Our Island

Disrupting courage: our love story, scaled.
This is a new series that profiles our story together in becoming familiar to Northern California and one another. On our way home we start feel our hearts even stronger, remembering why new friends have become old friends. On our way home we start to feel strength while excitement for the future takes over. Just ask anyone headed to home plate.
It is your courage I am most excited for.
I love you.
September 2018
That’s me at Bair Island.
I’d been wanting to see the place ever since I learned of its existence, in 2017, when I looked up an adjacent city last year on Google Maps.
Google, ever present and slowly but surely working on directly coming to say hi.
Google Maps centered on Bair Island and I was intrigued. Today was a perfect day to be curious.
Now I thought Bair Island was probably a suburban town with areas and maybe hours of shops. I’d planned to stroll through the streets before downtown San Francisco called. Plus, I just returned from Hawaii, and you know I prefer warmth. The idea of cold again was so unappealing.
Like a moody friend, I had no idea what to expect from Bair Island weather. And so I threw on my tights, boots and a sweater/tank combo. Total preparation for any possibility.
Bair Island was neither too cold not too hot. The weather was perfect, actually, yet my assumptions were wrong. It was a natural park. No separate town or shops awaited. This excursion had become the perfect symbolic day.
What awaits us isn’t what we originally expected and yet what awaits turns out to be what we are meant to have had all along.
I’ve noticed, and as of late confirmed, that often matches have gone about life as if made for one another. This is true in friendship, romance and just about every other relation.
A life grown in parallel, even if strangers, but made for one another all along. Right down the line. Eventually finding their way to one another, spending much needed Island time together.
So I suppose the quiet reflection, what I needed anyway, was what I was meant to have.
Also, Bair Island is a marsh. Any step I wanted to explore meant mud. So the boots worked anyway on account of their ancestors’ original design, and what would have been out of place was suddenly the perfect outfit.
Ordinarily some people would be annoyed that a quiet landscape was littered with power lines and planes, but I grew up next to O’Hare. Power lines and planes were my sky, all over my neighborhood. So in a way it felt like a home I grew up in.
I wished you were there to walk with me.
The map of the area made it seem bigger than it actually was, and the map provided a formal professional park feel to an otherwise unknown local walk.

Urban jungle? I smiled and thought about the computer guys sometimes having a flare for the dramatic. Such a fitting map.
Heading through the gate, I didn’t wait for a surprise ending — I turned around and instantly felt love for the park creators. Bay area, you really know how to match talent.

I thought about the computer guys and Hollywood guys again, and I was glad for this fresh start. I consider my Hawaii trip to be a reset of the past couple years.
The intention was to reciprocate my love, and just because you guys forgot to ask for directions doesn’t make your intention any less special.
So my heart reminded me of that love and I turned back around. Of course the exit door was and is readily available, but I’m here to stay.
This is our story, mine and yours. Of course it’s a good one. And you don’t leave good stories.
Bair Island was in every way the east suburbs of my home, with power lines and nearby city and close airports. However this truth was also realized in the determination to have natural green despite all else.

Some communities, cities, states pride themselves on untouched natural Earth. While protected natural forestry is special, urban life isn’t often afforded the same reality. I guess I find a lot of pride in those that commit to recreating natural green, under the surface all along, often a more resource intense feat.
It is the determination to find nature when city industry threatens to smother that impresses.
Bay Area, you impress me.

On the way to the first lookout point, I found the matchstick you placed to remind me of the spark in my heart.
The puzzle piece from the LinkedIn post I wrote so many years ago. A jigsaw to be the perfect match.

I love you so much.
The lookout was perfect for the marsh with a description of each unique bird and a full view of the species together. They socialized in quiet distance, a view I enjoyed walking around my hometown man made lake years ago.
So you’ve come to share Islands now, have you?

Walking back to get to the other side provided a new perspective from a new angle. Another poignant aspect of the representative day.
I met a man who detailed that this walk on Bair Island was new, only in existence since 2015. About the same time I was truly getting to know you all and vice versa.
A parallel growth and connection meant to be.
Retracing my steps was new, too, because I noticed how quiet and calm the water was. This remained true as the minutes went by and I wanted to remember it always, so I grabbed my phone for a quick shot.

The water commanded quiet presence, even as it faced seemingly unending stretches of green and yellow sidelines.
I did not walk the entire route to the second lookout, as I was distracted by the small details along the stretch. I passed by a first for me — snails vertically stacked on one post, one branch, whatever the tool may be.

Just look at how they made the best of their home, choosing to remain side by side.
Suddenly there appeared to be thousands of small birds along the water. This flock was strikingly different than a larger one set back, white birds that demanded space. The difference was so much so that I recorded the entire scene.
I suppose Google was less interested in the marsh and more interested in my expressions, because the phone ended up recording me believing I was recording others.
It is hard to see anything on the screen in the sun glare.
I’ll save some of that pink lipstick to celebrate with Google when their technology figures out how to switch to the phone view appropriately.
If you think that’s exiciting, wait and see what I’ve saved for the day Google courageously says hi…
Searching for other points of interest required a stroll back to my car.
In my heart, I felt a kindred connection to Bair Island, the natural green in industrial environment, the quiet way it came to be a permanent place in Bay Area from 2015 on. As if it was meant to be, all along.
Our island.
Bair Island has a small marina, and it is photogenic, and I snapped a picture as I hopped in my car.

