On: Home (Sherlock ReDeux Tech - Day 5)

This isn't the blog post I thought I'd be writing an hour ago.

Portland & Santa Cruz

I am unabashedly proud of, vocal about, in love with my hometown of Santa Cruz, CA. I have not yet been the world traveler I'd like to someday be, but I already know that Santa Cruz is one of my favorite places on earth. The people, the climate, the natural beauty, the combination of tall forest grove and Pacific expanses is utterly breath taking.
Something that always makes me feel at home is fog. The Bay Area is known for it's fog and I have countless memories of watching waves of fog crash down on to freeways, beaches and baseball stadiums - clouds mimicking the movement of the water particles that make them. My last summer at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, I worked on Henry IV Part I. The first scene of the second act is conducted partially in Welsh, culminating in a Welsh song about love and loss. When Sepi took the stage to sing this Welsh ballad on our opening night, the entire Glen responded. We were in a theater in the redwoods and Santa Cruz brought the fog down on us so perfectly, it was as if we planned it. Sepi cried all through her song. Many of us wept backstage. Fog has always meant home to me in a primal, etheral, beautiful, sweater-y way. I'm not sure anyone who didn't grown up in the Bay Area can understand how all those adjectives go together but trust me: they do.
So tonight, I drove home after tech with some Marker's Mark "kindling a fire in my belly" and when I hit the Ross Island bridge I was suddenly immersed in it: thick, smoky, woolen Willamette River fog. I had noticed this effect a few nights ago, when I drove up 99E around 1 am. I looked out to my left and saw bridge after bridge obscured by fog. Between them? Open, smooth, water. It was as if the river had finally noticed these intruders spanning it's width and sent long, curled, foggy fingers up from the depths to tear them down. I had seen this fog from afar, but tonight I drove right through it. I looked at all the lights and their foggy halos and I immediately thought of home, of driving back to Ben Lomond from UCSC at night, about the way the fog looks in Mona's front yard in the early hours of the morning.
So: thank you, Portland, for the fog tonight. I've been a bit petulant and resentful recently and I know it's not your fault. I have all these dreams and ideas and wishes and I sometimes take the frustration of being 23 out on you, just as much as I take it out on my roommates, my best friend, my parents and this guy who seems to think he wants to date me. But the truth is: 23 is just hard sometimes. And the other truth is: Santa Cruz is home, but so are you, Portland.