Santa Cruz

Happy Blog Birthday, Blatherskite

Life

My blog is 15 years old today! Wow. I almost can’t believe it. I also can’t believe it was only 5 years ago that I celebrated my 10 year blogiversary by handmaking a book of favorite blog posts. I feel kind of bad that I didn’t think to do anything like that for this anniversary. Hm. Maybe before the year is up I will come up with something. Maybe a book of photos? Photos and poems? I’ll have to think about it…

To celebrate, here is a pantoum I write several years ago using the lines of the first post I ever wrote.

R. and I took a drive up the coast yesterday.
It was so rejuvenating.
We went to one of our favorite beaches.
I don’t know the name of the beach but it is very beautiful.

It was so rejuvenating.
There are lots of rocks jutting up from the ocean.
I don’t know the name of the beach but it is very beautiful.
Yesterday the waves were huge!

There are lots of rocks jutting up from the ocean.
I felt so full of energy and hope.
Yesterday the waves were huge!
I don’t ever want to leave this place.

I felt so full of energy and hope.
I love living here.
I don’t ever want to leave this place.
Expensive it is and hard to get by.

I love living here.
We went to one of our favorite beaches.
Expensive it is and hard to get by.
R. and I took a drive up the coast yesterday.

 

The original blog post was a rumination on “should I stay or should I go” regarding moving away from Santa Cruz. We moved. We still very much miss Santa Cruz and still ruminate about moving back someday.

Lost Boys Tour through Santa Cruz, CA

Photography

I was 18 when The Lost Boys arrived in the theaters in the summer of 1987. I remember walking out of the theater feeling full of energy, high on the excitement of the film. I loved just about everything about it. I would see the film twice more in the theater that summer and the […]

via A Lost Boys tour through Santa Cruz, CA — Pinhole Obscura

It’s been a long time, but I finally published a post on Pinhole Obscura! Check it out at the link above!

On sunsets at the ocean.

Photography, Random
perfect shade of pink

Sunset at Long Beach, WA.

I witnessed the most amazing sunset Saturday evening. It had been raining hard all day. It was dark and dreary and depressing.  So when I looked outside and saw this view I had to go outside and experience the splendor. It was raining though. A light sprinkling as I watched the sun make its glorious appearance between the clouds and the horizon.

I love sunsets. You might know this by now if you have read this blog for any length of time. You might have heard this before. I will say it again. I love them. And I love them especially when they are at the beach. It is a religious experience to watch the sunset at the ocean.

An interesting thought occurred to me recently. Not very many people get to see the sun setting at the ocean. I get to because I live near the Pacific Ocean. How many other oceans face West? Obviously there are a few. But it suddenly occurs to me that this wonderful experience can only be experienced in certain places, the Pacific Ocean being one of those places. I am very grateful that I get to experience it.

When we went to Santa Cruz last weekend I really  wanted to watch the sun set at our old beach, Seabright. We kept ourselves busy until that magic hour and then we drove down to our favorite beach. As we drove I realized that it wasn’t going to happen. I had forgotten that Santa Cruz is an anomaly. It is situated on the north end of the Monterrey Bay and so when you look toward the water you are looking south, not west. And sometimes, because of the way the coastline is, when you are looking at the water you look East. It is very odd and will completely confuse your senses when you are there. So I missed the sunset that evening and I was sad.

Santa Cruz had some pretty killer sunrises though. I used to run on the beach every morning and I was lucky to be able to see the sun rise over the ocean. Which is just as amazing as watching the sun set. Maybe even more so because there are fewer people around so you share it with a small group of crazy people like you who get up at an ungodly hour.

 

The Santa Cruz Monica

Poetry

Sometimes I wonder
If there is another me
who still lives in Santa Cruz.
The Santa Cruz Monica.
The me who chose to be
A creative writing major at UCSC.
She had guts.
She is the one who runs on the beach at sunrise.
She is the one who surfs The Hook.
She is the one who Is not afraid
Of wasps’s nests as she rappels
The cliff at Castle Rock.
She is the one who
Writes stories about the Sea.
I can feel her when I visit.
Her happy soul bleeds
Through the crack in our worlds.

 

Where is home for you?

Writing

I was born in Spokane, WA and that is where my family lives. That is where I lived until I was 20. I had always been unhappy there and I don’t understand why. I remember one day when I was 19, driving to my friend’s house. I was going to a party. I felt dead inside. I sat at a stop sign, snow falling down around my car,  and I thought to myself, “why can’t I just be happy?” Happiness completely eluded me.

I wouldn’t feel this elusive emotion until a year later, when I moved to New York. I was in a car with my friend and we were driving to a dance club. I felt excited for all the possibilities that awaited me in this new place. I realized, then, that this was happiness. I felt happy.  It was a strange feeling. But it was fantastic.

I found my home when I moved to California. At first I was sorely disappointed with the place. I remember flying  into the San José Airport from the east over desert. I thought, “what have I gotten myself into.” I got used to it really quickly and grew to love it. The weather, the palm trees, the Pacific Ocean. I lived there for 15 years. I found my home in Santa Cruz. I felt like I belonged there. I felt like my soul belonged there. Sometimes I feel like it is still there.

Spokane’s vortex drew me back. This time I brought my husband up to live there. And, again, I still had those unsettling feelings. I felt stuck. I was unhappy.  All I could think about when I lived there was where I could move away to.  I still don’t understand this. I had great friends. I loved being closer to my family. Those things were wonderful. There was just something about the place that made me unhappy.

So now I find myself here in Sandy, Oregon. The day I moved here I felt that elusive happy feeling. That excitement for the adventures that awaited me. I feel at home here. I feel like I fit.

So. Where is home for me? For me, home  is the place where my soul fits. If my soul fits then I can be happy.   ♥