In Other News

J. actually made it to Virginia this time around (he asked not to be routed through Philly, as we're convinced that place is jinxed!). My intuition, which I trust very little anymore, is murmuring that they're going to offer him this job. Other, more concrete signs are pointing in that direction as well. These folks have been REALLY, REALLY complimentary and overwhelmingly enthusiastic (almost to what felt like the point of gushing at times) in all their dealings with him. The faculty member who was showing him around yesterday was obviously working hard to *sell* this place to J. and he kept saying things like, "If you decide to take this job..." J. is almost wondering if there are even any other candidates for this position at all, if this is just one of those formality interviews where they just want to make sure he doesn't have two heads or something. Or, if there was another candidate (who surely has interviewed by now), that candidate did have two heads.

As to the place itself. Well. Here's what J. told me his impressions were:

1) It looks exactly like western Pennsylvania. Trees. Lots of them. Small hills.
2) There's not much there besides the school(s).
3) Tt is very very very remote and isolated. VERY.
4) Every tenth descriptive word out of J.'s mouth was *hillbilly*

That sort of isolation scares me. a LOT. If I'm that alone and isolated here, I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a place where there literally were very few people. When I was younger in my college and post-college days (and yes, when I fancied myself a hippie - shut up! ;-)), I romanticized the notion of living the country life. In the middle of nowhere. In a pretty place. But as I've gotten older, I realize that that is definitely not something I'd much like the reality of. Sequoia, much as I loved it, taught me that it's not much fun being two hours from anything. Even when I lived in Brookdale, CA (population 1063), Santa Cruz wasn't very far away. And I know that I wasn't in love with the idea of everyone knowing everyone, as was the case there.

I don't mind living a bit out there, but I need to have *civilization* very nearby. That is NOT going to happen in VA. But, we aren't really going to have much of a choice, I think. Besides, this would be a good career move for J., a good stepping stone to something else. Better than a community college position would be.
Especially now that we talked to our friend B. the other day, whose thoughts about Lancaster, CA were: "It's pretty much Bakersfield. Only slightly less crappy." I've been to Bakersfield :-(

I am curious now to hear more about something L. said the other day: I've always had a very idyllic impression of Virginia.

Care to elaborate? See, me, I've always had a really, well, to use J.'s word, hillybilly impression of Virginia...

Thirst for Salt

Not even plenty of caffeine can make snow fun. Nope. Uh uh. My dream of an endless summer has become buried under a blanket of slush. Just a week ago I looked out the window at the grey, endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The lullaby of high tide reminds me of moments of utter bliss: swimming in the moonlit, wine-dark sea during summer solstice in Rethymnon, Crete, reading alone in Santa Cruz, snapping blurry photographs of my brother at Big Sur, the stinging wind and rain at Les Falaises d’Etretat and not even caring the boy I loved was about to leave me, dancing unabashedly on the cliffs above the Golden Gate Bridge, getting stoned (the last time) at Muir Woods on the way to Napa, falling asleep with C.S. and Delta the dog in Venice Beach…I only now remember drifting last night in a blueblack sea and overflowing calmness. Something spiritually healing about the sea. Something that resonates with Home. Something in the way the salt air murmurs and beckons me unknowingly its wholeness. It envelops, embraces me, and I cannot stop myself. I drink hungrily.