Figured I could update, or something

Aug 09, 2012 04:46

If anyone is still around here?? Is that an echo, or are my ears playing games with me again? ;)

Anyhaps, here I am. Almost two and a half months out of the parents house, and about a week and a half away from the big return to college. I'm living in a completely new town, one I'd only been to once prior to a couple of visits in preparation for moving here, and that was three years ago completely on a whim.


And can I tell you how much I love it? SO MUCH I COULDN'T ALLCAPS ABOUT ENOUGH. Weather? Yeah, I wish I could move all my friends here who are suffering with the insane heat a lot of you are getting. Here? It's warm when it gets out of the low 60s. 70? I have yet to see that here. Not to say I haven't managed to get sunburned, but even then it was only because it was one of those rare days we actually HAD sun, and I stupidly went to a park to have lunch and do some reading. I really should know better at my age.

No, we don't get a whole lot of sun. It is after all the Pacific Northwest, albeit about as southern in PacNor as one can get. But we get just enough, and it makes it all the more enjoyable. I can't tell how many times I was basically told to kiss the sun goodbye once I moved up here, but really, I think I'll live. It may get a little drudging after awhile, especially during the winter, but it'll be winter; what's not winter without a little drudgery?

Something that makes up for the lack of sun, though? The fog. I missed the fog so much. The way it just kinds of floats into town quietly, bringing a crispness to the air you just don't get anywhere else. The air here doesn't just sit like it does at the Lake. Even when it's windy, and it gets windy there, during the summer the air is just heavy and icky and stagnant. Of course, I really am not a fan of heat, and I'd rather the relatively dry heat we get here in California to the humid heat y'all get to the East. But still, heat and I do not mix well. I can handle it if I'm out on the water, in the boat or on my jetski. The water is the best place to truly appreciate the beauty of Lake County.

But here, for me at least, it's the fog. I love watching it moving up the street and crawling over the peaked roofs (remind me to talk about the houses!), sometimes sprinting across the airport parking lot like it's being chased. I missed that dreary yet comforting fog almost as much as I missed the ocean.

And man, I didn't know how much I missed having the Pacific close by until I got here. The smells, the sounds, the waves. From in front of that same airport, when the sky is clear or at least the clouds are high and fog is not present, the Pacific just goes on forever and ever. One of the things I was looking forward to the most about moving here, well, beyond finally living on my own again, was going to the beach. And one of the beaches here is one of only two in the state where you can actually drive ON the beach. Finally, having a four-wheel drive truck has paid off! (Save for when it saved my life the year I got it by getting me out of the flood zone I nearly got trapped in for a week.) A couple of times I've simply grabbed a few pillows, a book, and my headphones, gone to the beach and found a good place to park, then jumped in the bed of my truck and just sat for awhile. Listen to the waves, watch a couple of the braver surfers, watch the people riding ATVs having a blast, and wishing my brother hadn't had to sell his so we could have used it here.

That smell, though. That rotting seaweed, that almost too-strong salt scent. It smells like home. Sometimes I just go out on my little back porch and breathe deeply, taking in the smell. I live only about three/quarters of a mile from the bay, and the ocean proper is only another couple miles, at most, away. The breeze just carries that scent, and I feel energized, happy, and I can't say it enough, at home.

Eureka is a smallish city, perhaps 28,000 people I think. Humboldt County only has maybe a hundred and half thousand total, and THAT is completely NOT like home, home being, in case you were wondering, actually Santa Cruz County, where I grew up. There, we had nearly a hundred thousand in the mountainous valley I grew up, but nobody knew except for during commute time. Otherwise, the trees hid your neighbors from view. I still feel a little weird actually being able to see my neighbors, let alone being able to see a bunch of my neighbors. And it's been eleven years since I left SCC.

Which reminds me! The houses. I live just up from Old Town/Downtown Eureka, and it's Victorian central here. Everywhere you look, there are Victorians. I live in a freaking Victorian! There all in various states of disrepair, with mine being in okay shape but in dire need of some cosmetic surgery stat. But some of them are restored to their full glory of a hundred or so years ago. That is something that is very rare in the Great State of California. Even old back East has a slightly different connotation than old does out here. Back there, it's not uncommon for old to mean 150-200 years, right? Not to say 100 years isn't old, either, in the history of a country that's only 236 years old. But in earthquake country? Depending on where you are, things built in the 1960s might be considered old.

