Californicated.

Happened one morning…

I woke up and realized it had happened…I been Californicated! Holy fuckin’ shit!

Twenty years ago, my husband dragged me out here kicking and screaming. I literally held onto a tree in our backyard up in the mountains of Utah (no…not LDS, so don’t ask that question), and he had to pry me away.

Why did we move? Lots of reasons, but of primary importance was that he had a great job waiting for him out here. So, off we rolled in two old vehicles, three little kids, a dog and a cat in tow - had to leave the fish behind, but we sneaked our two pet mice - Chocolate and Skunky - past the border patrol.

We moved into a rental that had more spiders per square inch than an Indiana Jones movie in a neighborhood populated by cranky retired people who hated the dog and the kids and my hippie Toyota van. My husband had to turn around and head back to Utah for two months to finish up a project there. I swear, I didn’t speak to another adult for six weeks. To make matters worse, my kids got sick with slap-cheek fever, I caught it and miscarried, and the landlord kicked us to the curb with two-weeks notice, claiming he didn’t know we had a dog - he knew, believe me, he knew. My husband was out in Utah having a nervous breakdown, and yadda…yadda…yadda. Finally, when I had the kids in a nearby park one day - which was usually abandoned because of the age of the neighborhood, another mom showed up with her little girl and she spoke to me. I burst into tears! I sobbed…”I haven’t - sob - sob - spoken to - sob - sob - another adult - hiccup - hiccup - in over a month….waaaaaaa!” She was so sweet and we’ve stayed friends since that day.

So for nine years, I hated it here. I woke up every single morning, looked out the window and wanted the hell out of this place. I hated the traffic, the homeless people in San Francisco who pulled my hair and shoved cups in my face, the fog, the gray skies and rain in the winter, the lack of any sort of culture in the small town we’d moved to, the pathetic selection of books in the local library, the closed-minded small-town people. It’s not like we lived in Silicon Valley or Marin County.

On the other hand, my kids thrived here. Only my oldest remembered living anywhere else. They felt accepted and each found their social niche.

I don’t know how it happened, but one morning I woke up and something had shifted. I opened the curtains, looked at the fog lying thick as a blanket over the world outside, and I said to myself - I can’t wait to get out for a hike in this! I began to drive or take mass transit into San Francisco to attend concerts, book signings, to go shopping. I found new and interesting places in my valley and surrounding my valley to hike and climb and I got into the culture of food and wine around here in a non-elitist way.

I’ve come to love the fact that while the rest of the nation suffers dreary cold, snow, gray skies, dead grass and bare trees, I’m walking on hills carpeted with the most luxuriously green grass imaginable. I got songbirds, cougars, black bears, coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks - all around me. I love the intensity with which Californians live their lives - the energy here is young, invigorating, hopeful, accepting, tolerant. Hooray for tolerance - which is in short supply in some areas of our country. Plus the fresh fruits and vegetables, the breads, the cheeses, the wines - the farmer’s markets - OMG, they are to die for!

Yup, Californicated through and through. I can no longer imagine living anywhere else.

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