Essay

Summer preserves

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura

Most people gather up crops in the fall, but there's one harvest that's sweetest taken in during the summer. Though the heat roasts us to laziness, this rare and invaluable preserve requires the help of loved ones to gather.

My family and friends are scattered all over North America. Some live in Nova Scotia, some in Denver, more in Florida, Oregon and throughout California. To visit them all, I'd have to "mortgage the farm" (and I don't even own one). So instead, I choose a quadrant and hope to see as many familiar faces as possible. This year, my aunt, uncle, mom and son all piled into a van in Los Angeles and did a quintessentially American thing. We took a road trip, driving 650 km north to Sonoma, where another branch of family lives happily ensconced in wine country.

Heading north at a leisurely pace, we stopped at towns along the way, stretching out the journey to several days, and letting the itinerary be bound only by the sepia light of the setting sun. Being on the road removed us from cell phones, computers and the concerns of home, and coaxed out instead old family yarns and corny jokes, or caused us to notice the beauty of the landscape on the way. We spotted wild turkeys, whales off the coast of Big Sur, the zebra descendents of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst's zoo near Cambria and otters in Monterey Bay. We tasted succulent beef tri-tip sandwiches home-grilled by an Indian gas stop attendant, sifted for elusive opalescent moonstones on a beach near where elephant seals congregate, and felt the heat of summer pulsating through hills of golden grass crispy as old tatami mats.

My son often succumbed to the car's cradling motion, rocked to sleep by the opiate of the road. There were stretches of great quiet for the rest of us, too, as we moved along. We traveled light with little more than a few changes of clothing, an odd assortment of maps, cameras, snacks, and bottles of water for crossing the scorching Salinas Valley, where temperatures climb into triple digits. But we traveled light in another sense, too, discovering a truth beautifully expressed by Salinas Valley native, author John Steinbeck: "You don't take a trip; the trip takes you."

Our trip took us through enormous fields of garlic, strawberries and corn, groves of fragrant peaches, apricots and citrus. We saw giant sequoias and a museum celebrating John Steinbeck's work. We slept in humble motels with teeny showerheads and flimsy wooden doors. We were also taken on a freewheeling trip through each other's past memories and present observations. Our trip took us into the future, as well, because it will be with us — a harvest of images and ideas — for years to come.

As you read this, I hope you have just returned from a family gathering of some sort, whether it be to light the lanterns that safely guided your ancestors home for Obon, or a vacation with your sweetheart, or even a languid afternoon in the park with your kids while they are out of school. Summer's light, while brief, is golden for a reason, and it helps us grow a family.

Shukan ST: August 21, 2009

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