Recently I had the good fortune to travel to San Francisco with my youngest daughter S and her oldest daughter H. I had been to California a couple of times before but this was my first trip to the lovely city by the bay. I have a serious case of “love at first visit.”
Thanks to Tony Bennett’s famous “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” there’s an ongoing heart presence in various sites around the city. The hearts pictured in this post are the ones that are on the four corners of Union Square. 
The only permanent heart is the one Tony Bennett painted. (See the photos above and to the left.) Can you believe the fabulous singer is also a painter?
Click here and/or here if you would like to learn more about the San Francisco heart project and the noted artists who have participated. I am enamored by them and have been thinking maybe I could commission my gifted grandchildren to paint some for my yard and house. It could happen.
I think this blue one might be my favorite. I’m a bit of a blue/green girl.
I posed my girls in front of it. I think they added to its beauty. Moments later a very kind woman came along and took a shot of all three of us. That one’s on my daughter’s camera so I don’t have a copy. We were grinning and obviously having a fun time.
This notion of taking each grandchild on a trip after his/her high school graduation started when my ex-husband and I took our first granddaughter to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She chose the location. D and I had been there before but Granddaughter E had not. We loved going again. But most of all we enjoyed the company of our 17-year-old. I still laugh when I remember E’s indignation as security pulled her out of the line, made her take off her hiking boots and answer additional questions while I stood behind the agent and mouthed “Be Nice”.
She couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
There are six grandchildren still to graduate and I keep thinking “Ahh, the best laid plans…” I can’t help feeling a degree of nostalgia. D and I had planned these little trips together. I have learned, though, that I’m quite capable of doing them without his help. And have fun in the doing.
As it happens I will have a granddaughter graduate each of the next four years. Then I have a break before my second boy graduates and an even bigger break before my little one finishes up. I’m planning to stay physically strong and financially solvent enough to travel with every one of them.
That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.
I never know where my writing is going to take me. I started out intending to write about the glorious time I spent with S and H in San Francisco. My fingers took another direction. Sometimes I think they have a mind of their own, kinda like my unruly hair.
Stay tuned for San Francisco, Part 2.
Back On My Own 