Bittersweet by the Sea, an Ode to California

Dear California,

God, how I miss you.  I just spent 6 glorious days in your presence, and I returned to Colorado with an ache in my heart the size of Moonlight Beach.  Most people, I would imagine, return from their vacations happy, full of wonderful memories and pictures, relaxed and tan and glad for the experience. (And I do know that it’s normal to struggle with the “re-entry feeling”).  I feel all of those things, but I also feel tangled up inside.  This love/hate relationship I have with you, have always had with you, where does it come from and do I just need to put you out of my mind like I would an ex-lover?  No, that’s not the answer, because I have too many wonderful friends in your Golden State to completely cut ties. I have too many priceless connections I’ve made that I would never want to lose, and besides that, I just love the beach (who doesn’t?). I love the way the water sparkles like diamonds for miles and miles, almost infinitely, and how I can gaze out over the horizon and see no end. I love how I can watch the bright orange sun sink into the depths of the ocean and for some reason it makes me feel all is right in the world. I love the feel of the salt air on my skin and the ocean breeze in my hair. I love the way my skin turns golden and becomes as soft as silk (even though I know it ultimately damages said golden skin). I love how my hair, even if I want it to stay straight, after a few days falls in crazy curls from the humidity in the air.  I love the quaint, hippy shops in Encinitas where I can by a pair of jeans for $40 that everyone in Denver will envy. I love how I can walk around downtown and hit fabulous restaurants (really, the food is amazing, never a bad meal), listen to music, stroll through Balboa Park, and 10 minutes later be at the beach. I love how there are amazing musicians no one has ever heard of everywhere, even in the tiniest of dive bars. I love how there is creative electricity in the air that I just can’t put my finger on, but it keeps me feeling alive. I love how I can sometimes spontaneously find famous musicians playing in the neighborhood (like when I went by myself to hear Train playing at La Costa Resort and got to meet Pat Monahan). I love how it was so easy to get music students because so many kids are going to performing arts schools or trying out for The Voice or American Idol.  I love how every time I’m there I discover something new, like hiking inland North County at Elfin Forrest (almost as pretty as the Colorado trails), or the astonishingly magical trail overlooking the ocean in Torrey Pines, and especially  the Crystal Cove trail in Laguna Beach that Don and I discovered a few years back.  I love how I can drive up the coast from Dana Point through Laguna Beach and Corona Del Mar and Newport to the Orange County airport on my very last day just to make the last hour of my trip magnificent.  I love every place I’ve lived, from the party town of Pacific Beach in my 20s, to Redondo Beach and LA in the early 90s where I pursued my acting career, to the charming beach house in Capistrano Beach where I lived with Don for 3 years-just a short walk from Pines Park and the quaint gazebo on Palisades Road where I must have watched a thousand sunsets. I even have a place in my heart for Oceanside, despite living next to the train tracks and drug dealers. It was in Oceanside where I met some of my dearest like-minded friends, including my boyfriend, the absolute love of my life.  It was in Oceanside where I met the musicians who would play on the CD I am so very proud of.  And it was in Oceanside where I wrote some of my best songs and where I grew as a songwriter and artist and spiritual person.  So yes, there is a huge spot in my heart for Oceanside, despite the unease it also brings me.   Let’s see, what else do I love? Maybe that it is 70 degrees almost everyday and after spending a life time in Colorado with what some people consider mild winters, I am over it. I would be happy as a clam to never have to deal with snow again. I love how I can drive through the towns of Southern California in the middle of winter and be surrounded by palm trees and rose gardens and cactus, and well, just green foliage. Even in the middle of a drought the winters are still greener than Denver.  I love how I can buy the cutest little beach cruiser with lime green handle bars and flowers all over the seat and ride it up and down the boardwalk without looking like a dork.  I love how I can wear hot pink rollerblades and skate from Venice Beach to Santa Monica pier and back again.  I love how the plane flights between Colorado and Orange County are so inexpensive I can travel back and forth almost as much as I want.  I love, how in a city with millions of people, there seems to be only six degrees of separation between everyone I meet.  I love that my best friend of 30 years is there and that I met her because she dated my brother and we are as close as sisters. I love that after all these years, through intense ups and downs and marriages and divorces and even some sadness too unbearable for words, we are still happy as teenagers when we are together.  We tell the same stories over and over again (mostly about boys), and we still wear each other’s clothes, and we still climb onto her big bed together and laugh and laugh and laugh. She is the one who took care of me when I first moved to San Diego and is the reason I keep going back.

However, California, there are some things I don’t love, actually, some things I even hate.  I hate how I have to work soul sucking jobs just to barely keep a roof over my head.  I hate that I am such a small fish in an enormous pond. I hate the aggressiveness on the freeway, that I am terrified every time I get on the road (although unfortunately Denver is now the same way).  I hate that I have friends spread out all over the place and in Southern California you never know if it will take 30 minutes or 3 hours to meet up with someone.  I hate the way the rich people treat me like I’m less than them.  I hate the people I had to work for that made me feel like nothing I did was ever enough, because they were so buried under their own financial burden they had to blame their stress level on someone else.  I hate that my most favorite place in the world is now the place where my marriage unraveled and where I fell into such a dark depression. I hate that I was so depressed I forgot about all the beauty and fun things to do that surrounded me. Mostly, California, I hate that all my life I dreamed of you and the things you would offer me, but the dreams didn’t come true. You dangled that dream in front of me like a precious stone on a delicate chain, then led me through a maze of hope and suspense and adventure, only for me to finally wind up going out the same door I came in through.  You danced around me with that dream, sometimes offering magical opportunities, only to drop me hard on the ground, spitting me out when I didn’t play the game by your rules. 

Still, the experiences, the excitement, the amazing friendships… I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.  When I am there, visiting, I still hold on to a glimmer of hope.  Maybe, just maybe, I could try this again, a third time (third time’s the charm, right?), and things will be different.  Maybe when I finally get on my feet in Colorado I can come back to you.  I hate that every time I am there for a visit I feel a slight sense of panic, like I need to see everyone and do as much as I can because what if I don’t get the chance again?  I hate that I left such a big piece of my heart there, and that something feels unfinished.  I hate that every time I say goodbye to a California friend I get a lump in my throat, an ache in my soul, and that I when I get on the airplane home I have to hide the tears from the passengers next to me.  But I also hate that when I live in California, I have that same ache in my heart for my Colorado friends and family.

I’m really not sure what the answer is.  I guess sometimes we have to just let life unfold, and who knows? I may end up someplace that is not California, not Colorado, and be perfectly happy.  Who ever imagined I’d ever live in Las Vegas? And those were six years of my life I wouldn’t trade for anything. So, I guess today I am just feeling nostalgic and melancholy, and this too shall pass. Tomorrow I will take my dog for a walk and teach a piano lesson and maybe see my niece and nephew. The next day Don and I may go for one of our therapeutic hikes, and this weekend we will host Open Mic, and before I know it I’ll be back in the swing of things and Colorado will be the place I call home. It’s certainly not such a bad place, and it is the place where I’m getting better and better everyday.  So for now, Goodbye California, I will see you in a few months when Frontier has another great sale.