Sunday, 8.23.2020 The Throughline is your portal to tomorrow, a view of the Bay Area at the intersection of reality and possibility. Our nine-week journey continues by exploring our movements among each other:
SAN FRANCISCO AT A CROSSROADS — ALTERED BY PANDEMIC AND PROTEST
1 A pandemic preview of the ski season in Lake Tahoe
1 Moving toward a more personalized public transit system
A SPECIAL REPORT BY CULTURE DESK WEEK SEVEN: HOW WE MOVE
1 Kids’ worlds are shrinking Find more inside.
J2 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
H OW W E M OV E
A B OU T T H I S S ECT I O N Throughline is a Culture Desk limited-series project exploring what the Bay Area of the near future could look like after the effects of the pandemic and protests take hold. How could we use this moment to reshape our region for the better? On the cover: Check back each week as we reveal another portion of visual development artist Pong Lertsachanant’s rendering of the future of the Bay Area.
STA F F Throughline Editors Sarah Feldberg Robert Morast Designer Alex K. Fong Deputy Photo Director Russell Yip Creative Director Danielle Mollette-Parks Contributing Editor Bernadette Fay Copy Desk Chief Shay Quillen Managing Editor, Features Michael Gray
Advertising Kathy Castle Account Executive kcastle@ sfchronicle.com Follow us Twitter: @SFC_Culture Instagram: @sfchronicle_culture Email us culture@ sfchronicle.com
BEACHES TO M O U N TA I N S : G O L D E N S TAT E B EST P L AC E TO BE GROUNDED
GLOBAL T R AV E L E R : WHEN THE W H O L E WO R L D I S YO U R H O M E
By Gregory Thomas
By Valerie Stimac
A
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Face it, you’re probably not venturing too far from home for a while. ¶ Much of Europe and Asia is off limits to U.S. travelers. Cruise lines are suspending trips through the fall. Airlines are being stingy with ticket refunds, and much of the U.S. is deterring interstate travel. The message seems clear: That big vacation you’d planned? Now is not the time.
Chronicle photo illustration
Instead, travelers are likely to stick closer to home in the It’s as if California were made for this weird moment of short term, surveys show. There’s been a resurgence in road self-isolation. The locavore movement has long turned the trips and “staycations.” People leery of crowds are ditching focus inward, toward an appreciation of the state’s intrinsic resorts in favor of parks and campgrounds. RV rentals are assets. Some of the highest-quality fruits and vegetables in spiking as families look for ways to take their social bubble the nation are grown here, then spun into some of the finest mobile. Even boat rentals are seeing an uptick in interest. cuisine. It’s the mecca of fine wine and craft beer, oysters and For Californians, the pandemic has opened the door to the crabs, sourdough and salmon. bounty in our backyard. Without the millions of tourists who Tourism here is similarly diverse and ubiquitous, offering visit annually, this year, residents have it to themselves. For enough appeal to enough locals to help counterbalance the those looking to safely escape the doldrums of life indoors economic loss of millions of out-of-state travelers. The tourduring the coronavirus pandemic (at least when we don’t ism bureau estimates that locals accounted for 72% of leisure face the threat of wildfire), there might not be a better place trips in the state last year. That is expected to rise consideron Earth. ably now. “California has an embarrassment of riches,” says Caroline This is not to suggest that every part of the state is wide Beteta, CEO of the state’s tourism bureau, Visit California. open to visitors. With numerous wildfires burning and variThat sounds pretty obvious, but during this uncertain time, ous COVID restrictions, make it rings as profound. There’s sure to check with the parks, more here than a person could towns or businesses you plan to explore in a lifetime. California has 840 miles of some of the visit before you set out on a Looking to get outdoors, planet’s most beautiful coastline — journey and take steps to obaway from crowds and into the serve local health orders. fresh air, where coronavirus ruggedly handsome and lined with Masks are required most places transmissions are radically spectacular beaches. The state’s now; hand sanitizer is a necessireduced? There are dozens of oft-overlooked far north, a sprawling ty. sandy beaches, proper mounTraveling locally “is basically tains and thousands of miles of region of mountains, forests and streams, a modern-day act of patriohiking trails in the Bay Area is larger than the state of Maine. tism,” Beteta told me earlier alone. Marin County is the this summer. “Help your fellow birthplace of mountain biking. Californians jump-start the Santa Cruz’s famous waves economy.” cater to expert surfers and newbies alike. Before the coronavirus collapsed outside tourism in the Farther out, the Sierra Nevada is home to world-class state, the industry employed 1.2 million people and was ridhiking, backpacking and skiing. The range is peppered with ing a 10-year upswing in growth. That’s because California feeder trails that link up with the Pacific Crest Trail, one of isn’t dependent on checklist novelties you see once for an the country’s most scenic wilderness routes. Yosemite NaInstagram moment. Exploring the state is an endlessly retional Park, the pinnacle of rock climbing, is open and, with warding experience; “California fatigue” is not a thing people new daily visitor quotas, the least crowded it’s been in desuffer. cades. If you had to draw parameters around a perfect piece of There are 840 miles of some of the planet’s most beautiful earth, you might end up with the state border. coastline — ruggedly handsome and lined with spectacular beaches. The state’s oft-overlooked far north, a sprawling region of mountains, forests and streams, is larger than the Gregory Thomas is the Chronicle’s editor of lifestyle and outdoors. state of Maine. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @GregRThomas
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“Fly Brother”
In his show “Fly Brother,” Ernest White II travels the world making friends.
At the beginning of the year — when few could have predicted a future defined by travel restrictions, border closures, changing visa regulations and social unrest — Ernest White II was preparing for the kind of year most travel media professionals dream about. White’s first TV show, “Fly Brother With Ernest White II,” was set to premiere nationally on public television in January (it debuted locally in May); his crew was gearing up to start filming season two in April. The docuseries focuses on the power of human connection as he explores 11 global destinations including Namibia, Sweden, Tajikistan and Colombia with a personal friend as local guide. While the show did air as planned, season two is on hold indefinitely, and White has been (mostly) stuck at home in San Francisco like the rest of us. ¶ We spoke with White to discuss how the world has changed for a professional traveler and what the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement might mean for the future of global travel. Q: How have the last five months affected the way you think about travel and where you see the future of travel going? A: As spring turned to summer, we decided that we would stick a pinkie toe into the pool to test the temperature, so I ended up going to Mexico for the month of July to see how airlines were handling it. In my experience flying to and from Mexico on Aeroméxico, I felt like they were incredibly careful in terms of their own procedures and protocols, making sure everyone had PPE on the plane. Their flight attendants wore face shields as well as masks, everyone had to slather themselves in hand sanitizer upon boarding, they kept service to an absolute minimum, and they stayed on people who let their masks slip. I did not see that same type of care on the U.S. carrier side, unfortunately. I did recognize my role as a journalist, and as a pioneer in some ways, in going out and seeing what it was like on the ground or in the air because I knew that I would be looked to for guidance and understanding. As we are experiencing a major shift economically, people are still concerned about finances, but they’re more concerned about their health. Be it an airline, a hotel, ride share, home-sharing situation, everyone is going to be concerned about how those companies are putting the health and safety of customers and employees ahead of every other consideration. Q: What was it like having a travel show during a time when everyone is stuck at home? A: This is in no way to minimize the traumatic effects of the pandemic and social transformation, (but) when it comes to a television series debuting when people are stuck at home and production has shifted or slowed or shut down completely, it did help boost our viewership and splash into the industry because the field was less crowded. The focus of the show, which is friendship and connection, is
more necessary than ever at this time, from the perspective of a health crisis from which no one is immune to a societal reckoning that’s global in scope — from which none of us is immune.
