365 True Things: 73/Geography

Looking north across Monterey Bay from Asilomar

I was born (downtown Los Angeles) and raised (LA/Santa Monica) in southern California. I now live in central California (Monterey). I have lived in northern California (Oakland/El Cerrito: the Bay Area) as well.

Yes, these are distinct regions—anyone who lives in any of them will tell you so.

Eastern Californians, or foothill Californians, no doubt feel, and rightly so, that they inhabit still other distinctive regions.

Near Lee Vining, Hwy 395: eastern California

I have never lived in eastern or foothill California. Though I have visited them. And love them with all my heart.

Looking toward Pico Blanco, Ventana Wilderness

But home, anymore—after California plain and simple (there is something about the light here . . .)—is central California. These landscapes, with the ocean blues of Monterey Bay, the pinks and yellows of coastal wildflowers, the myriad chaparral greens and golds of the Ventana Wilderness (or, farther south, Montaña de Oro or the morros stretching eastward from Morro Bay): they speak to my soul.

Joshua Tree

When my parents came west from Minnesota/Wisconsin/Illinois in 1939, they immediately found home in the desert sands and fragile blooms of the Mohave, of Joshua Tree.

I also feel at home in the desert. More so, I daresay, than in the wild greens of a summertime Midwest or the stark whites and browns of a wintertime Eastern Seaboard.

I do love those landscapes, but my soul feels a little out of place there.

It's not what I'm used to.

I suppose I could learn. . . .

But I don't have to. Home is California—especially, if not solely, its central coast. And I love traveling to all the other homes people enjoy on this Earth to remind me of what's special about mine.