Can you love a place too much?

I used to love Moscow, my home city. In my teen years, I was sent to study abroad, and I was often homesick. I didn’t miss my literal home or my parents, but I missed my home city — its grey and snowy streets in the winter and its sweet summer nights that weren’t “nights.” They were very long days. The sun needed to rest for just a few hours. I missed Moscow even more acutely when I met the love of my life and experienced the pain of a long-distance relationship. In my young adult years, when I worked in London, I also missed Moscow.

That love is now no longer. We left Russia more than a decade ago and never looked back. We all know how the country has evolved under Putin. I might’ve adapted if I stayed, but once you’re an immigrant, you also adapt — there is now an estrangement that is very hard, if not impossible, to overcome.

I still have good memories, but they are just memories.

Damn, this story was supposed to be about California! I didn’t mean to write that long of an introduction about how I used to love Moscow.

But I did because it fits the topic of the story. I was once deeply in love with a particular place.

Back to California. I’ve written a lot about this place. I love it so much. It feels like I should come up with a more elaborate way to describe my feelings, but it comes down to those few very simple words — I love it so much.

I just spent a couple of weeks in Florida. They were fine. I criticized Florida enough in…