“The focus of the show, which is friendship and connection, is more necessary than ever at this time, from the perspective of a health crisis … to a societal reckoning that’s global in scope.”
Q: What is in store for the second season, given how the world has changed? A: The themes — friendship and connection — will always be the same for this particular project. In that regard, we will never be at a loss for phenomenal people to connect with and amazing experiences to have. Now we just have to put more thought into how we can make it work in a way that is sustainable and scalable. I don’t believe any barriers are permanent; we’ve seen that in our lifetimes. We’ve seen just as many positive forms of transformation and human connectivity as we’ve seen new barriers go up. Q: What do we lose out on when we can’t travel? A: We’re losing out on short-term gratification. In the midst of the pandemic, we're seeing behavior that indicates a lack of awareness regarding how our actions impact others, be it not wearing masks or disregarding local customs and regulations in the few places U.S. citizens are even allowed to travel. Still, I'd like to think that many more people are aware and are becoming aware of how connected we all are on this planet. We are being called to think deeper about ourselves, our own lives, our space in the world, our immediate environment, our global environment. Once we do start engaging again, we will then be more aware of how we’re engaging with other people. I believe the world will remain isolated for as long as it takes to engage again safely. 2020 may be challenging, but are we just going to give up? That’s not something my internal constitution allows me to do. What I can do is do my research, follow safety guidelines and honor what I feel compelled to do: the work of connecting with people and sharing those stories. As much as I feel like there’s no replacement for physical contact and face-to-face engagement with people, we do have other ways of connecting with people everywhere. Now is a time we can lean into that as well.
E R N EST WHITE II
Q: Will the protest movement in the United States and around the world have a tangible impact on how it feels to travel as a Black person? A: It’s something that’s incredibly nuanced — it’s the way that race, class, color, heritage and culture come together in their various ways in every single country on the planet. Black Lives Matter is not something that is relegated to the United States; it’s global in scope, as it always has been, just as slavery was global in scope. I believe I will probably be having more conversations with people than ever before who want to know more and are more aware, who recognize there is a problem with the way people have been treated based on their race, sexual orientation, gender, physical ability, age or mental capacity. People want to do better, so I believe that people will be engaged in more conversation. But as a Black American traveler and as a journalist and educator, that’s been something I’ve been engaging in for the last 20 years.
WHERE TO WATC H “FLY BROTHER WITH ERNEST WHITE II” can be viewed on KQED, KQED Plus, KRCB (Northern California Public Media) and Create TV. Visit www. flybrother.net for more information.
Q: When things open back up, where do you want to go first? A: I would love to see my parents and my family in Jacksonville (Fla.). That’s one of those things you take for granted until you’re not able to do it.
Valerie Stimac is a freelance writer based in the Bay Area. Email: culture@sfchronicle.com
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J4 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
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A R E YOU R E A DY ? Readers poll: Would you go skiing or to a theme park when they reopen? Take our poll at www.sfchronicle.com/throughline
REINVENTING T H E T H E M E PA R K : I N N O VAT I O N A N D DESIGN LAUNCH FA N TA S T I C I D E A S
THEME PARK OF THE FUTURE Given social distancing, theme parks are going to have to adapt and be different, but not necessarily worse. Here’s a view of a theme park in the near future, informed by people in the know.
HOURLY RATES
FACIAL RECOGNITION
To reduce crowds, parks could begin charging hourly rates instead of selling daylong passes. The concept is simple: Rather than form clusters throughout the park and stand aorund waiting, you can simply leave and return at another time, defeating the idea that you have to get your money’s worth before the gates close.
To avoid contact with devices and people, facial recognition could be used for everything from ticketing and ride access to retail and food purchases. All guests will have profiles connected to their park apps that become the access points for everything. And, of course, temperatures can be taken with every facial scan.
FLEXIBLE CREATIONS Rather than installing rides and exhibits that remain unchanged for decades, parks could move toward more disposable experiences that last for weeks or months. Built as outdoor attractions that necessitate people exploring them one at a time, they’d promote safety, and they could be more reflective of the moment.
By Robert Morast
D
Disneyland opened to the public at 10 a.m. July 18, 1955, under a sunny Southern California sky. And, if you look at the photos from that day, the scene was what you’d expect: collections of kids — boys with cropped hair and dark rimmed glasses, girls with dresses colored in summery pastels — sprinting through the Anaheim property, their excitement pulling them to magic castles and teacup rides and to a space port with men dressed in spacesuits, years before the first manned space flight. There are so many smiles. ¶ This is the Disneyland narrative we’ve been raised on, that the Happiest Place on Earth was created as a fantastical Xanadu where kids’ dreams could be realized. Where their glee could be amplified. And it’s not wrong. There’s a reason it’s called the Magic Kingdom. But the first customer to step inside Disneyland wasn’t a child. David McPherson was a 22-year-old college student who drove his motorbike through the darkness of a new day to plant himself in line at 2 a.m. By the time the gates opened, a reported 6,000 people trailed McPherson. Many of them were adults. Many of them were waiting to walk into the future. This is the overlooked legacy of Disneyland. Yes, Walt Disney wanted to construct a theme park where kids could interact with the various animated creatures in the Disney film portfolio. But he also was building a vision of what he wanted America to become: a multicultural society sewn together with uplifting music and friendly faces, a problemfree land where technology and invention eased our daily lives, a nation that dared to dream about the promise of tomorrow. Literally, a Tomorrowland. In so many ways, Disneyland became an exemplar of American exceptionalism, a testament to the idea that the United States was able to build things no other country could contemplate, that we could create a lifestyle better than what we were expecting. As Disneyland sits empty, closed to the public because of the pandemic, some people are asking why it can’t be open, why this iconic California experience can’t give us back some sense of normalcy during a very abnormal time. But the better question might be, “Can Disneyland once again provide a better vision of tomorrow?”
