt, and many many others). I said goodbye to our neighbors (Scott, Amy, Terri, and Lamumba), who were dealing with changes themselves, as our landlady had decided to sell our building not long before we'd decided to leave Oakland.

I said goodbye to folks at the Biohub who had a really overwhelming send-off for me that almost made me cry driving back home over the Bay bridge for the last time (there was also some rushing to try to organize all the stuff I left behind in the lab, and this fish project we'd been working on). That job was a huge learning experience and a big part of my life during the time I was in California; it felt like a completely different realm to be in, in the way that working on the ambulance was a wildly different "me" the last time I lived in Oakland and was transitioning out of being an online click-bait politics writer. One day you wake up in an ambulance and don't recognize yourself, or in this case, mashing up a fish with a mortar and pestle, or running 1000 covid samples.

That done, I raced to finish a small wall mural I'd started at 924 Gilman Street (which was honestly such a gift -- thanks Gustavo! -- because it was an incredibly soothing way to spend my last weekend, very focused in on one task, painting for many hours and not thinking too much about saying goodbye and what was to come, Nick Cave blaring in an empty punk venue, just very cool!).

Jordi and I both were rushing to finish packing, but still spent our last evening with Jordi's brother Jorge and his girlfriend Amy at the Grand Lake Theater seeing "Nope." The Wurlitzer player starting off the show, blow up aliens scattered around the balconies. 

The next day we left our keys in the mailbox for Jo, then took off. Jordi headed to Florida in his car, and I headed to Michigan in mine, with everything I owned shoved in the back and front seat. Keeping our plants and my fish (Octavia) alive was a bit of a challenge, and some of the plants didn't fair so well in the heat -- it was a HOT drive both north and south.