My New Yorker in California, pt. 1

We arrived at the end of last week, our first travel-by-plane together. I wanted everything to look right, seeing the city again with new eyes and imagining what he saw. We crossed the bridge and entered into Marin. They re-named the rainbow tunnel after Robin Williams. He liked that. 

When we got to the canyon I pointed out the redwoods coming out of the middle of the pavement and the homes that built around their wide trunks, accommodating their width. 

These are from fall, when four of us went apple picking in upstate new york. We ended up at Mr. Apples - a sparsely populated orchard, deceptively unabandoned, and not unlike Carcosa in True Detective (season 1). There were handwritten and cryptic notes, from the 60s and before, written on paper wrapped in plastic and hung on the inner walls of a poorly lit shack. Mr. Apples historical documentation of his life and that of the orchard was both alarming and delightful. 

I’m heading back to California in a week for father’s day. I can’t wait to drive again. Meanwhile, i’ve been writing a trashy sci-fi story about a robot named Salome and a genderless character called Tso who travel through a black hole and end up in our universe. It’s really bad, and I really love writing it.

I’ve also been experiencing moments of Schadenfreude but more on the level of recognizing that a certain past failure is not mine to own. And that is freeing. 

Missing Alaska. Missing no one for miles and minutes, for wooden shacks unassuming and freezing limbs. Waiting for the green glow each night in a rental car with no new-car smell and covered in scratches. Eating wild berries with wild valleys stretching and rolling and arched with green and brown. Everything was dying with the cold and it seemed like it should never look any other way. It was open, it was quiet.