Deep in my heart, a little piece of me will always be in California. I miss my "home" state - the place I grew up and loathed the entire time I was there, never quite realizing the little piece of heaven I had. One thing about loathing a place until you leave - you learn to appreciate each place you live for what it is after that.
Often people ask me why I would live in the Midwest versus going back to California. I always come up with several reasons - California is/was too expensive, there was no way I would have been able to afford my Master's degree (Hello FREE in Michigan), I never felt I fit in, my family being there kind of ruined it... the list goes on. These things are true in degrees. The thing I know today is it was the path I decided to take in my life.
I am where I need to be today and I am happy about where we are. I could have continued to rush and run across the country, never resting my head in the same home/apartment for more then 10 months at a time but we decided not to for obvious reasons (children) and not so obvious reasons (planting roots is a GOOD thing!)
Yet, my heart still yearns for California, for the things I thought I hated but also for things that are part of me at a cellular level. I understand that somewhere deep inside of me I will always be a California girl at heart, that I still secretly hope that we will return there one day to buy a little house near the ocean and take long walks on the beach, to bury my toes in the warm wet sand and drink in the sounds of the ocean - seagulls, water lapping at my feet, kids shouting, radios playing, joggers kicking up sand, boys yelling to one another about this wave being good or that being a good place to body surf or skim board. Even if this never happens I like to think about it all.
Those carefree days that some times get me through the days when I feel like life is getting to me. It is my little place to escape to in my head - the spray of salty water on my face, the pleasure of looking out onto the beauty of the ocean, the laid back attitude that permeates those little beach towns I used to hang out in on long hot summer days, the smell of eucalyptus in the air near my favorite beach, hanging my tan legs from the fence near Pleasure Point watching the cute surfer boys doing their thing.
It is not just the beach that I miss - though I will say Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay are by far my most favorite places on this earth - I miss my friends that I have lost touch with long ago, people I spent many hours, days, weeks whiling away the hours, causing trouble and being silly.
I miss swimming outdoors and being tan pretty much year around! I long for those lazy days of summer when we took the "shame train" (The County Transit bus system in San Jose) to the mall and wandering around looking for cute boys!
I would love to eat some fresh Mexican or seafood from the local hunts, the dives where most people failed to realize how wonderful the food was, yet!
I miss driving up to Stanford to "go shopping" at the fancy mall. I miss the campus of Stanford, the beauty of that place, I miss downtown Palo Alto. The nights I spent as a teenager dancing to weird alternative music at clubs in places like Palo Alto when I was much too young to be doing this.
I miss the 49ers (Gawd love me for being such a flipping die hard fan!) and the A's and the Giants. I miss sitting with Dad in the upper deck on a clear hot day watching a game I did not care for expect for the fact that I was hanging out with my dad!
I miss San Francisco even though I always hated it when I lived there, mostly for reasons that had nothing to do with the city itself. The clang of street cars, driving up the hills of SF and thinking will my stick shift car make it and then holy crap will there be a road that goes down because all you see is sky going up. Golden Gate Park and a million other little memories of time spent in around that park for festivals, picnics, and family wanderings. The MUSEUMS especially the de Young!
Every moment spent traveling up and down the coast of California from the Redwoods and Yosemite to Baja CA (Mexico) and San Diego - with a million locales in between. NAPA! The crazy hellish twists and turns along PCH or Highway 17 - the feeling of danger & thrill driving on those roads brought to me!
There is so much more. Some times I turn off the memories because good or bad they can overwhelm me. They can drag me down rather then lift me up but mostly they lift me up. It is always that little dream I mentioned of burying my toes in the sand, watching the ocean, and the life that happens on the beach that brings me the most happiness!
I will always be California dreamin' no matter what. I hope to one day share some of this with M and Baby Pancake. I hope one day I can go back and while I know it has changed, we can re-capture some of things I love about California and pass them along to my children. One day...
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Shake, Rattle and Roll
This morning as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and finally had a chance to shower, I did what I always do and flipped the radio in the bathroom on. It is always on NPR because I am really rather addicted to NPR if you must honestly know my nerdy ways. I learn so much from this station from actual real live WORLD news to the local happenings.
I was greeted this morning to the usual NPR announcer stating there was a 5.6 earthquake in San Jose. 5.6 - do you know how big that is?!?! I immediately ran to hide in the door frame! Not really but that is likely what I might have thought about doing if I still lived in San Jose - mostly I would just pause what ever it was I was doing at the moment of the earthquake just to be sure it was not the BIG one.
