Home Again
I could go into the many reasons why I stopped posting, but I won't. I said at the beginning this wouldn't be a "dear diary" thrown out to cyberspace. I had my reasons. I still have my reasons.
But... but... but... suffice to say I've gone through some changes and they're still evolving.
I'll never stop writing, though. I gave the following piece away, why shouldn't it be on my very own blog? So here it is:
Many
years ago in the 1960s when my family left Los Angeles, it was with a
gigantic mental sigh of relief. The smog, the sprawl, and the fast pace
weren't missed in the slightest. In fact, we pitied those we knew who
were caught within its environ. My father was a native who had always
yearned to escape, and my sisters and I whole-heartedly embraced his
negative view of everything regarding L.A. We joined in his jubilation
that we were fortunate to make a getaway, and from that point on we
have been united in our quest to live in a better place and in our
denunciation of Los Angeles.
Although my father managed his somewhat getaway, he was still
trapped Monday through Friday. He had little choice; he was a film
editor and the work was either in L.A. or New York. He stuck with the
devil he knew and made the commute down the Pacific Coast Highway long
before it became fashionable.
My mother, who had relocated to Southern California out of
choice, missed the city more than the rest of us put together. She was,
however, appeased by the fact that we were at the beach.
We moved just fifty miles away, but what a world of
difference. We lived on a strip of sand where the Santa Monica
Mountains met the sea whose address was North Malibu. It was far from
and nothing like the trendy Colony. We had crossed the line from Los
Angeles into Ventura County.
After being used to endless homes and businesses on vast city
streets, my sisters and I at first could scarcely fathom our new found
luck. When we weren't in school we had unlimited freedom in exploring
the locale. There were the miles of beach, the coastal craggy rocks,
the private pier, and the canyon across the highway that could be hiked
for miles. It was before the state acquired it as part of the state
park system and was still the farthest reaches of a cattle ranch that
stretched throughout the northernmost part of the Santa Monica
Mountains. The sycamore trees, the creek that ran to the ocean, the
vaquero cabin and the yucca studded hillsides all became our turf and a
part of us.
We were bussed alongside the ocean to attend school amidst
the agricultural fields in Oxnard. Ventura County was verdant,
beautiful. The air was clean and the population low. We listened in
disbelief when my father compared it to the San Fernando Valley he grew
up in.
"I can remember when the walnut groves went on forever, and
the L.A. River was wild," he'd reminisce. Out of respect we wouldn't
challenge his memories. We simply couldn't comprehend that the asphalt
sprawl to which we were accustomed had been an agricultural bastion a
scant generation before. And it never occurred to us at the time that
we might very well witness the same type of change.
After a couple of years the state acquired the canyon. At
first it made little difference; it was an opportunity for further
exploration. However, it did not take long for the beach side of the
highway to fall prey to eminent domain. We enjoyed being there while it
lasted, and moving there had provided the impetus to flee L.A. Not one
of us expected or wanted to ever go
back. Our lives settled in Ventura
County.
However, I became more of my father's daughter than I cared
to admit as I unconsciously emulated some of his negative attitude
toward growth and change. Ventura County was becoming too crowded and I
yearned for spaces that were cleaner and less populated.
This has led to wanderlust that has taken me to the Pacific
Northwest (both Washington and Oregon) as well as Northern California.
I leave, but I always come back. 
I've recently returned after a stint in Sonoma County Wine
Country. And while it is quite beautiful there, too - an agriculture
centered
county fifty miles north of a major city - it's too cold and
too far from the ocean for me.
So once again I've returned, and it's been my good fortune
that the weather this past fall has been the sort that has reinforced my
belief that this is my place.