So to see so many houses built closer to the turn of the last century versus when my parents were young adults is just strange. But so cool. The peaked roofs. I look out my window, or again from my back porch, and I see peaked roofs. Big peaks, the kinds of peaks you see more in places that get more snow than anywhere on the California coast does. There are all of these sharp angles and flat edges, dramatic when you're used to the barely banked roofs your brother and his friends used to play drunk tag on in the middle of the night; here it might have been some sort of modified wall climbing, but yeah, with booze.

And some of the houses that have been either kept up or returned to their final glory? I feel like I'm walking down the streets of River City, Iowa hearing the 76 trombones playing a few blocks away. (Yeah, I know, random reference; but seriously, some of the blocks near me? Harold Hill in his straw boater walking by would not surprise me. Apparently, I REALLY need to see that movie again...) They're absolutely glorious. The details, the colors, the windows, the porches, just everything. Like I said, the one I live in is a little rundown. I only rent the upstairs, and it's simply a studio apartment, a kitchen, bathroom, and one big room where everything happens. But even that is just cool because of the original details that are few but still there. The floor moulding is a full six inches up the wall, where normally it's, what, an inch and a half? The narrow and steep stairs from my front door up to my apartment. The old door latches. The single-pane windows with those waves of imperfections that you can only see at certain angles and you do not see in modern, factory made windows.

I have a clawfoot bathtub! A huge, deep, clawfoot bathtub that I want to take a bath in so bad I just don't feel right wasting all that water just to soak in. Maybe if my back goes out on me again. And I have an OLD sink and sideboard. Seriously. It's not metal, and it looks like it's original. There's also a cabinet that has vents to the outside for cooling pies apparently; Dad told me what they were called, and of course I forget, but seriously, a pie cooling cabinet!! (Which is only partially covered, so I am curious how much air I'm going to get through that thing in the winter. Time will tell.)

And the ceilings are high, especially in the main room. The room isn't huge, but it feels huge because the ceilings are a couple feet higher than I'm used to. Everything about my place, I'm completely in love with it. I feel a bit like Goldilocks; it's just right.

I take walks downtown when I'm bored, or I feel like treating myself to some time at the coffee shop or to some ice cream, both of which are actually on the street I live in, a quick ten or so blocks down. Pick up a scoop, or get a ginger tea, and then head down to the boardwalk that runs along the bay front. There isn't actually a board in sight, but there is the marina full of smaller commercial fishing boats, a Coast Guard cutter, and HSU's very own marine research vessel, something only HSU can gloat about. Then there are of course the seagulls, and the pelicans. Unlike Santa Cruz, there are no sea lions or otters, which I miss, but that's a small price to pay.

I haven't had the opportunity (in other words, money) to go visit the redwoods yet. But that's coming. Because the campus is surrounded by them. During my visit in February, I discovered how close they in fact are. There's a small grove near the center of campus, and another larger one that leads to more on the North side of campus. Basically, I've discovered a couple of spots to go hide out in between classes or when I simply need to commune with nature as I grew up knowing it.

Because while I haven't actually done more than drive through them, or looked at them from a distance, I can almost feel them. Redwoods are magical trees. Maybe I'm partial because they were literally in my backyard growing up, and are one of the very few trees I can identify on site, but I adore them. They're tall, and beautiful, and green all of the time, provided we aren't deep in a drought, something that rarely happens in this part of California I've heard. Yeah, it's sounds a little hippie-dippie, and well, I am little hippie-dippie, but honestly, being close to them again, with them to the East and the Pacific to the West, I feel like I'm finally home.

For the first time since April of 2001, I finally feel like I'm at home. And I've been here just over two months. There's always the chance things could change: the weather or lack of sun could in fact start getting to me, I could have a hard time finding a job after I graduate, or, the worst possibility, I could end up back where I was for awhile over these last three years. But right now, and really for the last couple of weeks? I never want to leave here. I could honestly see myself living here for the rest of my life. And right now, I want to.

