“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”   ― Edward Abbey

“It’s a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.”
― Truman Capote

He he…not sure what provoked Capote to say that. I just hope he’s not right.

As I write this, I am on my way back East from a short sojourn in sunny San Diego. It was a business trip that was extended, covering the preceding weekend with fun, family and pleasure.

Traveling in the winter, going from a damp, cold and dreary East Coast to sunny California is a dramatic and radiant shock to the system – in the nicest possible way. It doesn’t hurt either that we have close family on the West Coast. In this particular case, the family in question has a gorgeous home and a deliciously well-stocked wine cellar – likely the best any one of my family members have. So. What’s not to like?

I’ve often wondered whether I will be able to leave my homes in the East to head West eventually. This trip I decided that it’s not really a matter of IF but WHEN. I’m in no hurry and I still have much to do where I am. But from where I sit now, it appears inevitable that I will take this momentous (for me!) step someday in the future. Honestly, the draw keeps getting stronger. And every time I visit for business or pleasure, it seems like the incentives grow rather than shrink.

These, btw, have nothing to do with beautiful weather (although the United States Weather Bureau describes San Diego’s weather as the closest thing to perfect in America) or fabulous cities (we have those in the East too!).

The attraction is actually much simpler than all of that. It boils down to one thing. Family.

And that’s the first time I’ve admitted the serious thought of a future move. Even to myself.

“California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky,is where we run out of continent.”   ― Joan Didion

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Photo credit:

“Sandiego 1 bg 071302”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandiego_1_bg_071302.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Sandiego_1_bg_071302.jpg

By Bovlb (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons