There’s a snapshot of me in the blue flowered dress my children loved so much, getting into the new bright red Jeep and waving at the camera held by my then husband. We were headed to California. New York felt lonely-living in upper Westchester County among rich people and townies- neither group to whom we belonged. We were newly married- and we’d split the difference in our careers and landed in a place of spectacular beauty. Time enough to get to know each other, to loll around in that wonderful six months after marriage with nothing to do but make love and extravagant dinners. And then one day, it wasn’t enough and P suggested a change. And I said, why not?
We landed in Berkeley, in a summer of perpetual fog. P was in the art business and landed a job at a schlock-y art gallery in San Francisco, and I was trying to get my bearings about me around where horses were in the Bay Area. I traveled around looking for work- first to the East Bay- a connection provided by my former boss. Where it was 60 degrees and foggy in Berkeley, it was a brutal 90 not just 10 miles away over the dry, brown hills. I remember one day pulling over and calling P and crying hysterically. I was on a highway headed east, and I intended to keep going. I couldn’t bear it anymore- the heat, the dull hills, the space. I told him he could keep the dog. She was my dog and meant everything to me, so that pretty much sums up my state of mind. He talked me down. We went for a nice dinner we couldn’t afford that night and put it on a credit card.
In the fall we moved to a beautiful place in San Francisco, with a dear friend who was ready to come out in the most famous gay neighborhood in the country. I found work 20 minutes south in horse country, and P took a position with the Academy of Art College. It was a complicated time. I missed New England, the closeness of it, my friends. My old lover. San Francisco felt like a pretend city to me compared to New York and Boston, with its brunches and silly postcard Victorians. I felt so far away from myself, from the life I had created to escape the other one.
I got pregnant in 1992. Maybe I needed something to hold me in California, and why else do things happen the way they do? The art business continued its downward spiral and P was disillusioned by the art school world. We couldn’t see making a home next to Larry Ellison, who’s little daughter I was teaching how to ride her fancy pony. On a whim, I answered an ad in a trade publication to take over a horse business north of San Francisco.
The Sierra foothills were green with the fall rains, and there was woodsmoke in the crisp air. The land was giving and open and we were held by the tall ponderosa pines. My daughter was baptized in the cool waters of the river which ran through the canyon. I found home.
I’ve been here longer than I have been anywhere else. I have been back to my origin lands many times, and each time I return to California, I am grateful. So much life, so much beauty. The mountains, the ocean, the desert. I belong here.
Realizing this petered out and I took on much more of a memory than I had time to write about, LOL. Another time. I had to take a break for a week due to work and am rambling. Really appreciating having these prompts to go back to.
— Cristine
We landed in Berkeley, in a summer of perpetual fog. P was in the art business and landed a job at a schlock-y art gallery in San Francisco, and I was trying to get my bearings about me around where horses were in the Bay Area. I traveled around looking for work- first to the East Bay- a connection provided by my former boss. Where it was 60 degrees and foggy in Berkeley, it was a brutal 90 not just 10 miles away over the dry, brown hills. I remember one day pulling over and calling P and crying hysterically. I was on a highway headed east, and I intended to keep going. I couldn’t bear it anymore- the heat, the dull hills, the space. I told him he could keep the dog. She was my dog and meant everything to me, so that pretty much sums up my state of mind. He talked me down. We went for a nice dinner we couldn’t afford that night and put it on a credit card.
In the fall we moved to a beautiful place in San Francisco, with a dear friend who was ready to come out in the most famous gay neighborhood in the country. I found work 20 minutes south in horse country, and P took a position with the Academy of Art College. It was a complicated time. I missed New England, the closeness of it, my friends. My old lover. San Francisco felt like a pretend city to me compared to New York and Boston, with its brunches and silly postcard Victorians. I felt so far away from myself, from the life I had created to escape the other one.
I got pregnant in 1992. Maybe I needed something to hold me in California, and why else do things happen the way they do? The art business continued its downward spiral and P was disillusioned by the art school world. We couldn’t see making a home next to Larry Ellison, who’s little daughter I was teaching how to ride her fancy pony. On a whim, I answered an ad in a trade publication to take over a horse business north of San Francisco.
The Sierra foothills were green with the fall rains, and there was woodsmoke in the crisp air. The land was giving and open and we were held by the tall ponderosa pines. My daughter was baptized in the cool waters of the river which ran through the canyon. I found home.
I’ve been here longer than I have been anywhere else. I have been back to my origin lands many times, and each time I return to California, I am grateful. So much life, so much beauty. The mountains, the ocean, the desert. I belong here.
Realizing this petered out and I took on much more of a memory than I had time to write about, LOL. Another time. I had to take a break for a week due to work and am rambling. Really appreciating having these prompts to go back to.
— Cristine
Comments
Post a Comment