Santa Barbara

Because, whether I subscribe to it or not, our society has deep, twisted and gnarled Puritan roots that mean I have to pay for my sins (and the sooner the better), my day is extremely busy. I am apparently paying for the relaxation time this weekend.

I got to take a short little trip to Santa Barbara this weekend and got to see some great people that I don’t get to see too often anymore.

I have this weird relationship with Santa Barbara though. I went to school there for a whole of 6 months. This was at a particularly volatile time in my life and I was unhappy with UCSB and I was unhappy with Santa Barbara as a place. It wasn’t SB’s fault, it was me. I mean Santa Barbara is one of the most beautiful places in California, but something didn’t work for me.

Which is weird, because I was heavy into the soap opera Santa Barbara.

Was it because the people I was spending my time with there had already had their awkward and rambunctious first getting to know you days there years before me? Was it because that sort Spanish Romanticism that is seen in all of the architecture and in all of that Mediterranean flora had not been imprinted on me in my youth as an ideal? Was it because it seemed a little too much like the Southern California I had run away from to begin with?

Whatever it was, I was extremely unhappy and ran full bore and blind into the wilds of San Francisco. But now, seeing Santa Barbara again, sort of felt like running into a guy on the bus that you used to work with, but never really talked to. While I met and got to know people there that would be important to me to this day, I did not allow for Santa Barbara to get a hold on me in any way – there’s a strange sort of detached familiarity, but it simply does not feel like it was ever home.

And something about seeing the full moon last night, glowing off the Cascades and shining in reflection from above Puget Sound felt right. And something about returning to the cold winter from 70-80 degree weather felt right. And being shaken awake by Biff this morning to show me the fragile snow falling outside, felt right – that felt like home.

Happy V-Day everyone, I hope y’all get some tonight…