My ex-ex (two ex's ago) wanted a winter vacation and suggested Key West. I was game. He added, "because you certainly have already been to California". On finding I was a Kali virgin, the plan switched immediately. To the Golden State we would go.
He and I left Canada on a grey cold snow-banked February afternoon and I woke up the next morning in a hotel in San Diego, with a blooming windowbox full of flowers, and people jogging in shorts in sunny green park Balboa Park outside. I was in a trance, it seemed so incredible to me. I have never been the same since. Really.
Conveniently, he and I were both dual citizens of America and Canuckistan. Three years later, we moved to San Francisco. I drove a truck full of our stuff 2700 miles across the country. San Diego remained a favorite quick-holiday spot for me and my then-future ex-husband (my last one*).
My maiden voyage to this state, though magical, really magical in many ways --I can still summon up my sense of wonder and pleasure at this exotically warm and blue world--, did have one memorable glitch. He was no fan of long drives, the ex-ex. I love them. But he agreed that we could drive up the coast on Highway 1, to get to SF in stages. We planned to stop about half-way, in San Luis Obispo, 300 miles and five hours to the north.
However, not only was that weekend both Valentine's Day and Presidents' Day ---as it will be this year-- but it was the local university's homecoming weekend. And we had made no hotel reservations. No room at the inn in SLO.
I then had the great experience of driving up the winding unlit cliff-hanging curves of the coast highway in the dark, for 200 more miles and six more hours, with a seething two-hundred pound triathlete in the passenger seat, a thrill punctuated only by numerous failed attempts to stop and find a place to stay....until we finally found a HoJo in San Jose, and collapsed unspeakingly into bed.
I sometimes think that was the beginning of the end of our relationship.
Nevertheless, the next morning we headed up to the city where I have now lived for over 17 years and I got my first experience of the Golden Gate Bridge on a gorgeous and sunny Sunday morning. That's when I knew I had to live here.
It is a place whose beauty still moves me. I still cannot believe that I get to live in a place like this, where I am at Ocean Beach drinking coffee when my oldest friend calls from NY to tell me he had to shovel snow out of his driveway three times that weekend.
A warm and bright January like we had this year, for me, who spent 68% of his life in eastern and northern climes with serious winters, is still miraculous.
* I may currently have another ex, but I did not find out that we may have been boyfriends --my friends called him "the unboyfriend"--until after we, well, didn't quite break up, but certainly cracked for a while and then sorta have moslty mended. Terrific, terrific guy, really, the best, but a bit on the elusive side. Now? Jury's still out. They need more time.
____________________
No comments:
Post a Comment