***
Imagine walking into an amusement park and being greeted by a holographic tour guide. Let’s call him Buddy. He’s projected from a device fit around your wrist, and communicates with the GPS system and the park’s app in your phone. Wherever you go, Buddy leads, explaining, for instance, the history of a given roller coaster as you walk onto its loading ramp. He knows the entire park, each square inch of space, so you’ll never be lost. During the rides, he’s seated next to you. He screams when you scream. He makes a funny face exactly when that camera captures your most uncomfortable moment. And when you’re done, he asks what you want to do next. But, maybe most importantly, Buddy ensures you’re always where
“This (pandemic) is re-exploring the whole story of getting people online and connected. It’s hard. But I’m also inspired.” P H I L I P ROS E DA L E , entrepreneur
you’re supposed to be. In a postCOVID world, that means not waiting in a line pressed closely to others, it means realizing when you’re within 6 feet of someone and not walking to areas of the park that already have too many people for that given space. He’s not just a tour guide, he’s a public safety envoy. “I wonder who is going to come up with that first,” says Linda Hung, vice president at Forrec, a Canadian company that specializes in designing theme parks. “It’s going to be doable very soon.” Buddy is Hung’s brainchild, an idea she’s considered since the pandemic forced her and her team to reimagine what amusement parks will need to be in the coming years. This is Hung’s moonshot idea, a concept so cool and fantastical that a marketing team member asked her if she really wanted to share it with The Chronicle. But, she says from a phone in Toronto, she shared the concept because “we want solutions. We want the parks to get back on their feet.” To do that, she says, theme parks will have to adapt. And in her mind, there are three components for these parks to explore before they can safely reopen. The first is the least exciting. It means installing plexiglass dividers between seats and planting hand sanitizer stations everywhere. Daily attendance is capped at a predetermined “safe” number of customers. Roller coasters keep every other seat open. And all transactions are contact-less. That last one gets us into the next phase of reopening and reimagination: design innovation. This is where Buddy comes up in conversation. And while he’s the most interesting thing to consider, there are other, more likely, examples of how tomorrow’s theme parks will operate. For instance, they’re probably going to have facial recognition software everywhere customers encounter employees. “That’s been slow to North Amer-
ica. It’s more acceptable in other places around the world and implemented in other parks around the world,” Hung says. “I have a feeling (the pandemic) will push that faster.” She explains facial recognition will be part of the ticketing procedure, like a fingerprint, of sorts, that identifies you throughout the park and can monitor your temperature. If you buy food, your face is scanned for payment. Ditto at the gift shop. And when you get on a ride, there’s another scan to ensure you have access to that part of the park. It means fewer hand-to-hand exchanges, less up-close interaction with people. Less chance of spreading a virus. And even though Buddy is some years away from escorting us around, say, Galaxy’s Edge, we’re already holding a virtual guide: our phones. Hung says the use of park apps will be paramount in the future, particularly with virtual queueing, which is already being used in Disneyland. Before the pandemic, the virtual queue was a way of organizing our days at the parks so we knew exactly when we could experience the marquee attractions and avoid some time in lines. Now, Hung suggests, it’s going to be another way of keeping us safe. The first step, of course, is knowing exactly when you’ll be entering a ride. That cuts down on the congestion that comes from lines. But that app and virtual queueing could also steer us away from congestion in other ways. For instance, what if the app acted like “Pokemon Go”? The virtual game and app compels people to walk in the real world to find cartoony monsters. In amusement parks, the app could have similar game or scavenger hunt components that are enacted to direct us away from areas of the park where crowds are building. The app could do the same thing by sending alerts for, say, free ice cream at a vendor across the park for all patrons who were born in the month of February. These little tricks work against the gravity of each other pulling us together. Virtual queueing also allows designers to build new experiences as you enter the rides. Hung uses the example of the Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon experience at Universal Orlando. As you walk into it, there are “rooms” you stop in that mimic audience
VIRTUAL BUDDY One fantastical but fun idea is that parks could create a holographic, virtual tour guide that would accompany people or families throughout the park. The guide would provide commentary and information while herding people away from each other to avoid crowding. It would also sit next to you on rides — screaming when you scream — to help you forget about social distancing.
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PREVENTIVE FEATURES Parks are already adding sanitizer gel stations and signage reminding people to stay 6 feet apart, and retrofitting some attractions with bubbles, domes or sneeze guards.
VIRTUAL QUEUEING Say goodbye to waiting in lines. Apps would drive the new amusement park experience by assigning guests times for their turns to partake in rides and attractions. Via GPS locators, the apps would also herd people away from each other by prompting visits to parts of the park they haven’t been to yet, or by pushing visitors toward areas where there are fewer people.
Chronicle information graphic from Getty Images elements
experiences from Fallon’s “Tonight Show” tapings. “When you enter the ride, you’re still in a queue, it’s part of the ride,” Hung says. “You don’t feel like you’re in a bullpen. You feel like you’re in the studio. There are singers and you’re being entertained, it’s almost like a preshow. But you’re not in a tight confined show.” If the ride or experience was about, say, “Star Trek,” that might mean creating onboarding entertainment that mimics being teleported, or the pressurized air experience of a spaceship’s air lock. Regardless of the tactic, it allows designers new ways to build magic into the moment. “That’s our job,” Hung says. “We design to every aspect, every moment, everywhere the guest looks,
we try to keep them immersed in fantasy. Now, with the safety measures, we just have to work that into our thought process, too.” Another idea that’s reemerging in the thought process: hourly pricing. Right now, if you spend three figures to have a day at an amusement park, you want to get your money’s worth. You want to ride the marquee attractions. You want to be there all day. But, if you were only charged for the time you spent in the park, then you would be less likely to add to the crowds of people waiting to experience the same thing. “You’re not going to spend your time in queue, because you’re doing hourly pay,” Hung says. “It takes away that kind of pressure.” An amusement park with less stress? That is a utopian vision.
***
Talk to almost anyone about the future of amusement parks and the dialogue will inevitably come around to virtual or augmented reality. This has become another trope in our continued forecast of what post-COVID life will be like: users wearing an apparatus that makes us see and feel a virtual world that mimics our own to supplement what we’re missing. As a way to avoid crowds and the potential of infection, this train of thought makes a lot of sense. There’s just one problem with this premise: The technology isn’t here yet. At least not in a way that can replicate a palpable human experience. And it probably won’t be anytime soon. “Delivering human connection is very difficult,” says Philip Rosedale.
