how quaint; a newspaper. at a yard sale. in winter. the hollywood sign only a city block away from his front steps, the palm trees obvious and gaudy in the sky.
the january heat bares down upon her while the rest of her people back east dig out again from snow. she imagines what it would be like to wake up fifteen minutes earlier to shovel, to defrost, to scrape windows. layers of children's winter clothing, boots tracking snow turning to water on the floor. dogs racing through the piles, only stopping to scoop up another gleeful mouthful.
she wears her t-shirts grudgingly, shaves her legs because it's too hot to wear jeans all the time. no socks. her cozy ones stay in their drawer, taunting her with their lack of use.
she goes to the beach with her friends and marvels at the day, the beauty, the ocean reflecting back at her. the dolphins frolic, not believing their good luck. the children roll in the warm sand, not knowing any differently. she eats her sandwich and shares tortilla chips and strips down to her bathing suit; her white skin responding to the sun's rays as if drinking up nectar.
when she gets home she finds sand in her pockets. how she loves the ocean.
its hard to reconcile the emotions she has: wishing for cold, rain (dear god, rain, please), clouds--anything but the heat and the blast of the santa anas which whip her hair and her mood into churning snarls and tangles. variety is what she craves.
she knows that others bow down to it, to this Southern California life, but she can't seem to find the almightly attachment to the place she calls her home. after almost twenty years of living here (more than any other place she ever lived) she still fights the glorious weather and subtle seasons. she still can't help but wish that her soup season lasted longer, that the gray days that she grew up with were keeping her rooted in the rituals of the year. somehow, the sun going down when it's still almost 80 degrees outside but five o'clock at night feels wrong, all wrong.
sweet california, she thinks. you have taken such good care of me, and i am rotten to you. i can only offer you my sincerest apologies, she says. my promise to always try to do better. but just know, just know, dear so cal, that no matter how long i breathe your air it will always feel beautifully and inevitably wrong.