Bair Island can be viewed from parks across the pond so I drove to one. In my mind, this park was located in the city of Bair Island. I later found out it was Redwood City, but that’s okay.
I’ve designated it Our Island.
We can vacation to one with beaches and nice king size beds, obvi, but Our Island remains special and full of peaceful walk potential.
Quite a beautiful scene appeared as I parked and found myself up on the walkpath. Like a serene centerpiece.

Dragonflies are found everywhere here, energy focused on Bair Island, fully in their element.
I tried and tried to take a picture and here I’ve cropped it so you can at least see one in the distance.

Kinda looks like helicopter, doesn’t it? Keeping a close eye on Bair Island, knowing its place among our community.
I’m here to stay. So are the dragonflies.
Walking back along this beautiful, relaxing path, I again wished you were with me.
And under this big tree an epiphany struck. I wanted to smooch ya, and here I am thinking that exact thought.

The sunlight was too appealing, and I continued to take lots of scenic photos. Without warning, a tremendously graceful and large bird spread its wings in the sky. It was slowly making its way over and above, and I was incredibly excited!
I’ve never seen this bird before — I don’t think it was a heron because it was just too large and had a very unique neck. It was magnificent and amazing, and I couldn’t believe my luck!
Here, spending the day on and alongside Bair Island, realizing that matches grow for one another all along and only figure it out when they come across one another.
And now a first sighting of a unique avian creature? I couldn’t wait to show everyone and took a few pictures as it gracefully flew past.
Google, as it turns out, was still distracted by that pink lipstick. My camera had been turned around again inappropriately. In the glaring sun, my assumptions about correct cameras had proven detrimental to my photo capture. I’m starting to wonder if a little Island time (or maybe some garlic) might facilitate problem solving for a more instinctive phone.
Instead of marveling at the incredible creature of the sky, I invite you to gaze upon my right cheek and imagine what was going through my mind as I was awestruck at the never before seen (and never to be caught on camera) bird.

I’ll pack a lunch for the next Bair Island visit. Come with and don’t worry about bringing anything. My bruschetta and garlic hummus are very filling.
Also on a serious note. You’re my sweethearts. You should know I just plain dislike my underbite. But it’s a part of me, and that’s that, and apparently the Google camera phone loves celebrating unique features.
See? I told you. What we need outlasts. It’s important to make one another’s islands Our Island.
There were a lot of other things I could’ve done in the day. I did go purchase a few dresses on clearance at retail stores for my new work contract.
However, this was my day to reflect on being a match to others all along. And sometimes that means just being. Not fitting more than one can in a day, not rushing around, not displaying carelessness with time or heart.
I thought about what I truly wanted, as a match, for a match, for my home here and to remain yours.
I wanted a Beyond Meat burger.
That’s truly what I wanted.
In the Bay Area, the place to go for this is at Hamburger Mary’s. I know because I Googled it and did my homework.
So I drove in to San Francisco, battled the hills, seriously battled my driving anxiety about the hills, and I parked right outside the restaurant. The streets were expectantly crowded at 4:30 pm yet it was a lively kind of busy.
Hamburger Mary’s was perfectly accommodating. I loved the ambiance, the ability to get lost in a booth, the unwavering brick walls and the free switch from fries to a salad.
Beyond Meat is delicious.
I am a vegetarian burger expert, from the frozen store bought to the ever incredible Red Robin.
Hamburger Mary’s does a fabulous job with special sauce, vegetables and classics. I requested the classic Mary. And Beyond Meat is one of the best patties I’ve ever had. Light, strong and without the reminder of beans or other plant products. It even has a smoky grill appeal brought out from a solid burger build.
There’s just something about California agriculture that I love.
California dairy is quite special, too. So I requested Jack cheese, a Jack and Cheddar combination to be exact.
And that turned out to be just what I needed.
I felt it only right to capture my first Beyond Meat experience. Here I am.

Yes, I ordered ketchup. It hasn’t been easy to find Plochmans so I didn’t request mustard, but the ketchup worked well. And please don’t mind my nails, the suspense novel on my flight home from Hawaii was really good.
I probably could’ve spent more time exploring but I also feel it’s important to acknowledge when something is just right. I didn’t need any more from the Bay Area today, the day was perfect and a solid reminder that we’d grown as a match all along.
I’m here to stay because you’re just right.
Next time, come with me to get a Beyond Meat burger. We’ll order extra California cheese and make sure Jack is a main player.
Maybe we can even order them to go. Our Island awaits.
I’ve been bitten by the love bug, and took a bite of my own.
No animals harmed in this scene.
The Google phone got that happy light in my eyes just right, probably because it’s been a major contributor to that happiness.

Parallel growth is best when a perfect match is realized.
Bair Island and you are perfect for me.