He would know. Back in the 2000s Rosedale’s Linden Labs created “Second Life,” a virtual world that allowed users to construct avatars and build digital lives. The game took off, but that was part of the problem — too many people thought of it as a game, like an evolution of “The Sims.” Rosedale wanted it to be more, to become a virtual space that allowed the construction of new economies or societies. It was supposed to help us envision a better world. Kind of like Disneyland, in some respects. For much of this decade, the San Francisco entrepreneur has been focused on a simpler, but related, project. High Fidelity is a virtual arena that was designed to host everything from music festivals (Fvture Lands) to talk shows (“Talk-
ing to Myself”). These days, it’s been downgraded a bit, focusing on digital meetings or social gatherings in an online arena that allows people to move about a defined space and talk to other people as we do in real life. Users can engage in one-on-one conversation, have group chats and move back and forth among various clusters. There are event areas for concerts or talks, where audiences could move toward the stage, or away from it to have side dialogues. High Fidelity isn’t an all-out virtual experience with lifelike avatars representing our spots in the plane. You’re essentially a dot with a name and photo that moves around like an amoeba on a glass slide. But the magic is what you hear. With 3-D Theme parks continues on J10
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J6 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
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F E AS I B I L I T Y RAT I N G Caution: The ski season is going to happen. But how people respond to the changes at resorts will be the determining factor for future success.
LONG LINES AND ROBOTIC LIFTIES: TA H O E R E SO RTS LO O K TO T E C H A N D TA K E O U T T H I S Y E A R
ON L IN E A N D E L E C T R ON IC
SELF- SERVICE SCA NNING
As with virtually every business interaction during the pandemic, more of your mountain purchases will take place digitally. This winter, you’ll buy or reload your lift ticket, sign up for ski lessons and talk to guest services online or via the resort’s app.
Gone are the days of friendly banter with lifties checking tickets. Sugar Bowl has invested in scanning gates with radio-frequency identification (RFID) at all primary chairlifts for this winter.
By Megan Michelson
P
WEEKDAY WARRIORS
MA K E YO U R RESERVA TIO N EA RLY
With schools and jobs going remote and some city dwellers relocating to the mountains, expect to see more crowds dispersed throughout the week and less of a rush on weekends.
To avoid overcrowding on the slopes and around the lodge, resorts may cap ticket sales each day. In Tahoe, Homewood Mountain Resort plans to limit season-pass sales and cap daily lift tickets when things get busy.
Picture this: You’re out skiing in the COVID era, and, for a brief moment, it feels like life before. You’re in the mountains, breathing fresh air, flying down a powder-filled slope with nobody in sight. But then, you reach the bottom of the run and bam! Our new reality returns. ¶ The lift line — with everyone spaced 6 feet apart — stretches the length of a football field. Masks are ubiquitous. Nobody is making casual banter with strangers; nobody is popping into the lodge for a hot chocolate with their kid; and that après-ski beer in a snug, teeming bar? Think again.
Winter sports can still happen in the COVID era. Skiing and snowboarding are relatively well suited to a viral outbreak. They take place outside, generally away from others, and skiers are used to wearing face coverings and gloves. But life at ski resorts — assuming they’ll be able to open safely this winter — will not look the same. Many resorts were able to open for limited summer operations, like biking and hiking, and Southern Hemisphere ski resorts in places like Chile and New Zealand opened with strict COVID guidelines. With guidance from public health experts, California ski resorts are now working on reopening plans and how to best protect guests, employees and ski-town communities. “Things will be different this winter, but we are a highly adaptable industry, having faced droughts, excessive snowfall and road closures,” says Katie Hunter, director of sales and marketing at Sierra-at-Tahoe. “We believe that winter outdoor recreation, when practiced safely, will be a source of healing for people.”
GO GG L E TA N S N O M O R E Masks will be required at most ski resorts in congested areas. Vail Resorts — which operates Tahoe’s Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood — is requiring face coverings in designated zones, like inside the lodge, in lift lines and in ski school corrals. “Just as other tourist destinations have required, we must ensure that face coverings are not optional if you are walking around with a drink or snack in your hand,” Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz wrote in an open letter to guests. Proper masks are preferable to the standard skiers’ Buff. “Synthetic fibers like those in a Buff are technically not as good as a cotton mask, which has more three-dimensional structure to block the potentially virus-laden droplets more efficiently,” says Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease specialist at UCSF. “But in community mask wearing, fit and convenience trump quality of the mask. For skiers, it’s perfectly fine to use the neck gaiter if it means you will wear it when you need to.”
G I V E A S K I ’ S L E N GT H I N L I N E Physical distancing guidelines will also be in place. You’ll find signage and marked spots on the ground to remind you to give at least 6 feet of space while you wait for food, rentals, lifts and other services. You’ll load chairlifts and gondolas only with those in your existing group. (Singles will likely need to ride solo or with empty spaces in between.) Lift lines will inevitably move slower and stretch farther in length. In the lodge, you’ll find signage that could indicate one-way traffic or specific doors for entering and exiting to eliminate congestion. Yes, everything will take a little longer, but that’s OK. Take a deep breath and be thankful you’re out there.
W H AT DAY I S I T A N Y WAY ? While everyone used to live by traditional Monday-throughFriday work and school schedules, with schools and jobs going remote, expect to see more crowds midweek and less of a hustle on weekends. With many city dwellers relocating to the mountains with remote jobs, the typical Friday-night traffic flow to Tahoe may be reduced. Best news? If you’ve already relocated to the mountains, your kid can now ski for PE on a Monday and you can squeeze in a midday powder session between Zoom meetings.
P L A N YOU R S K I DAYS A H E A D O F T I M E Ticket sales may be capped to limit the number of skiers on the hill each day. Homewood, for example, plans to limit season-pass sales and cap daily lift tickets during peak periods. So this is not the season to spontaneously go skiing. Plan well ahead and purchase lift tickets online and in advance. “When there are capacity restrictions, you can expect advance registration systems,” says Adrienne Saia Isaac, spokesperson for the National Ski Areas Association. “Ski areas will be responsible
“Things will be different this winter, but we are a highly adaptable industry, having faced droughts, excessive snowfall and road closures. We believe that winter outdoor recreation, when practiced safely, will be a source of healing for people.” KAT I E H U N T E R , director of sales and marketing at Sierra-at-Tahoe
for creating clear, up-to-date messaging across their channels, and skiers and riders will need to check the ski area’s website before they hit the slopes to learn about whatever local regulations may be in place.”
