oh california, how i love you

an ode to my home

I live in the Central Valley which hardly gets colder than 30 degrees even in the depths of winter and the summers — don’t even get me started on the summers when the hellish heat envelops everything and makes your skin turn red and pulses through the air with it’s psychedelic waves. But in all honesty I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s a blessing and a curse to grow up in California. There’s so much to do, and in-state tuition is cheaper for public universities and people travel from around the world to see San Francisco or Los Angeles or Malibu yet all of those things are a drive away for me. However, all these things make it so I can never live anywhere else. How could I when I’ve been so spoiled with the climate and the culture and the natural beauty from the Redwoods to Big Sur to Joshua Tree?

I’m chained here like Prometheus, cursed to eternal torture of impossible rent and housing crises and everyone being too attractive. I’ll probably never own a home but that’s okay because at least I’ll be in California. If I have to be depressed and broke and living in a timeline where the worlds richest man is making governmental decisions, being in California makes it all seem romantic because everything is more beautiful here.

I’m moving to Isla Vista later this year for college, and oh what a beautiful thing it is to have one of the most desirable places in the country as an attainable option for me to spend the next four years. I’m an insufferable Californian because of my dreamy outlook on life, making it my mantra that everything will work out. I know rent is high and I probably won’t catch a break trying to get by, but my head is too far up in the clouds for me to worry. I will make it work because that’s what Californians do.

There’s just something about West Coast beach towns, the laid back energy, the weathered buildings and hole-in-the-wall spots, and the cerulean span of ocean being the backdrop to everyday life. I want to have that windswept hair and tanned skin that smells like salt warmed by the sun. I want to swim and surf and drive down the PCH with the windows down wearing nothing but a bikini and the tiniest cut off shorts.

I spent a weekend in Santa Cruz, and the hotel I stayed in was right across the street from the ocean, facing this little beachside spot called Ideal Bar & Grill which made me realize that I would be content if I could just live in a little apartment by the beach and work as a waitress at a restaurant overlooking the sea, and maybe do a little bit of writing on the side. I don’t think I’m meant to climb the corporate ladder in this life, but if I want to survive in California, I’ll do what I have to do.