california stole my heart and on a silver platter thrust it back at me again

berkeley, ca. the hills shine green and gold before the fog rolls in and brings with it a cold humidity and i can breathe again. i'd forgotten how i love it here. i sit on the curb in the early morning fog and smoke and listen to the crows and remember who i am.

we drive up the PCH and i think of steinbeck, of kerouac, of hitchcock and his blondes in convertibles and silk scarves on those hairpin turns. what you don't see in the movies is the colors on the hillside, rust and ochre and bright yellows and greens and this monster veil of fog that has its own soul, that owns the coast. time is a useless, trivial thing. death to the left in the guise of empty steep cliffs and to the right, life and color and brilliance. i could get lost in the hills of big sur and not trouble to find my way out again.

but berkeley, beloved bay area, fresh and clean and cool and temperate with real trees and stunning food. everywhere. too much and it is not enough. nothing in this city belongs to me, it never has. 

an evening with the uncle and me glassy-eyed and vague and trying to hold it together. trying not to think of the combination in my stomach, the twist of the pills, the gastronomic extravagance. i dream at night of sharing an apartment with my dead grandparents. i dream of witnessing a murder, the three smoking bullet holes in his neck.

and we drive the 5 home early because i say i am shifty to get going but really, the sooner i get back the sooner i can grind this madness to a halt. at home i do not eat bacon. i do not swallow pills at random to numb that space in my heart, little orange ones, yellow, the white ones to pass out at night in bed alone. i do not eat french cinnamon brioche soaked in orange-water batter and drizzled with lavender honey. i do not talk about eating every ten minutes and complain of fullness and say in the same sentence that i want more. at home there is not so much family around. there is a difference in physical and emotional closeness, you know. gaping chasms here thrust into sharp relief. at home i am not so obvious. at home i do not have to see it.

the 5 is a high-speed burn through six hours of green and gold rolling hills and flat bronze grasslands over which if you look with the right kind of eyes you can see the curvature of the earth. the sun beats in through the car windows and i smoke all the way to keep myself from floating off. california is vast and empty and glowing and leaves me breathless still.

but LA is a dead grimy thing and when we hit the city proper i start cursing again. sun-bleached, raw and dirty. you cannot hide here. there is no shade, no dark corner not already sticky with sweat. i do not want to touch anything. i want to crawl out of my skin. i cannot eat here. it's so familiar. thank god.