LU N C H W I L L B E S E RV E D O N T H E TA I LGAT E Ski-town and on-mountain restaurants are pivoting to offer more takeout and outdoor dining options. Think grab-and-go windows, food trucks and patio seating. You’ll still be able to enter lodges and order food, but you’ll find more heat lamps and outdoor firepits to encourage you to dine alfresco. You’ll also see a lot more people packing their own lunch and eating at their car or slopeside condo. In towns like Truckee or South Lake Tahoe, gone are the days of weekend crowds surging popular bars and restaurants. You’ll order food and drinks to go and bring it back to your cabin. “For skiers, many settings are low risk — particularly those in the open air and while enjoying the slopes,” says Chin-Hong. “One area that is especially at risk is the après-ski setting at the lodge where people may be eating, drinking. I would avoid that area if possible and take your hot chocolate outside or back to your room.”
GO O D BY E , CA R PO O L I N G Carpooling to the mountains with people not in your household is a thing of the past, so you may see an uptick in cars heading from the Bay Area to Tahoe. When in the mountains, you can still ride public transportation like buses or on-demand rides to the ski hill, but plan on wearing a mask, sitting far from others and keeping the windows open. Most likely, you’ll be driving your own car or staying close enough to the mountain that you can walk to the lifts. Before you go, check resorts’ apps or websites for up-to-date parking and transportation tips.
ON E (G R OU P) A T A T IM E Lifts will sport signage reminding you to give at least 6 feet of space while waiting for chairs or gondolas, which you’ll load only with those in your existing group. (Singles may ride solo or with empty spaces in between.) Expect longer, slower lift lines.
DINING IN TH E GREA T O U TDO O RS In town and on the mountain, dining is moving outside. Think grab-and-go windows, food trucks and patio seating. You’ll still be able to enter lodges, but you’ll do more ordering online and find more heat lamps to encourage you to eat alfresco.
L I F T I ES GO N E RO B OT I C Resorts are moving many services to digital to reduce face-toface contact. Take Sugar Bowl. The resort has invested in radiofrequency identification scanning gates at all primary chairlifts for this winter, as well as new self-service stations for other services to promote contactless transactions. It’s official: Gone are the days of human ticket checkers scanning your pass in line. This winter, you’ll purchase or reload your lift ticket, sign up for ski lessons and talk to guest services online or via the resort’s app.
YOU CA N A LWAYS CA N C E L New cancellation policies and beefed-up refund guarantees are now in place to give you peace of mind in case the ski season gets shut down due to COVID or you need to cancel plans for any reason. Vail Resorts introduced Epic Coverage, which comes free with every Epic Pass this season, to provide refunds for certain resort closures, as well as job loss, illness or injury. Ikon Pass — which works at Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows, Mammoth Mountain and June Mountain — now comes with Adventure Assurance to let you defer use of your pass for any reason to next year. Sierra-at-Tahoe has a Play it Forward Guarantee that lets you credit this year’s pass to next season due to any unforeseen circumstances, and Homewood’s new guarantee offers prorated refunds on passes if the mountain is forced to close before March 1 due to non-weather events. Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows has tentative plans to open on Nov. 25. “Our team is doing everything we need to do to be ready to offer skiing and riding for the upcoming winter season,” says Ron Cohen, president of Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows. “We are planning for a dynamic environment, building a full set of tools to be able to best respond to whatever comes our way, so that we can continue to offer outdoor recreation to all of our dedicated skiers and riders.”
M A S K S ON , WIN D OWS OPE N
SA Y H ELLO TO TRA FFIC
You can still ride public transportation like buses or ski shuttles to the hill, but plan on wearing a mask, sitting far from others and keeping the windows open.
Carpooling with people outside of your pandemic pod is on pause, so expect more cars on the highway heading from the Bay Area to the mountains.
Megan Michelson is a freelance writer. Email: culture@sfchronicle.com The Chronicle information graphic from Getty Images elements
J8 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
H OW W E M OV E
O PT I M I S M M E T E R Hopeful: Mass transit in the Bay Area is going to have to change, but with people studying how to make it more efficient, commutes could actually be improved.
A N A LT E R E D CHILDHOOD: G ROW I N G U P I N A WO R L D T H AT ’S O F F - L I M I TS
PUBLIC TRANSIT: A PAT H TO A MORE EFFICIENT CO M M U T E
By Annie Vainshtein
By Sam Whiting
Z
Sarahbeth Maney / Special to The Chronicle
Earlier this year, for the first time in more than two months, Zeke, who will turn 11 this month, got to see his best friend. Their parents kept telling them to distance. But then Zeke just did it. “I can’t handle it anymore,” Zeke told his mom as he took his friend into his arms. “I just need to give him a hug.”
***
For most people, the world rapidly shrank in March. In the absence of the macro, our homes — and microworlds — became the focal space of our universe, the settings for work, intimacy, education and play. Nearly six months into the pandemic, as some of our cities have begun to open up — with freer travel, the return to work, sidewalk dining and bustling bar scenes — some of that spatiality is on its way to being restored. But children, who lack the agency to make their own risk decisions, are still facing a profoundly shrunken world. These new perimeters — where kids can go and whom they can see — have troubled parents from the beginning of the pandemic. They watched their children sink into uncharacteristic withdrawals, sob over faraway friendships and ask pointed questions about an increasingly opaque future. As the situation persists, experts wonder about the longterm impacts of children’s shrinking worlds. “There’s no easy answer,” said Ian Gotlib, a psychologist and professor of psychology at Stanford. The extent to which COVID-19 may change children’s lives indefinitely will depend on so much: whether they or family members have fallen ill, the quality of time with their families, their relationship to school, their ages. And the constriction of their worlds is vastly different depending on class, geography and physical space. Children are not necessarily isolated — especially if they’re spending a lot of time with their families — but their ties to much of the world, and their peer relationships in particular, have been cut off. “The shrinking world is important,” said Gotlib, whose lab team studies how early stressful life experiences can affect children’s brains in ways that make them more vulnerable to stressors later in life. “They’re wired to focus on doing rather than stopping — and so this is just the opposite of all of that.” The children in his team’s study — the ones that went through stressful experiences early in life — are now reporting higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety during the pandemic, supporting the team’s findings that the stressors make children more vulnerable to stressors later on. “Imagine if we start this study three years from now, and the stress they experience was from this pandemic,” Gotlib said. “There’s absolutely no reason to think that (the pandemic) won’t have that same effect, or worse, because of how prolonged it is.” It’s possible, in other words, that children’s relationships to others and all that contact provides — a sense of self, the development of social and motor skills, companionship — will have been fundamentally altered.
