LOOK

We have just returned from the vacation of a lifetime. Almost two and a half weeks on the East Coast, in upstate New York and in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, the town I grew up in. The weather was glorious and hot, the way I love it. We saw old friends and relatives, we celebrated the Fourth in the most classic way, and I personally never wanted to come back to San Francisco. It was life changing.

But now that we are back in San Francisco, I don't really want to leave. Not yet, anyway. I took one cagillion photos on our trip. I need to sort through them and can't wait to write about everything.

In the meantime, here is a copy of the September 13, 1960 issue of LOOK, a now-defunct photography-based magazine, similar to Life. My father was photographed for the magazine, in an article on a socialite from Wolfeboro, the town we both grew up in. My father was one of her "two or three "serious" romances between June and September".

Dad and Betsy.

My brother and I treasure this article. This is my brother's copy. It is so touching for us to see our father, who passed away in the winter of 2004, in the pages of this magazine with his tan lines and the immense galaxy of freckles he gave to both of us. I'm sure this article was a big deal for Wolfeboro at the time. Wolfeboro makes headlines now because of the current republican presidential candidate summering in town (whose name shall never be mentioned here), but not much else has drawn national attention to this little lake town.

Our time in Wolfeboro was so full of history. Everywhere I turned was somewhere I had worked (I have worked so many jobs I can't even believe it myself), the high school my mother was a fixture at, somewhere my grandparents had lived, somewhere I played, someone's house I loved. Our dear Aunt Kate is the only relative we have living in town (so glad she's still there). Enough time has passed that there is no sting from my father's death, only happy memories. It was a thrill to bring my husband and children there for a nice length of time and to really, truly feel summer.

David and I have been on a never-ending quest to figure out where we belong, with the pull of the East Coast so strong for me and the love of Northern California so strong in him. This trip helped solidify the idea for us that we need to have BOTH in our lives. We still need to figure out how. We have been lacking direction for so, so long, like broken records at parties, telling our friends we want something else, but never knowing what. We both feel like we've found somewhere else to call home, even if only a few months a year, and frankly, it's more doable there than most other places. It could be years before we have that all in place, but I think for once we have a vision together, and this is a big deal for us. It was a life changing trip, I tell you.