may i
I woke up in Carmel, a small touristy town south of San Francisco that I keep calling Carvel, like the ice cream place. Except it has less ice cream and more bed & breakfasts and more boutique malls with obnoxiously patterened capri pants and more bad art. Oh, So Very Much Bad Art, one would hardly think it could all fit in one small town.Tuesday night I was in Portland and I sat on the sunny patio of the Laurelthirst listening to bluegrass and drinking cold Rainiers and playing Christmas Trivia with my friends (because Christmas Trivia was thoughtfully provided by the establishment), and Wednesday night I caught up with some long lost UO folks and ate pizza and went squaredancing. And I was so full of Portland spring, the kind you knew had to be coming, the thoughts of which kept you going through month after month of rain. And there it was, in glorious force, so much spring that I biked with no helmet just to feel the sun on my hair, so much spring that everyone's in flip flops, so much spring that the onion tops have sprung upward at an astounding rate and the grape leaves are unfurling. One waits for Portland spring so long, and so fervently there in the end, and even still after all that fantasy it exceeds expectations.
So there is no reason to leave a Portland spring, no good reason I can think of. But my parents were flying out to San Francisco to visit family and I haven't been east in inexcusably long, so here I am, for four days. Here in this beautiful city that never grows on me, a city I always enjoy visiting and never long to return to. San Francisco is neither here nor there for me, not exotic and not familiar, not late like New York and not loose like California. And I don't mean to insult it, because I know many people who belong here or have belonged here for some important period of their lives, and I wouldn't argue with any of the good things you might say about it. But it's not a city for me.
The city for me, right now, is Portland, and I can feel it right there one state to the north; I am jittery and longing for it like sitting three rows behind the person I just stayed up all night thinking about. I want to bike out to the edges of the Springwater Trail. I want to walk up Belmont on a warm Saturday night and find a fruity drink. I want to go hiking by a river, hiking until I am hot and tired, and I want to jump into the freezing water and sit on a warm rock to dry. I want to walk through First Friday and Third Thursday and all the other outside summer night festivals, and hear music at the zoo, and play bocce in the park. I want to make limeade and drink it on my porch.
But for today I'm in The Bay and its surroundings, driving past vineyards and orchards and dry purple hills, eating cherries at a roadside stand. And it's lovely, really, and I don't mean to take it for granted. But sometimes, every so often, and oftener if you're smart, you know exactly where you want to be - and everywhere else, alluring as it is, isn't there.
posted by tortaluga @ 11:51 PM
2 Comments:
I hope dear one that you have been able to survive the Livermore Experience without Serious Incident(s) arising. Although there is no way of compensating you for the horror of Carmel's "art" galleries.
No way, except, of course, for the nearly Monterey Bay aquarium.
Do avoid the wax museum assiduously, however.
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