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When Angie Martinez’s world shrank to the confines of a one-bedroom condo in Greenbrae, chaos ensued. Her 4-yearold son, Anas, who is on the autism spectrum, became more aggressive than she’d ever seen him. “He just didn’t know what to do with himself,” Martinez said. He broke so many things she started making a list: the TV, the toilet, a Chromebook. Martinez was trying to work full time at home as a programmatic media manager while taking care of him and her daughter, Alana, who is 14; her husband, a buyer for Whole Foods, was gone most of the time working. Over the summer, Martinez’s son got a glimpse of normality through an in-person summer program. She was astounded when his behavior instantly improved. “It was literally like a light switched on,” she said. “The regression that happened is real, and if they continue to be kept from spaces and structures and routine, the regression will continue. I’ve seen some moms that (don’t) think their kids will ever come back.” In his Oakland clinical psychology practice, Nathan Greene is seeing the potent ways the pandemic’s narrowing spheres are affecting his clients. Families whose children felt good enough to leave therapy prior to the pandemic are returning. Many of the kids who had stopped speaking in baby talk or
S
Soon after mass transit in the Bay Area was all but shut down by the coronavirus, Susan Shaheen was hit by a thunderbolt: a national study was needed to chart the future of public transportation, and she would be the one to launch it. ¶ So the professor of transportation engineering at UC Berkeley went to her smartphone to begin texting and calling her contacts, enlisting 40 top experts from all aspects of industry and the economy to contribute to an academic research project titled “Scenario Planning Study: The Future of Public Transit and Shared Mobility.”
Zeke Rose is a 10-year-old whose world these days often feels confined to his living room. ¶ Zeke used to love school. Now he tells his mother, Tiffany Rose, a former high school teacher, that he wants to drop out of the sixth grade. The two of them live in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Alameda with Tiffany’s boyfriend, who has taken over the couple’s bedroom and is always on calls. Sometimes, when Zeke is feeling really upset, he tells her he wishes it was just the two of them — so he didn’t have to be so quiet, so he wouldn’t feel as trapped.
Jessica Christian / The Chronicle
Top: Alex and Grace Sobieski with 10-month-old Desiree and 2½-year-old Josie at their Pacifica home. Grace says children hear a lot of negativity now: “Don’t do that, mask on, stay back.” Above: Zeke Rose, who will turn 11 at the end of the month, plays a video game at his Alameda home. Upon seeing his best friend after more than two months, he told his mom, “I just need to give him a hug,” and he did.
HOW TO MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR KIDS RIGHT NOW Kids thrive on routines, so finding ways to implement helpful routines, like waking up and going to bed at the same times and eating meals together can be helpful for kids, especially when school starts back up. Parents can help their children by finding ways to create newness so kids have access to experiences that can excite them, like day trips on the weekends, backyard movie nights, treasure hunts around their neighborhood, finding interesting things to bake and cook together. This can all provide new stimulation and learning opportunities even amid the mundanity. Balancing caution with optimism. Children can be very sensitive to their parents’ emotions and moods, and they pick up on anxiety even if they don’t fully understand it. Reminding children that this moment, even though it feels endless, will end and that the health guidelines — wearing a mask, socially distancing — can have a global impact and come out of a collective goal to keep each other safe can be reassuring.
sleeping in their parents’ beds, or had started going to the bathroom themselves, have regressed. One of the kids he works with recently described having a nightmare where their memory was wiped out and they ceased to exist; they were walking in a universe where they didn’t know themselves anymore and people they were supposed to know didn’t know them either. “We talked about … how it’s hard to integrate who we were before this with who we are now, especially in the life of a child, where six months is a very long time,” said Greene. “It’s like a foreclosure on the future.” He’s worried about the lingering impacts the pandemic might leave on important developmental processes like navigating physical intimacy, connections and play. His own niece, who is 2, recently watched a “Daniel Tiger” show about friendship and, afterward, asked her mother: “What is a friend, and do I have any?” Grace Sobieski’s 2½-year-old daughter, Josie, has become fixated on other people being sick. “She’s very confused about why she needs to wear a mask,” said Sobieski, who also has a 10-month-old daughter, Desiree. “She thinks she’s immune from it.” Sobieski, who runs a day care, is worried about all the behavioral modifications required in Josie’s world. “It’s a lot of negativity in general: Don’t do that, mask on, stay back,” Sobieski said. “All that sits with them.” She’s heard her daughter telling her dolls: “You’re not wearing your mask,” and tell them to stay back, to give space. “I think one of the most underrated but powerful emotions in kids is a state of confusion,” said Abigail Levinson Marks, a clinical psychologist in San Francisco who specializes in families managing illness and loss. Levinson Marks has been talking to a lot of her clients about the idea of ambiguous loss — that sometimes we can’t grab hold of exactly what it is that we’ve lost, but the grief is still there. She’s noticed her teenagers — whose main developmental tasks are establishing independence from their parents and exploring risk — have been hit the hardest. She’s seeing a lot of low-grade depression and regimented eating. Teenagers bounce themselves off of other people to grow, she said. “If you picture teenagers as little molecules or atoms bumping against each other, they can’t do that,” Levinson Marks said. “There’s no randomness to social interaction.”
***
Enola Talbert’s world shrank away in March, so she decided she would, too. The 17-year-old took apart her bed, used the box spring and mattress to make a fort and closed herself in. She and her friends had cry sessions on the phone. But she still felt kind of numb. “Before the pandemic my world was kind of small,” said Enola, who is a senior at Mountain View High School. “Now, it’s not so much smaller — but less alive.” There was a turning point recently, when she started spending time with an elderly neighbor. They were friendly but never close, and when quarantine started, Enola started wondering how the neighbor and her husband were doing. But one day, she saw a nurse outside of the house, and after that, an ambulance. Then, she saw the woman sitting outside, alone, bearing a sadness that felt like it reached Enola’s door. Isolated from her own world and friends, Enola started spending time with her neighbor, making ceramics with her and listening to stories about her neighbor’s childhood in the South. Enola doesn’t talk much about her own life; she’s mostly there to listen. “I think people underestimate the depression that my Children continues on J9
The project is co-sponsored by the UC Institute of Transportation Studies and the National Transportation Research Board with additional funding by the ClimateWorks Foundation of San Francisco. Results are due this fall, to be accompanied by webinars and a summarizing document that will be made public. It will describe the impact of COVID-19 on public transit and shared mobility in three time frames — 12 months, up to three years and up to six years. A range of policy options will be developed. Shaheen serves four UC campuses — Berkeley, Davis, Irvine and Los Angeles — as director of the UC Institute of Transportation Studies’ Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative. She has been studying transit since completing her doctoral dissertation on Bay Area car sharing in the 1990s, and offered a glimpse of how our daily commutes might look as the pandemic continues to redefine much of our lives.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
UC Berkeley Professor Susan Shaheen, at the Orinda BART Station, launched a research project looking at the future of public transportation and shared mobility.
