Bye, California

I'll see you again one day, surely.

California is so fucking beautiful and I'm really going to miss it.

Today is my last day living in the Golden State. These last few days I've been trying to spend more time outside, taking long walks around North Berkeley up and down hills looking over wide swaths of cypress and palm to the city across the Bay. I don’t know if I could ever express how intensely I feel about that view and the trees and the bright sunshine that steeps the sidewalk the water and my skin in its deep yellowness and twirls romantic in my head like Lana Del Rey’s “Bel Air” from a music jewelry box.

It's finally the right time to leave. Unlike the move I planned in 2018, I'm leaving for a good reason. There’s no refuge I’m seeking, no running away from a bad relationship or a bad job. This move is proactive. I'm coming back to Philadelphia with my lovely partner our wonderful cat Paulie and our soon to be born child. We have a house and we have a plan. Despite really looking forward to all of these new opportunities and changes, I of course I have nostalgia, real and imagined, making the untethering process somewhat difficult.

There are parts of me that wish I could stay here, and I'll always wonder if there wasn't something more I could do to make it possible to stay here, but I'm trying to focus on all of the positive things that wait for me back on the East Coast. I'll be near my parents and my sister and almost all of my aunts and uncles. Finally I’ll have my own bathtub, walk in closet, and enough space so that we can both work from home comfortably. Philadelphia has rivers and friendly neighborhoods and a strong literary community and a great art scene. The Fairmount area has hills I can climb and there are trees and nature to be found in Wissahickon Park and even in Rittenhouse square if I don't feel like venturing out too far. I will have things to do, there are people that I know, and I think it'll be a nice place to settle in with my new family.

It's kind of crazy to even think about that but it's essentially what I'm doing. Who ever thought Little Alexandra would settle down and be happy about it?