"Jumping In": a guest post from Anya Matanovic
Family stories have a special power. The best ones feel like they capture the essence of a shared past so perfectly that you get to relive the memories over and over again. In our family, one such story involves my parents, sister and me getting into the family minivan in early August of 1990 and driving down the West Coast from Seattle to Mexico. This is the trip we memorized the Beatles’ White Album, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, and Paul Simon’s Graceland.
This was also the trip we realized why air conditioning was invented, and that it might have been useful if our car had it while driving through central California in the middle of the Summer...
Katya and I were in the back of the minivan with childproof windows that just barely cracked open, complaining of the heat non-stop, and really getting on each others nerves. Moods descended into an all-out testiness that not even Stevie Wonder could cure. Suddenly, my parents exited the freeway, drove onto some small road, and got us out of the car. They looked at the river next to the road and then both jumped in, clothes and all! So - Katya and I did the same! We floated, frolicked and delighted in the river, cooling off for about ten minutes and then got right back in the car with our soaking clothes and just kept on driving. It was exhilarating!
The destination for that trip was Tecate, Mexico, where Milenko would work with James Hubbell on a project at Rancho La Puerta, called Kuchumaa Passage.
James Hubbell has been a familiar name in my household for almost as far back as my memories reach. From family visits to their incredible property in Julian, California, to watching them dance and eat pie at my wedding, he and his wife Anne have been an endless source of inspiration and joy in our family. Over the years, I’ve learned quite a bit about James’ art and work (and if you don’t, what are you waiting for?!). But while collecting all the materials to help my father get this website up, I found myself wanting to know more about how the very special friendship between Milenko and James began.
Milenko described their four decades of friendship as being based on a mutual desire to “push art into life”. In an introduction to the recent book, Pacific Rim Park: The Transformational Power of Art, By James Hubbell and Rebecca Morales, Ph.D., Milenko writes in depth of their meeting, friendship and collaborations. They have graciously allowed us to excerpt it, and I encourage you to read the introduction in its entirety here, and to learn more about the Pacific Rim Parks. (For an even deeper dive into Milenko’s process of placemaking, read Milenko’s recent interview in Ilan Lael’s Hidden Leaves publication here. )
I think one of the reasons my sister and I tell the story of that road trip so often is not just the joyful spontaneity of my parents. It was the fact that they took a moment that could have escalated into an even more miserable few hours, and turned it into a gift. We bonded more by jumping in the water than any pleading with us to stop whining would have done. Sometimes we need to shift course by DOING something together. And isn’t this at the core of what Pomegranate Center, James Hubbell and Milenko show us? Words only get us so far - it is when we build things together that we get to a truer understanding of one another.
-Anya
Kuchumaa Passage Rancho La Puerta. Tecate, Mexico