Upon an L.A. Arrival
Every one of these valleys houses a story of mine. Everywhere, as far as the eye can see, a recollection. Every hillside crease, every orchard row, every meandering backroad, every freeway lane, every island in the blue distance. Each stirs a memory.
More than anything else, the expanse below me is familiar, forever within me, whether I want it to be or not. Even the city exploding over the hills and suffocating in the haze is home. Hundreds of miles north above that Bay and over the hills, across that fertile but sweltering valley, I still feel it, this sense in my blood. Down below, the pure Californianess of it all, the golden hues, the marching oaks, the wrinkled mountains and the blankets of concrete. All of it.
Other lands have their airborne beauty. Portland is a welcoming toy wedged between volcanoes and rivers. New York is grand, inspiring and forever, but it simply isn't mine. The Midwest is something hidden on forgotten highways between the quilted fields.
But my heart still eases above California. My mind wanders some line between memory and dreams. California is so very much a place created, remembered, and reconstructed, forever. It's almost as if these towers and ballfields and warehouses store pieces of me, shards of identity shimmering and vibrating as I draw nearer.
So, it makes sense as I settle in here that I re-imagine myself yet again, that, once more, I reintroduce myself to the world. For nothing is more California than starting over again. Once again.
California isn't everything. California isn't even home. But California is, for me, the beginning.
Again.
Of course, I'd be lying if I said I didn't start my blog, reorganize myself, and begin from scratch again, and again, and again.
But that's my only option.
Starting Again.
Until I can't.
So, for now, again, here it is, myself as best as I know myself right now, right here.
In California. Right. Back. Where. I started from.
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