40 Days of Lent: Day Thirty One

California's been good to me/
I hope it don't fall into the sea
- Tom Petty

It's after 10:00 and I haven't finished packing yet. I'm heading to California tomorrow - San Francisco to be exact. I've been feeling nostalgic for it lately. Not the place as much as the place at the time that I lived there. Revisiting places is the closest that I can come to traveling back in time. I don't necessarily want to be there; there's nothing wrong with where I am right now. But I do want to remember and revisit. It's a vacation in the past more than it is on the west coast of the country.

It's not that I was happiest there, though I was happy. I think it's because I learned and grew so much out there. The atmosphere seemed full of ideas, the culture seemed so fertile. It was different from what I experienced going to college in PA with the occasional trip to NYC. It was the first time I lived in a city and discovered how much I loved being around cafes, bars, movie theaters, bookstores. I was also dirt poor despite working two jobs and while it's a stretch to say I didn't care, I don't recall that being a time of deprivation. I somehow found the wherewithal to do what I liked.

So it should be a trip of "remember when" or more likely "where was it that I...guess it's gone now." Hopefully not.