Mural, Coachella, California
I left Santa Barbara on Thursday, heading for the places I’d lived as a child, not exactly intentionally but because those places were on my path anyway. My first stop was more of a drive-by. After buying gas in Pasadena, I made a 2-mile detour south to San Marino, where I lived as a teenager. Rich, conservative San Marino was an unlikely place for us, neither rich nor conservative, but we survived the John Birch Society, the cops who trolled the likes of us in Lacey Park, and being the only family without a gardener.
Like the rest of San Marino, my family’s house is mostly unchanged, right down to the chips in the brick path to the front door. The house is for sale — at a price that is 55 times what my parents paid for it 55 years ago.
Down the road in Glendora, I had a long-awaited, masked outdoor visit with Tom, Marilynn and Melinda, my uncle, aunt and cousin. Our two hours together was by far the longest in-person in-depth conversation I’ve had with anyone for almost a year. It was joyful and exhilarating to the point of exhausting. It seems our social skills require exercising just as our bodies do, and you can’t expect to easily run a half-marathon after ten months of brisk walks.
Foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains north of Claremont.
Following the half-marathon, I drove to Claremont, a small college town between Los Angeles and San Bernardino (tragically pronounced “San Berdino” a thousand times by Diane Keaton in her reading of Joan Didion’s classic, Slouching Toward Bethlehem). Claremont has street names like Yale and Harvard, a lot of classic California architecture, and coffee houses on tree-lined streets. I stayed downtown in a wonderful hotel called Casa 425, ate Thai take-out, and hiked through Claremont’s wilderness area, north of town.
But mainly, I was in Claremont to visit more family — the kind who have traveled to another dimension.
By the time I arrived at Oak Park Cemetery, I’d had plenty of time on the road to think about the things I should have done but didn’t do when my parents were living. That’s what solo travel does to you — your mind wanders to what it knows but has learned to avoid. One troubling memory leads to another and you find yourself skipping through every hopeful and happy song on your playlist until you are hearing nothing at all. You know that if you want to reengage your self-respect, you have to let those thoughts consume you and then leave you. You will do better. You expect your own son will have the same thoughts someday and you forgive him in advance, as you believe your parents did.
I left a copy of A Country Within with my dad, who also wrote books, and whose Armenian refugee father inspired me to write about the refugees I met and loved in Greece. Sister Laura asked me to leave him a dime, and I did, a reminder of an old joke between my dad and cousin Donnie. At sister Kathy’s request, I left my mother with pennies for her thoughts, which were unexpectedly wise and expectedly loving and sometimes delightfully sardonic.
Palm trees in Indian Canyons.
Again exhausted — this time from the conversation with myself — I left Claremont. I had planned to stay in Palm Springs because I’d oddly never been there, and because it’s close to Joshua Tree National Park. Palm Springs was what I’d expected, a sprawling and unapologetic asylum of conspicuous consumption in a place of extraordinary natural beauty. I ended up not staying there because my overpriced hotel room smelled like a chemical soup, and its manager was kind enough to relieve me of my commitment. Before I left, I learned that the Cuhuilla Indian tribe, which owns most of the land around Palm Springs, has created, among other things, a gorgeous regional park that’s open to the public. I hiked for several miles through a Cuhuilla canyon oasis of palm trees and then drove 30 miles south to Coachella.
Coachella is the Un-Palm Springs, struggling and wind-seared and no where leafy. More than 90% of its residents are Spanish speakers. These days, most people know Coachella because it’s the name of an annual music festival held outside of town. Coachella is also known but less known for its homegrown murals, depicting the Mexican-American community’s culture and history.
I found the murals in Coachella’s all-but-abandoned pueblo viejo and they are indeed beautiful and inspiring, recounting the stories that connect the US and Mexico, and celebrating Mexican heroes of all kinds. Seeing them made me feel full inside.
So far, this trip is the right thing for me.
A few thoughts about travel during the pandemic: I want to stress that I am a big fan of Dr. Fauci and the experts, who recommend that we not travel during this time. It is relevant (to me at least) that I’m somewhat differently situated from most Americans in that I didn’t have a home when all of this started, that I don’t live with family or friends, and that routine makes me break out in hives. More relevant, the way I am traveling is probably as safe as not traveling. Here are my rules:
- I assume that everyone is a carrier, including me
- I don’t go into buildings except hotels and once a week to shop, and I am in the common areas of hotels for about 3 minutes at a time.
- I try to use bathrooms at rest stops and parks because their facilities have openings to the outside.
- When I am inside (except in my hotel room), I wear two masks.
