I’m at home, and its good. Funny how I still call it home despite the fact that I have lived somewhere else for the last 5 years. Nevertheless, its home and when I am here I am happy. Most people from where I live respond with “I’m sorry,” when I tell them where I am from. They call it the Middle of Nowhere. Which, when I think about it, makes complete sense, because kids in Southern California are most proud of living somewhere everyone knows. If they came from the nowhere they are afraid of being no one. But there is something profound about this little town tucked in under the Sierra Nevadas full of its pastures and groves. Full of no ones that know everyone. Sure, Southern California can boast its beaches and urban nightlife, but it all starts looking the same after a year or so. Besides, what’s a beach after its been overrun by concrete? And what’s nightlife when its passed out on the floor?
I told my wife when we got in the car to leave that I wish I had a pack of cigarettes. Much to my delight, she smiled at me, rolled her eyes, and said “Well I need some blankets if you’re going to be driving with the windows down.” I assured her that I wasn’t planning on buying a pack, not with the way the economy is, but I suppose if I had been alone for that drive and didn’t have my shivering little wife next to me I would think about it. There’s something about coming off of the Grape Vine into the great Valley below, the bread-basket of the country, rolling down the window, letting the damp and dusty nighttime air fill up the car and enjoying a cigarette.
My wife and I have been struggling with what next? lately. Her school is two classes away from done, and I’m ready for something different. But the questions remain: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? We pretty much have 3 of the 5 nailed down.
Who: The two of us. Husband and wife. Hand in hand.
What: Getting the hell out of Southern California. I’m sorry Orange County. You have your beauty, but its beginning to get lost in the Bentley’s and people confused with the natural process of aging.
When: The beginning of the New Year. Darcie will be graduated and I will have put in a decent amount of time at the Irvine Company. Enough time that I could put it on a resume and a future employer will not look at it and say “Why do you move around every six months?”
But here we arrive at our problem. Where and Why? There seems to be two sides pulling at the both of us. Thankfully each side is not represented by either of us, and we are both being torn together. But its still uncomfortable. We have a strong desire to be with friends and family. We want to be down the street from our loved ones, and be in each other’s lives. It would be much easier than a 3-day weekend with the frantic stress of seeing everyone and getting a decent amount of face time with friends. My poor mother gets so excited when we come home that she stays up way past her bedtime, buys me my favorite candy, calls over friends for a weeknight dinner, and I imagine when we leave is exhausted.
The other side of us is drawn to the wild. Not the jungle or the Serengeti but just the unfamiliar. I want to look out at the ocean and watch the sun rise from below it. I want to use highway numbers for what they are, instead of preceding them with the word “the” turning them into their own entity with lives all to themselves that can crush your day if they want to. Actually, I would like to go where highways don’t exist, and if they do they are simply there for long distance travel. Better yet, I want to go somewhere that I don’t need a car. A vespa perhaps, but not a car!
But this would require living somewhere that friends and family are not. And although I love it here (believe me, I could get used to sitting on my back patio, sipping coffee with my dogs chewing bones next to me, and the cool morning breeze tickling my bare feet) its too easy for me to do. I have an itch. An itch that I don’t think home can scratch. Just not yet at least. The funny thing is, my mother agrees. She says that she thinks its too early. I’m not sure what she means by that, but if you know my mother you know that its probably not an easy thing for her to tell her baby. She’s encouraged Darc and I to go out in the wild to at least explore it and get our feet wet. But its a tough thing to do. What’s a new city without friends? What’s a new location when here is home?
So we remain in limbo. Thankfully with a few months to prepare. I’m not going to lie, despite the uneasiness of it all, I like this feeling. To think that we have options; that we have a choice. Remember when you lived at home, and it took a week to convince your parents to let you drive to the beach? Funny to think that a few years later I could tell my parents I am moving to the Netherlands and they would just reluctantly oblige. I guess what’s more important is being present in the process, and less concerned about the end.
A toast to friends, and a toast to adventure.