“Some of these changes are happening in the form of pilot programs across the country today. The question is how ... do you take something that is serving 100 people and scale it to an entire region?” SUSA N SHAHEEN, Professor of Transportation Engineering at UC Berkeley
service. It is blurring the lines between what is public and what is private. Q: How long will it take until we see substantial changes to the way we use mass transit in the Bay Area? A: Some of these changes are happening in the form of pilot programs across the country today. The question is how to scale these and make them sustainable. How do you take something that is serving 100 people and scale it to an entire region and make it financially sustainable? That’s the challenge. The scenario we are talking about is four to six years from now. In two or three years we could see small vehicles that could transport one or two people. It is like a small pod with a protective bubble over it that one could access for a short trip. Q: What is the best-case scenario? A: We’ll have a platform of choices, from bike sharing to scooter sharing to micro-transit options to bus and rail, all on the same platform with seamless routing, booking and payment all through a mobility wallet. It is like a cell phone plan. Q: What is the worst-case scenario? A: Private vehicle travel continues to go up even though people are teleworking. That won’t be good for air quality, congestion or climate change. If people are flocking to their cars, public transit ridership continues to go down and there is less fare-box revenues to support it.
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@samwhitingsf
Q: How do you see Bay Area mass transit as it stands now? A: By the week of July 30, Bay Area public transit ridership had shown a 70% ridership decline. Muni (San Francisco Municipal Railway) is carrying about 160,000 passengers a day, down from 700,000. The riders tend to be essential workers and lower-income riders. They don’t have access to cars. Q: With Muni and other systems dropping lines, will it create an incentive for private industry to enter mass transit? A: There is the opportunity for new business models to support public transportation. The Cares Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) gave $32 billion for public transit and more is needed. The experts are envisioning new business models that are more flexible in terms of more public/private partnerships. Q: How do you see these hybrid systems working? A: There are micro transit services that are right-sized for a specific population. It might be a van or a sedan instead of a big bus that is empty. You customize the vehicle for the size of the population it is serving. It could be like Uber or Lyft. The difference is that it will be part of the public transportation system. These services would potentially be subsidized based on need. An example is bike sharing. It would be an extension of the public transit system supported by both the government and user fees, deployed and managed by a third party. We are talking about something that is very dynamic, algorithm- and data-driven. Q: How do we solve the social distancing requirements on a system that wants crowded buses and trains? A: Research indicates that transportation itself is not a vector for COVID-19 transmission. From a physical standpoint we can add plastic partitions and provide guidance on seating. Down the road we can provide an opportunity to reserve your seat, knowing that it reflects capacity planning. There could be passive temperature checks at the turnstile, which is being done in some airports. You don’t know that they have taken your temperature. There are UV (ultraviolet light) devices being used to clean the trains in New York. This is similar to what you would use to sanitize a hospital room. Q: Part of the virus safety equation is the amount of time people spend in confined areas, so how do we make it so people spend less time on buses and trains? A: If you have more algorithms and data reflecting supply and demand, you could get more precise travel time information and better routing. You are not taking a bus down a fixed route, you are developing a more flexible demand-responsive service. If the demand is smaller, the vehicle size is smaller. Routing and scheduling is based on efficiency and it is likely that the travel time will reflect that. Instead of a fixed-route bus service that goes from point A to point B, you are traveling your own A to B on a public transport
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Children from page J8
generation feels,” she said. “Before the pandemic, my friends would ask each other how we were doing, and we’d say, ‘Oh I’m good, dying inside, ha ha ha.’ And it wouldn’t necessarily be not true.” When she thinks of a future in which nothing is certain, there is a sense that all that uncertainty is still a shared experience, something that binds her and her world to so many others. Her world is a bit empty right now, but there is potential for it to be full again, for her and her friends to move to Iceland as they’ve dreamed, where they’ll pet fuzzy horses and hug each other again. So far, there are 25 people she has plans to hug when all of this is over. They’re all written down on a list, in order. Annie Vainshtein is a San Francisco Chronicle arts and entertainment reporter. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain
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J9
J10 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
H OW W E M OV E
A BIT OF FICTION: ‘ P R O X I M AT E PEOPLE’
Dani: You have no marketable skills, no degree, no future. Go apologize! Me: Jesus ok I pause the dating show as two women claim their own raft, kicking a man into the water — a thrilling turn of events! Coatless, I curl around the house, ring the Eatons’ bell. All my communication with Mrs. Eaton is via text. I’ve never even spoken to Mr. Eaton, though I hear the low register of his voice occasionally. I know when they expect me to clean the various parts of their home, to shop for the items they’ve listed on their fridge. I stay on top of this; I keep the laundry flowing. I work so we don’t have to talk, something none of us wants. The women with the sausage dogs are out for their nightly walk and whisper. They watch as I slink along the side of the house, my phone blinging with a text: Mrs. Eaton: The rules are meant to protect us all. Me: I’m sorry. It won’t happen again Mrs. Eaton: … I wait, but Mrs. Eaton never finishes her thought. In the morning, my coat and scarf and shoes aren’t by the door, and I’m too scared to ask for them back.
By Katie M. Flynn
W
Waiting in the checkout line at the new cheese shop, I hear the women with the yipping sausage dogs whispering about the windstorm up north, those fires. I’ve always assumed the women were a sweet old couple, walking their dogs and whispering, but the pear-shaped one mentions a husband back at home. Compromised, she says of his lungs. A shame, says the tall one whose gray-orange hair runs down her back. My BFF Dani would describe these women as proximate people, their lives lived aside my own, yet they remain aloof. A type of preservation, intimacy offering dangers, like parallel lines that never intersect. Funny thing though: Dani and I have never met IRL. I’m reconfiguring under the knowledge that the women are just friends, the world shifting around me a smidge, when it’s my turn at the register. The young cashier scans my items: a $22 wedge of cheese, salad greens, two bottles of biodynamic wine. “Enjoy,” he says with a wink. Is he flirting? I’m not sure. I haven’t been on a physical date since I moved to Cole Valley. Recently I read a Chronicle piece about us, the young and celibate, not inactive in the dating pool but satisfied with virtual connections, though I wouldn’t agree it’s all that satisfying. I meet in a simulated room with a potential, sip water from a Champagne flute I sifted from a box left on the street corner. My filter fired up, my drink sparkles, I sparkle. And still no second date. Dani doesn’t bother with the apps. She doesn’t bother at all, working at the Serramonte Target, living out of some stranger’s Daly City garage. At least I’m trying. Outside the wind blows my hair wild; the air tastes like ash. Everything has a golden-green sheen. Up north, an old textile factory is burning, all that synthetic shit going up in flames, a poison cloud tumbling toward us. I pull my scarf over my nose and hustle past a row of renovated Victorians. As I tromp up Carl, the N train slows to a stop, a group of happies tumbling off. Lately they’ve been coming around here more with their bright smiles, their unwelcome eye contact. This crew wears turquoise. Someone claps me on the back. “How ya doin?” they call after me as I text Dani: Me: Ughhhh those happies are at it again Dani: Lol they’re not SO bad Normally I go in through the back, but the air — I’m tired. I unlock the front door, remove my shoes, hang my coat and scarf. Groceries put away, I collapse onto the almond-colored sectional, breathe in that purified air, the pin eye of a security camera watching from the high corner. I tell myself: just for a moment. It’s Lisbeth’s senior year, and she’ll be home soon — I’ve got to prepare her afternoon snacks.
