You can’t unlove California

If you left California for whatever reason, can you swear you don’t miss it? I’m curious to know. My hypothesis is you do miss it. Or maybe you already returned.

Criticize Governor Newsom all you want and point to California’s many problems, but I just can’t imagine ‘unloving’ this beautiful place. I also like the people in California. It feels awkward saying this. It’s not that people in California are better. Also, there is no archetype of a person living in California. Like many other places, it has people from all walks of life. For some, it’s always been home. Some came here from other places. Others detoured because of their professional or personal journeys but then returned. I know many people from the last category, and meeting them was one of the motivations for this story.

I’ll skip the details of my family’s frequent travels. We’ve spent the better part of the last ten years in Northern and Southern California but traveled a lot. Our lives are so complicated that I can’t even explain where home is now. But I still spend a lot of time in Southern California.

Vast, yet warm, and I don’t mean warm in the literal sense. Warm as in “familiar”.

And it is warm, of course! Even the hottest days never feel oppressive.

And no, I don’t miss the seasons. I like the forever-comfortable climate that allows me to run daily.

I can drive to the coast and run to this view: