With snowflakes as big as my thumb falling and a soft downy cover over
my garden, I remember California. People have been asking me excitedly, "SO. How was your trip to California?!" You'd think I'd have a lot to say. We were there for an entire month! We did so many fun things, visited interesting places, saw people we don't see very often. But mostly my answer is, "It was good." And somehow I feel like I should apologize for that brief answer. So as an explanation . . .
We were in California long enough to get into a groove of our own; long enough to feel comfortable enough that we could daydream about living there. We did fun things, and saw people we don't normally see, but mostly we just pretended like we lived there. We took advantage of having my parents at our fingertips. Dad made salads and BBQd, Mom went to work and we took evening trips to Bakersfield, I went out to the grocery store and left the baby with his grandpa, Luke and grandpa flew balsa wood airplanes and grandpa told the story of putting together a plane with his Dad and just when they tossed it into the air for the first time, a dust devil came by and the plane went up and up and up . . . and they never saw it again. We held starfish and jumped rope with seaweed and painted our faces with wet stones and walked among the giant sequoias and fed the giraffes and played blocks and dinosaurs and marbles at great-grandma Judy's house. We walked in the almond orchard and fed the neighbor's calf malva weeds through the fence. We had a fire in the grotto, photographed old junk in the yard, mowed the lawn and ate cold chicken while sitting in the grass after a morning's yard work. We picked cotton and got an ice cream cone and wrote words in the leaves piled on the grass and picked lemons and threw the rotten lemons at the pampas grass to see the birds shoot into the air. We had a slumber party with Auntie Lissa and danced to her rap music at Brookside over biscuits and gravy. We walked to the park and walked to the museum and walked around the block to visit an old friend and walked around town to look at Christmas lights and when we heard the sheep braying down the way, we walked to find them. We happened upon people we knew and met up with the old men at the donut shop. We sang songs in the car and did yoga before bed and watched funny sitcoms in between conversations about theology and Life. It was home again, for a while.
And that is why I say "It was good." Because there's not much more to say. It was. So. Good.
Here are my favorite photos from our trip -
sorry if it takes a long time to load; I didn't skimp out! It's so hard
for me to choose favorites from a file full of photos of my favorite people
and places.