For me, my memories of earthquakes are numerous from the 1st shaker we experienced upon moving to San Jose in 1979. It was summer and it scared the crap out of little 5 year old me - I was crawling under the table in the kitchen just being five when IT happened - the red Berber moved beneath me - it was '79 people RED Berber was IN! My brother did not help much. After the quake, he sat on the hood of the brown Honda Civic wagon parked in our driveway. Paul proceeded to tell me that the earth usually opened up when an earthquake occurred and would swallow everything around it. That there is no way to tell if and when the earth would open up and who knows it could happen right under our house. Ah, sibling love...
I remember swimming and feeling quakes - ripples in the water and water slopping over the edge of the pool even though no one was swimming, a coach saying he felt the earth move and than the next set is... like nothing happened.
I remember the time my mom came to my room in the middle of the night scared to death over a 5.0 quake which I slept through though when she came in I was gripping either side of my bed like I was riding on my magic mattress ride and did not even wake up to the thing though some subconscious thought reminded me to HOLD ON!
I still cringe slightly and look up at a certain loud sound that a truck makes because it reminds me of the sound before an earthquake. A shuddering rippling noise that starts out far off and gets closer, slowly or is it quickly? ...coming closer still... that odd sensation of the ground swimming beneath ones feet. Like riding an unexpected wave in the ocean that was once your living room. Some quakes were wavy or bumpy or flat or stuttering or rolling...
I remember dropping my backpack that day in '89. The backpack seemed to start the entire room shaking but this time the shaking did not stop. And I knew somewhere in my 16 year old brain this this was not good, this was HUGE. I ran from my 2nd story room down the hall way... the hall way bumped into me - NOT GOOD... I ran faster - I leaped down the final four stairs something I likely could not do ever again unless, of course, I am in a huge earthquake... I stumbled at the bottom of the stairs, recovered, tumbled to the ground under our kitchen table (stop drop and roll?), gasping, alarms sounding and me - shaking, crashing sounds all around me - I was home alone.
Then it stopped as quickly as it started. Silence. Alarms. Silence. The silence you hear when all of the electricity goes out. Then sirens. I was shaking. The large art history books and clay statues normally housed on my mother's bookshelves lay around me... One very near my head. I could not breath. Same kitchen table as the 1st one I mentioned back in '79 by the way... My savior?
I could only think of everyone else. I was okay - was everyone else? I skipped swim practice - where my swim friends okay, had the waves been huge? My mom... where the hell was she? My brother, my sister? (my dad was living in San Clemente at the time so I was not worried about him...) I grabbed the phone and started dialing before I realized... NO, no line. Well before cell phones and signals from towers. Nothing but a busy signal.
I ran up to my room in time for an aftershock. I never really cried - just shook. I found my Walkman and ran downstairs again to live under the kitchen table. The DOG! I ran to get the dog. I cuddled with her, for protection? Contact. I slipped the headphones on and listened. Mostly there was nothing until I went to AM. Then there was devastation. Things had collapsed. - the World Series stopped... People dead. Without the TV, I had my own images. My own thoughts. No phone and alone... I stayed put until I finally heard the garage door.
Than I ran to my mother. She was okay. Stuck in the Arts building at San Jose State in the dark, near of all things the huge bronze & clay statues that fell around her. We took deep breathes. It was hot that year in October. So we proceeded to sweat, even more. That night was terror. We tried to sleep, mostly we pretended. With each aftershock, we hugged and waited for something worse, again. Even though the reports told us this was not going to happen, maybe... We stood in the door way and looked out at the world after each aftershock - what we were looking for I do not know - you cannot SEE the earthquake coming, you can just hear it - sometimes...
It is like a dream that last quake that I remember from 1989. I am sure between 1989 and the last time I really lived in San Jose in 1992 there were other quakes but these are my strongest memories. I live in a place now that does not have earthquakes but tornadoes. I am slightly more afraid of tornadoes - which is odd because we know when a storm is coming but not when an earthquake will occur. Maybe it is because I knew about earthquakes, grew up with them, did drills for them in school and lived through so many of them that they are a part of my language, my story... they remain a part of me. When I read about this quake it still makes me shudder a little, it reminds me of that day in 1989 when the world seemed to stop, for at least 15 seconds...
