This is California Part II

Part II of California Post...

After taking that picture, I couldn’t help but think it shed some light on my state – both collectively and personally.

  I think that California is not a place that someone can ever be ambivalent about – California invites an opinion.  Do you love the bright, sandy beaches of SoCal?  Or are you a redwoods / mountains kind of gal?  From the bright lights, big cities to the sleepy inland ranch communities to the stark beauty of the desert, there is hopefully something for everyone.    

  Of course, the detractors of California look at the state as a sprawling, economically challenged land of hypocrisy.  For as much as we like to maintain our reputation as hippies, praising mother earth and sister sky while dancing in flower-filled fields wearing bright tie-die and chomping on granola it is also true that:

a)      We are home to the first McD’s. 

b)      We exacerbate our poor air quality through long commutes and big ag crop production and stress our dwindling water supplies.

c)      While there are many people who live the laid back, surfer lifestyle, there are workers who work long hours for minimum pay, some of which involves back-breaking labor.

  I could go on with this list, but I think you get the idea.  So, in many ways, California is not the idyllic, perfect place of milk and honey we lovers would like it to be.  (After all, this beauty is also brought to us by earthquakes!)   But Californians do not live with blinders on about our foibles.  We are the first to complain about the housing prices, the poor schools, and the rest of the diatribe because we recognize potential when we see it, backed up by the knowledge of a glistening past. 

  We also can be confident in change, because California is always in flux due to its size and varied landscapes.  From one place/time to the next, a person can patiently wait and turn her humble spot into almost anything she wants it to be.  California is a place of reinvention – from Hollywood to the dot-com companies – where dreams can become a reality.  So many people over the generations have come to the far flung west with a vision (the rancheros, the missionaries, the miners of ‘49, the dust bowl migrants, need I go on?) that gets played on a grand scale in the Golden State to interesting, albeit not always successful, results. 

  More importantly, California writers help define this meaning for us by encompassing the good, the bad, and the intriguing aspects of my fellow dreamers.  To understand America and our melting pot of humanity, these writers argue one must only look to Californians.  Steinbeck’s famous first line of Cannery Row says it all: “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”  All the layers of humanity and life emerge in these writers’ books, sometimes at once, sometimes over time, but, most importantly, each reflects a new, realistic part of the picture.     

  And finally, if you understand and accept California, you find you come to know yourself.  After all, a work in progress is an ideal space to figure out your own meaning.  Where do you come from?  Where have you been?  Where are you going?  In seeing California’s flexibility and endurance in spite of (or perhaps because of) its seeming contradictions, your own forward progress seems possible.  Or, if you prefer a more cynical view, you can at least abide with your own feelings of liminality.  So even if you’ve got one cowboy boot firmly entrenched in the past, and one foot grudgingly dragged into the high tech, urban future, California still embraces you, because you’re still a small part of her vision. 

  So, thanks, California.  I’ve always liked getting to knowing you.