California, mythical land of dreams and gold: I love you.

I love your golden hills.

I love your cold blue Pacific, lapping at your side.

I love your fog, shrouding you in mystery.

I love your vineyards, your oaks, your sequoias.

I even love your rolling earth, sounding first like distant thunder and then shaking and quaking every fiber of my being.

But most of all, I love your spirit– that infectious and inexplicable can-do-ness that saturates every pore of one’s being once one is within your fertile soil.

The kind of can-do-ness that can push people to build homes in the wilderness.
The kind of can-do-ness that can push people to go to the shelter without protest and know they can trust.
The kind of can-do-ness that will rebuild and help heal wounds just like it has after every disaster that has hit you before, beautiful girl.

I love that while you burn –as you are meant to do, being low desert and chaparral forest and sweet mirage– you still hold on to the essence of who you are.

You are Zen sarcasm personified– twisting the knife with a smile and a kiss.  Dealing the medicine with a spoonful of organic sugar.  Finding the remedy within your blood.

Your people love you.

We love you.

And from my bittersweet exile in this little happy swamp, I always have a piece of you moving with your waves deep within me.

_______

Hey SoCal readers, are you guys okay?