California!

Often, as we stand in our front yard here, passers-by will say hello and engage us in conversation over our California license plates. Here in Carrboro, it'll be accompanied by "I used to live in Santa Cruz" or "I was in Berkeley for a number of years", today it was "my husband lived in San Francisco." Lots of folks even know where Davis is, the way I once knew Davis, which was as a wide spot on the freeway on the way to Tahoe, where a water tower stood. I update folks here that Davis is now 60,000 people strong and that the freeway view is over a huge performing arts center, and their jaws drop.

Yesterday, in conversation with a massage therapist who had lived in LA and Santa Cruz, she mentioned that the only thing she missed about California was the amazing coastline around Big Sur, and I concur. We spoke about the unspoiled beauty of it, the colors of the ocean and the rugged crags of the cliffs. She had returned often, still has siblings in San Jose and Alameda. But overall, she felt better living here, and she used the expression "everything here is to scale."

Sometimes, it's finding the "mot juste", just the right word, that finally settles in your mind an idea of what you were trying to describe. Vocabulary has just that power. One time in secondary school, a teacher had asked a fellow classmate a question and she had replied "it's on the tip of my tongue" and he had retorted quite ascerbically (as French secondary teachers often are) "there's no such thing, ideas are words, if you don't have the word you don't have the idea." I've kicked that issue around in my head for years now, not sure if I agree or disagree. Well, here, finding expression to the vague notion in my head was a powerful experience.