Realistically, I can't focus on that at the moment. Classes start a week from this coming Monday; I'm going to be a full-time student for the first time since I dropped out of San Jose State in 1999. I have a lot of work ahead of me over the next two years, and that's only if I decide against getting my teaching credential; if that happens, add another year. Then, of course, there's the distance. Gas isn't going to get cheaper, and I live 200 miles away from my parents, the farthest I've ever lived from them, and 250 away from my brother and his family, including my almost three-year-old niece and just over three-month-old nephew. I already hate the fact that I moved barely a month after he was born, and that I'm going to miss so much of the next couple of years.

And I'm not sure how good I'll do being this far away from my family. We all have rocks, and my family is my rock. They are what makes me happy, makes me feel loved and safe and cared for. Mom's who I go to when I need to cry. Dad's who I go to when I want to get into a passionate political or religious argument, even if we're always arguing the same side. And he's my daddy, in every sense of the word. I'm finally getting a real relationship with my brother, something I think we both need after how we grew up. I adore my sister-in-law and want to keep getting to know her. And then there are my aunts, Dad's sisters, both of which also live at the Lake. They're both so awesome, and Auntie K is the epitome of a Hawaiian "auntie", save for the part where she isn't Hawaiian. She's my second mother, one of my caretakers, someone I admire and am inspired by and can put me in my place but always offers cookies or char sui bao.

So there's a definite trade-off in having moved. I had to put a whole lot of distance between myself and the emotional and psychological touchstones of what 'home' is to me. But in exchange I got the physical and environmental touchstones of the same thing. And considering how much emotional connection I have to the environment here, with it's association to the home I grew up in - which had plenty of faults and is still a place I have a hard time thinking about at times - the trade-off is almost even. But no amount of redwoods or sea air or pounding waves could make up the difference.

At least I don't think it could. Who knows; maybe I'll find a partner up here, or a good job, or just decide the drive isn't that big a thing. Hell, I'm already almost there with the drive; it only took me about three and a half hours last time I did it, and I even managed to get nearly 20 mpg in a V6 Ford pick-up, thank you very much. Plus I love driving as long as I have something to drink and loud music to sing along to.

But the next big hurdle is school. I have a lot of work ahead of me, and a history that gives me more than a little anxiety over my chances. I know I can handle the work academically no problem. It all comes down to my psyche and keeping a leash on it so it doesn't run away with my motivation and all of the planning I've done and need to continue to do.

In any case, I'm so excited for classes to start. I can't wait to be sitting in a classroom, taking notes, ringing my hands because as usual I'm holding my pen too tightly. And I'm looking forward to seeing what really being in uni will be like. My one complete semester at SJSU was so long ago, and I was still young and had a completely different major at the time. But this time, it's all about the history - and possibly geography if I decide I can manage the minor.

I'm even looking forward to all of the stairs I'll be having to climb at that point. Or rather, I'm not necessarily looking forward to it, considering when I went last week just to walk from one side of campus to the other, something I'll have ten minutes between classes to do, I took at least 200 stairs. What I am looking forward to is the fact that my legs will be STRONG. I'll be doing a lot of heavy breathing during the process, but perhaps I'll lose a little weight!

Well, now that I've blathered on for entirely too long, I should probably get to what I should have started an hour ago. I do love the fact that I have a job that allows me to do this; it'll make school all the more easier being able to study while earning a little extra cash. Even if getting up at 3:30 in the morning, working until 11, and then going to class until 2 is going to be interesting for needs-her-eight-hours-per-24 Baba here. But I already love caffeine, and I'm learning to take naps. Now I just need to learn to take 1-2 hour ones, not 3-4-5 hour ones.

So, I'll be off. Have one more little assignment my therapist wants me to do, and I admit I'm kind of procrastinating on it. Which is funny considering my last paper, the one I emailed her yesterday, was ABOUT procrastination and time management.

I will leave you with the below, though. Two of the reasons I'm going to school, even if it also means I'm going to miss out on a lot of the next 2 or 3 years of their lives. That's Fuzzy (the one in my icon all growed up :) and her baby brother Boomer. No, those aren't their real names, they're just the nicknames I gave them because I felt like it. My two favorite people in the world. I just hope that the next few years helps me to be the best aunt I can be.


From Drop Box

This entry was originally posted at http://harempriestess.dreamwidth.org/25712.html. Comment on either site.

fuzzy and boomer, my edumacation, eureka, life, humboldt, happiness, school

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