Theme parks from page J4
audio you can hear the distance of sound and gauge proximity or direction from hearing others’ voices, or music. Sadly, that might be the most lifelike virtual experience we have, the audio awareness, because, as Rosedale says, “We haven’t yet been able to replace human connection.” Until the online latency speeds are reduced, until we have cameras that can mimic what the eye sees,
* **
Chronicle photo illustration
My BFF Dani would describe these women as proximate people, their lives lived aside my own, yet they remain aloof. A type of preservation, intimacy offering dangers, like parallel lines that never intersect.
A B OU T THE AU T H O R Katie M. Flynn is a Bay Area writer whose novel “The Companions” was released in March. It is set in California during a pandemic. Find her writing at www. katiemflynn.com
until we have avatars that mime our facial movements and other nonverbal communication, it’s not worth building a virtual amusement park. Because without the symbiosis that builds from those shared human experiences, it won’t be fulfilling. It won’t feel real. It will feel like “The Sims” with bulky goggles. “We’re deeply social creatures. And to put on a headset is to be removed from the people near you. And that’s not acceptable for human beings,” Rose-
***
“What the hell,” Lisbeth says as if from a distance, certainly not to me. I’m in my room, I tell myself, my room being the only space that’s mine. Then Lisbeth says, right into my ear, “Wake up!” I startle awake. The almond couch. “Oh God,” I say. Lisbeth Eaton stands over me, her hair pulled so tightly into a bun that her face looks alien, her trio of friends in their brightly colored dance clothes behind her as if in military formation. “I’m sorry,” I blubber, “the air, I wasn’t feeling well, must’ve fallen asleep, it won’t happen again!” The Eatons have very specific guidelines, and I’ve broken nearly all of them. I should’ve come in through the side entrance, washed up in my own room. I’d been distracted by the cashier, the quasi-flirting, pretending I was a $22wedge-of-cheese kinda gal. Stupid. I escape down the back stairs, to my garden apartment below, locking the door behind me.
***
Lying in bed, I eat dry cereal for dinner and text with Dani. A dating show plays on my laptop, 12 straight couples floating on rafts in the Pacific, trading partners, periodically sending someone off “to sea.” Dani: You gonna get fired? Me: Dunno. Left my shoes and coat up there as evidence! I pull the blanket tighter, ignore the smallness of my cave-like space, the closeness of the sink and mini-fridge and hot plate. The Eatons couldn’t fit a bathroom inside, so they installed a composting toilet in the shed, a showerhead on the back of the house. Mrs. Eaton assured me it’s perfectly sanitary. Lots of families are doing it for their live-in helpers, she said. My situation with the Eatons was meant to be short-term. When I think of how swiftly four years have passed, I feel a little dizzy. Dani and I met in QuicklyLearn Inc.’s virtual job training program just months before it came out that their instructors were AI. In retrospect, Dani and I agree it was obvious — the instructors’ artificial nature, trying too hard to express emotions: Are you there, Felix Zindermoth? Folks, I can tell when you’ve set yourself up as background. This kind of bull crap really angers me, you hear? I’m very very mad. Neither of us has gotten our money back, devised a new plan, recovered the trust necessary to try again. I cannot lose this job.
dale says. “This (pandemic) is re-exploring the whole story of getting people online and connected. It’s hard. But I’m also inspired. Because now everyone has to work on this problem. “One way or another, we’re going to get there. But all the platforms, they’re a bummer right now.”
***
Walt Disney is often credited with having said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
When Lisbeth graduates from high school, it’s not exciting because she has no plan. Lately I’ve heard the Eatons arguing about this, but not tonight. Lisbeth throws a party for her trio of friends and a quartet of boys. Music loud, thumping feet. I’d like to text Dani but we haven’t talked in days. Sometimes I think I’ll never hear from her again after our last chat: Dani: I need to surround myself with people who think positively Me: Huh? Dani: Don’t laugh Dani: I joined this group. It’s not really a spiritual thing. We hold hands, we sing, we share stories Me: Lol ok happy Dani: They told me you’d react like this Me: Wait. You’re serious? Me: ?? Me: You’re a happy!? Dani hasn’t responded and I don’t mean to be jealous, to worry that I may never hear from her again, never meet her IRL. God, is that what I am to her, just another proximate person? I watch the dating show — only four couples left, the two women refusing to let a man on their raft — until I pass out.
* **
The doorknob to my apartment jiggles, rousing me. “Hello?” I call into the dark. When the door swings open, I don’t even scream. The light comes on and I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I see her, I see Lisbeth, her hair coming out of its bun, her skin flushed red. Her friends are behind her, the boys behind them, and for a moment I’m afraid — I think surely they’ll kill me for fun. “You forgot these,” Lisbeth says. Her friends throw my lost coat at me, my shoes and scarf. I understand the girls mean this as an insult, but truth is I’m just happy to see my lost things. One of the girls whispers, “She actually lives down here?” I swear I see something like pity cross Lisbeth’s face as she leaves, turning out the light, her friends trailing her. But once the door’s closed, they erupt in a fit of suppressed giggles. My laptop open, I press play, curling up with my coat. I’ve missed a lot of the show while sleeping, the two women gone! Scrolling backwards, I find them. They tear a ragged stretch of wood from the raft’s side and saw away at the rope that connects them to their brawny suitors. The women saw until they’re free, taking off with some velocity in the turbulent water, disappearing in the choppy Pacific. I message Dani: Wherever you’re going take me with you.
Well, he didn’t actually say that. Disney employee Tom Fitzgerald gave us that inspiring maxim. But the point remains. And during an era of being locked in our homes, fantasizing about a life that was, the quote inspires a different question: Can we actually achieve the dreams of right now? Can we build a better life?” Whether the Disneyland of tomorrow has a virtual Buddy leading you through these spaces isn’t really the point of this exercise. The best in-
terpretation of Disneyland isn’t literal. Rather, it’s a speculative look at a potential future, a better world. It’s tempting to think Walt Disney would be trying to solve the pandemic through the prism of his theme parks. Maybe not. But we can dream. And Disneyland has always been a place where dreams manifest to reality.
Robert Morast is a Throughline editor. Email: robert.morast@ sfchronicle.com