"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." ~Kahlil Gibran
This stupid quote really set me off today. I mean, it's a beautiful quote... obviously... but it just got me to thinking about what "nature" means here in California- and what it means back home. It's like two separate worlds, and two separate definitions. Sometimes I feel like I don't even know what "nature" means anymore.
My nature is wet with warm water, constantly growing, and in ten thousand shades of green.
Here it's cold rain, parks, oak trees, apples and oranges, poppies and lavender, snakes, acorns, deer, mountain lions, dry, brittle hills in varying shades of brown- or struggling to turn green just briefly a few times of year. Seagulls, hard grey sand, cold dark water, sea lions, and kelp...
These things still feel so foreign and alien to me. I can never quite get used to the dryness of California soil, and the weird smell of California beaches. And I often feel guilty for raising my children here and for these things being what they're now used to. I just really miss my island. I'm sad that my children aren't running barefoot through soft, muddy, jungly trails like I did- never ever thinking about snakes, or mountain lions, or poison oak, because they don't exist there. I miss the big, soft, warm sand that you can push your feet way down deep in, and floating in clear, clean salty water before rinsing off in cold fresh water ponds. I miss jumping on my horses in the back yard and seeing the faces I've known my whole life all over town. I want to scream at myself, ACCLIMATE ALREADY, this is home now!!! But when will it really feel like that?
2 comments:
I don't know what it is about Kauai....but it seems to have this effect on people. I miss it there all the time!
it's funny what you miss until you don't have it any more! when I lived in Vegas I missed and CRAVED anything and everything California all the time. A lot of my dreams still occur in my childhood home that I lived in from birth to age 15 in socal. Living in San Francisco is definitely different (and colder all the time, that's def. taking some time to get used to). But I'm slowly enjoying it more and more in comparison the the LA area. It's much calmer here. I've actually had many childhood conversations with my mom recently. We had a very very big back yard in the house we rented and since my parents are both gardeners, we had gardens and so much grass to be free and children. We'd play every day instead of just watching tv. In Vegas there was no such thing. People had no backyards, and if they did, usually they were just dirt. When I taught at the school there, I was saddened to learn recess was only 10 minutes long!!!!! What a sad world it is to be a child now in some places. I can see how you long for you children to live like you did...
Post a Comment