What a difference a day makes. It’s been unseasonably chilly the past weeks but on Sunday, when many celebrated Easter, all that changed. Every living thing with blooms in its genes was strutting its stuff. Pink and white cherry and plum trees gave a final performance; tiny, lime green leaves quaked like Aspen on trees up and down First and East Second Streets; arrays of purple and yellow freesias popped out of the ground fully formed like bouquets begging to be plucked and tied with a ribbon. I held back. Enormous yellow margarita bushes competed with even brighter yellow Christmas tree-shaped perturbances poking out of your basic hens and chicks succulents. And then there were the poppies. Golden fields of them. Even the goats were out en mass along 780. I swear I saw a sheep amongst them, though. The first artichoke poked its head out at Avant Garden. Evidently, and thankfully, the Garden is continuing for at least another year as they are accepting applications for plots. A feasibility study for a boutique hotel on that lot was denied by the City awhile back.
First Street was abuzz with shops and cafes open for business. At Gazebo Park dozens of kids and their parents gathered for an Easter egg hunt. Saturday, I ventured into the new sustainable home store —The Filling Station — to pick up some gifts as I wasn’t inspired to do baskets. Laurie the owner and a Benicia native greeted me as I snatched up a pair of adorable, fuzzy rabbit slippers with floppy ears. Lots of fun and climate friendly items to choose from. Only a day or two before, somber teenagers walked up and down First Street bundled up in hoodies and parkas. This Northern California version of Spring Break was a far cry from my memories of Southern California spring break bacchanals where the smell of Sea and Ski permeated the air.
Long before cell phones, computers and social media, a gang of my high school girlfriends and I would rent a beach house for the week to work on our tans, show off our new Rose Marie Reid or Jantzen swimsuits, and flirt with boys. By the end of the week, we were all sufficiently brown to return to school with that golden glow that was de rigueur in those days. Little did we know as we carefully applied the coco butter to our limbs that this earnest ritual would have repercussions far into the future and be a boon to dermatologists and Mohs surgeons.
Benicia plein air painters under the tutelage of master painter Jerrold Turner were often guests at alfresco Easter brunches that I hosted where the highlight of the gathering was an egg dying contest. There were other fine artists in the group including one professional graphic artist, and a jack of all trades who raised the bar one year by bringing an air brush with a protective screen and proceeded to seclude himself behind some bushes so as not to reveal his process. When it came time for judging, one of my non artist friends cried fowl because someone had added cardboard webbed feet to his egg. “Jack’s cheating,” he said. “It’s against the rules to add appendages to your egg.” “What rules,” I thought, and went along with the outrage until I realized that Chuck, or Chunk as I called him, was really miffed and wouldn’t let it go. Sheesh!
Probably my most memorable Easter Week was Holy Week in Antigua, Guatemala, in the 1990s — a World Heritage Site and Latin America’s largest and most elaborate festival. Locals plan a year in advance, designing their “alfombras” that can cover a city block. These brightly colored, shimmering carpets are built along the parade route by families using colored saw dust, flowers, and sand. The elaborate Baroque works of art become Abstract Expressionist images as the floats move through them and destroy the designs. Mayan men of all ages wear purple robes as they shoulder the massive floats. Young indigenous men dressed as Roman solders sternly guard the Cathedral where a float with Jesus carrying the cross emerges. Didn’t see one Easter bunny until I hit stateside.
A lively finch is poking around in the new leaves on the Japanese Maple outside my window and a bed of cerise ice plants are its next target. I remember that ice plant used to line the sidewalks of Newport and Laguna on family beach outings. Could never figure out how it grew without dirt. We’d drag a huge umbrella across the burning sand, along with blankets and towels, and lunch. Mom was completely covered wearing a big straw sunhat with a bandana underneath, sunglasses, and a long-sleeved shirt. “I hope my friends don’t see me,” I said to myself. Eschewing the umbrella, I’d apply the baby oil and have tight, red skin for days. Mom looked good well into her 90’s. Somehow Connie Francis song —“Who’s Sorry Now?” — seems appropriate.
Letters From Benicia 