- When I am outside, I wear a mask if there are other people within 20 feet of me.
- I don’t eat at restaurants, even at outside tables. I get take-out where I can pick up curbside.
- I research hotel reviews and policies before I reserve a room and I default to corporate hotels, which tend to have standardized and well-articulated protocols and labor policies
Do my rules make this kind of travel ok? I don’t know what Dr. Fauci would say, but I am heading east.
Camino Milagro 
This one is very special. Safe journey wishes to you as always Sistah! Xo
– Laura
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xoxox
Beautiful, Kim! I love your mural photos and the one of your book you left for your dad. You are meandering to so many special places, and I’m happy to read your rules for safe travel. xoxo
Thank you Wendy 🙂
Love this! I felt like I was right there with you. And your house. So many memories. I got to stay in the maid’s quarters. XOXOX
I wish you were right here with me! And that’s hilarious that you remember the original residents of my bedroom!
You are not on a trip. You are on an odyssey.
These places have always been meaningful to you and that meaning has only deepened with time. Leaving your book, the dime and the pennies is symbolic of your pilgrimage and are tokens of remembrance and respect.
On a more humorous note, I think next time you should leave a deck of playing cards so your folks can argue about the last deal and your dad can complain about the crappy cards he always is being dealt.
I am so impressed with your ability to allow various thoughts to enter, temporarily reside and then pass through your consciousness without grasping onto them. Very much akin the teachings I learned in Ridhwan, aka Diamond Heart. I’m able to succeed at this practice some of the time, albeit (*) not always. You seem to do it effortlessly… which is, of course, the only way one can do it.
Your time with Tom, Marilyn and Melinda sounds as if it were wonderful, albeit (*) exhausting. It’s made me a bit jealous as I have become increasingly aware of feeling lonely and crave such gatherings. And visiting Coachella was certainly a great idea! IMO Coachella has been “real” and “cool” for a long long time way before the music festival took off. I remember seeing some murals there when I visited friends living there in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, albeit (*) the murals weren’t as colorful or spectacular as your photos show them to be nowadays. I think they’ve been re-painted or perhaps these are brand new ones.
You appear to be exercising diligence in being as safe as possible during your odyssey. I will still worry.
Happy trails to you!
I love the idea of the playing cards! Your memory is right on.
You clearly have gypsy blood, so no need to explain yourself. Thank you for taking us along. Talks with family that are meaningful are always exhausting and there is no preparing for them. I can hardly wait to see where you take us next. And the KN95 masks are what nurses wear in the hospital. Just make sure it fits you correctly. SMA misses you.
❤ Toni
Thanks for the update on your journey east, Kim 🙂 You appear to be taking all the right precautions. Continue to stay safe ❤
Thank you Rosaliene!
Sounds like a pilgrimage to the depth of your soul! A wonderful meaningful trip so far, and your precautionary practices sound very reasonable.
I think you just described all travel perfectly — a pilgrimage to the depth of your soul!
Beautiful captures and a lovely post Kim, thanks for taking us along. Safe travels❣️
Thanks so much!
Beautiful post Kim! Keep heading south, you know where to find us! We miss you!
Oh I wish! Can you just eliminate those border walls — the ones in my mind!
Thank you Kim for sharing the beauty that you’re finding all around you and inside you.
Your post inspired me to read a little about the biblical commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother” – The readings reminded me that honoring them includes how we respect, value and care for them during their lives, and also after they’re gone – including remembering what we learned from them, and being a good person who they’d be proud of.
Thanks again for sharing your path.
Hi Karen, another thing that occurred to me is that I know my parents now much better than I knew them when they were living. Strange….maybe thinking more deeply about them is a way of keeping them with me.
Lovely Essay Kim. Brave of you to be traveling during this time – Sarita
Hi Sarita, so nice to hear from you. I hope it’s more brave than stupid!
Are you still writing? Big hugs….
Dear Kim,
Your recent blogs have evaded me due to other pressing demands on my time, like my NGO work and my own determination to get my next novel done by the end of the year—but after reading this, going backwards, I am once again a Kim Malcolm devotee. Your writing is so inspiring as is your travel.
Will keep your safety tips in mind as we plan a long road trip to New England and other points east with our new WolfPup 16ft. trailer starting in September—and before that, in June up to the Olympic Forest, Port Townsend and the San Juan Islands.
Thank you for sharing so much of your soul’s journey with us!
Sher
Thank you Sher! I am excited for your trips coming up! I hope you will let me know how they go! I once lived on Stuart Island in the San Juans, and have a lot of nostalgia for that time and place. Abrazos Amiga.