Reflections on the nature and the nurture

I’m sorting life in the Stanford house. It won’t remain fixed here as it did for almost 60 years.

I am reminded constantly of the stability and longitude of my parent’s union. Their parents knew one another, immigrants in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Sol and Anita met at 13 and 14 began dating about 17/18, married at 20/21. Both studied and worked through college, Anita was a schoolteacher in the East Bay and worked at Langley Porter,  but Sol was the one with the PhD, the mentors and the career that grew exponentially.  Nothing would have been the the same without her fierce, considered, critically thought input. They built and learned and adventured and traveled and socialized together. They became a hub of community. That was their passion, after each other; learning, work, travel and engagement.

There is everything here in the Stanford house, the transparency of the life lived. Life and actions and choices made available in myriad forms. In each room and garden the chance to look at and take in and learn by reviewing this particular life’s objects. Everything here was chosen for it’s purpose of use, utility, function, beauty, pleasing design, yes, always appreciation for quality and design. There is also much that was chosen for curiosity and pleasure of learning, taking on other’s points of view and experience through art, music, reading, friendship, travel, even cooking. I am also left with their individual productivity, Sol the consumate scholar, and both Anita and Sol, scholars and and writers. Anita the designer and gardener.

This recipe of life they lived (together, in a daily, grounded way) and their constant continued learning through curiosity and absorbtion of other viewpoints and experiences was the full package for Anita and Sol.

I’m not sure ( I haven’t grown up with other parents) but I can say, my parents were remarkable individuals with clear ethics, who also maintained a remarkably egalitarian partnership for close to seventy years. I wish more people could experience such a model. I witnessed how they designed and held tight to this golden, though never effortless life. They had their children, first Rachel then me, Julie. It’s no surprise we grew up thinking art and literature, then following close behind, cooking and entertaining our friends were the most important pursuits.