I was greeted this morning to the usual NPR announcer stating there was a 5.6 earthquake in San Jose. 5.6 - do you know how big that is?!?! I immediately ran to hide in the door frame! Not really but that is likely what I might have thought about doing if I still lived in San Jose - mostly I would just pause what ever it was I was doing at the moment of the earthquake just to be sure it was not the BIG one.
For me, my memories of earthquakes are numerous from the 1st shaker we experienced upon moving to San Jose in 1979. It was summer and it scared the crap out of little 5 year old me - I was crawling under the table in the kitchen just being five when IT happened - the red Berber moved beneath me - it was '79 people RED Berber was IN! My brother did not help much. After the quake, he sat on the hood of the brown Honda Civic wagon parked in our driveway. Paul proceeded to tell me that the earth usually opened up when an earthquake occurred and would swallow everything around it. That there is no way to tell if and when the earth would open up and who knows it could happen right under our house. Ah, sibling love...
I remember swimming and feeling quakes - ripples in the water and water slopping over the edge of the pool even though no one was swimming, a coach saying he felt the earth move and than the next set is... like nothing happened.
I remember the time my mom came to my room in the middle of the night scared to death over a 5.0 quake which I slept through though when she came in I was gripping either side of my bed like I was riding on my magic mattress ride and did not even wake up to the thing though some subconscious thought reminded me to HOLD ON!
I still cringe slightly and look up at a certain loud sound that a truck makes because it reminds me of the sound before an earthquake. A shuddering rippling noise that starts out far off and gets closer, slowly or is it quickly? ...coming closer still... that odd sensation of the ground swimming beneath ones feet. Like riding an unexpected wave in the ocean that was once your living room. Some quakes were wavy or bumpy or flat or stuttering or rolling...
I remember dropping my backpack that day in '89. The backpack seemed to start the entire room shaking but this time the shaking did not stop. And I knew somewhere in my 16 year old brain this this was not good, this was HUGE. I ran from my 2nd story room down the hall way... the hall way bumped into me - NOT GOOD... I ran faster - I leaped down the final four stairs something I likely could not do ever again unless, of course, I am in a huge earthquake... I stumbled at the bottom of the stairs, recovered, tumbled to the ground under our kitchen table (stop drop and roll?), gasping, alarms sounding and me - shaking, crashing sounds all around me - I was home alone.
Then it stopped as quickly as it started. Silence. Alarms. Silence. The silence you hear when all of the electricity goes out. Then sirens. I was shaking. The large art history books and clay statues normally housed on my mother's bookshelves lay around me... One very near my head. I could not breath. Same kitchen table as the 1st one I mentioned back in '79 by the way... My savior?
I could only think of everyone else. I was okay - was everyone else? I skipped swim practice - where my swim friends okay, had the waves been huge? My mom... where the hell was she? My brother, my sister? (my dad was living in San Clemente at the time so I was not worried about him...) I grabbed the phone and started dialing before I realized... NO, no line. Well before cell phones and signals from towers. Nothing but a busy signal.
I ran up to my room in time for an aftershock. I never really cried - just shook. I found my Walkman and ran downstairs again to live under the kitchen table. The DOG! I ran to get the dog. I cuddled with her, for protection? Contact. I slipped the headphones on and listened. Mostly there was nothing until I went to AM. Then there was devastation. Things had collapsed. - the World Series stopped... People dead. Without the TV, I had my own images. My own thoughts. No phone and alone... I stayed put until I finally heard the garage door.
Than I ran to my mother. She was okay. Stuck in the Arts building at San Jose State in the dark, near of all things the huge bronze & clay statues that fell around her. We took deep breathes. It was hot that year in October. So we proceeded to sweat, even more. That night was terror. We tried to sleep, mostly we pretended. With each aftershock, we hugged and waited for something worse, again. Even though the reports told us this was not going to happen, maybe... We stood in the door way and looked out at the world after each aftershock - what we were looking for I do not know - you cannot SEE the earthquake coming, you can just hear it - sometimes...
It is like a dream that last quake that I remember from 1989. I am sure between 1989 and the last time I really lived in San Jose in 1992 there were other quakes but these are my strongest memories. I live in a place now that does not have earthquakes but tornadoes. I am slightly more afraid of tornadoes - which is odd because we know when a storm is coming but not when an earthquake will occur. Maybe it is because I knew about earthquakes, grew up with them, did drills for them in school and lived through so many of them that they are a part of my language, my story... they remain a part of me. When I read about this quake it still makes me shudder a little, it reminds me of that day in 1989 when the world seemed to stop, for at least 15 seconds...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)