Okay, as promised: the first in a series of vacation posts! Siting here trying to think up an intro, I’m awed by the number of pictures currently downloading to my hard drive & the volume of info I’d like to share…and yet tormented by where to start! It could be that I’m (waaaay) out of practice typing public-facing blog posts, but the more likely cause for my delay is a gnawing sense that typing it all up is a way of closing the book, of admitting that it’s over.
Pathetically, I haven’t yet come to terms with this fact. Now it’s not like I’m wandering in some delusional haze towards a non-existent Richmond Caltrain station, but I am still majorly wistful. It was just such a serene, paradisiacal place, where all my nasty stereotypes about California livin’ (erm, i.e.) were swept away as I was loved & well-fed in the company of friends & kind-hearted strangers alike. When I wept secretly on the connecting flight back from San Jose to Phoenix, it wasn’t, for the first time, because I was afraid the plane would fall out of the sky–it was because I was overcome with sorrow at leaving.
But ssshhh, let’s keep that our secret. As the sweetly-sleeping cats nearby remind me, it’s okay to dream of the next visit–but taking time to document the trip now means I’ll have a great resource for the future. Photoblogging the first day, shall we?
Landing in San Jose after a nearly four hour flight from Minneapolis.
Thinking the faraway green bits were maybe cacti, and overly worried I wouldn’t see any more of it, I snapped this shot.
Vegan tofu & corn soup at Garden Fresh‘s Palo Alto location, with the delightfully muggy consistency of egg drop soup.
Our dear, beloved friend Ben–who made our trip (and this first meal) possible! We are forever indebted.
The lady at Garden Fresh loves Ben, and it’s clear the feeling is mutual–she jotted down his standard starter, scallion pancake, before he’d even mentioned it! New to my scallion pancake experience was the thick, savoury black sauce that wedded the crispy sections of fried dough. Not to be missed.
Another one of Ben’s favorites, number 35: Orange Veggie Beef: Pressed shiitake mushroom beef, sautéed with Chef’s special orange sauce, served with broccoli
The hostess smiled approvingly upon Ben’s choice, but when Nate & I attempted to order, she clucked her tongue and ordered for us. If you are honored by the same treatment when you visit, roll with it–she knows what she’s doing. Here’s number 29, the Veggie Duck: Pressed shiitake mushrooms, tofu skin, onions and assorted vegetables with Chef’s special light sauce.
Her choice for me, 37: Basil tempura, arrived in a foil packet accompanied by a carved vegetable rose.
Tempura-style soy protein, red peppers, chili peppers and basil in Chef’s special sauce. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, in a coat of many flavors (dominant: spicy). Fulfilled my need for FRIED!
After lunch we drove to the heart of Stanford’s campus and bumbled around. We discovered part of a bike wedged in a tree.
I took a lot of pictures of trees. Here, detail on some interesting, never-before-seen conifer.
Ben & Nate made like monkeys.
We ambled into Stanford’s free Cantor Arts Center, where I fell in love with Wu Changshuo’s Drunken Zhong Kui (above). Part of the “Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future: Master Ink Painters in 20th-Century China” exhibit running now through July 4, his accompanying placard read as follows:
Wu Changshuo, 1844-1927; Drunken Zhong Kui (1921), Ink and color on paper; Zhejiang Provincial Museum
In Chinese folklore, Zhong Kui is a mortal turned deity who expels ghosts and devils. An impoverished student from Mount Zhongnan in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907), Zhong Kui was honest and talented, but his repulisve facial features provoked the judges to invalidate his outstanding scores in the civil service examinations. Crazed with anger, Zhong Kui committed suicide by smashing his head into a pillar. The emperor appointed him Exorcist God posthumously and buried him according to the rituals reserved for the first-placed winner of the highest imperial examination (zhuangyan).
Wu Changshuo’s fondenss for Zhong Kui is expressed in his inscriptions on portraits of Zhong Kui by artists friends, as well as in his own paintings of the subject. We might have felt an affinity with Zhong Kui’s anger and disappointment, but he also likely identified with the folk deity as a figure who sought to save the world.
I also enjoyed this one, of vultures.
The outrageous foyer of the museum.
A presiding Buddha with hundreds of miniatures, tucked into a nook beside the lobby.
Tree appreciation outside Cantor.
Further tree appreciation. Palm trees! They are as impossible-looking in person as they are in print!
What a way to end our visit: walking across Stanford’s ostentatious heart to the car, I spied a familiar figure. Is that… is that…Eboo Patel? Is that Eboo Patel? Oh my goodness, that’s Eboo Patel! Having overheard my hyperventilating, he stopped & introduced himself with a flummoxed “Do we know each other?” We’d only spoken twice before, the first time in the fall of 2008 at Candler School of Theology’s fall conference on leadership, and again at Interfaith Youth Core’s 2009 Annual Conference in Evanston, so I didn’t expect him to remember me. (I also looked extremely busted from the fifteen hours of travel, which is why I’ve cropped myself from the photo–I’d like to think he didn’t recognize me.)
But who am I kidding. Eboo Patel, hero to thousands of interfaith youth activists, sees tons of bright young adult faces every day. He is my hero, and I unabashedly told him so–joking that a happenstance meeting, for me, is like the average person’s running into a major celebrity. (He cutely demurred to Nate & Ben, calling himself a “three”/ten.) But as founder & executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, he directly inspired my graduate work at Earlham, especially my 44,000-word magnum opus/Master’s thesis, ”From the full plate to the wide world: engaging young adult development through interfaith hospitality.” Indeed, an entire chapter is devoted to IFYC’s methodology. Since you’re probably not going to be checking out my thesis anytime soon, you must pick up his interfaith autobiography Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation–it’s splendid.
He was at Stanford a day early to check some things out–he’d be giving the University’s baccalaureate address the next day. Noting Nate’s google shirt, he mentioned he’d just given a talk there that morning. Fawning all around.
Only in California!
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