For those of you who don’t know, I made a decision six years ago to get rid of everything I couldn’t fit in my car, and to move, sight unseen and knowing no one, from San Diego to Victoria. I didn’t know if it would work out, but I figured if it didn’t, I would try something else. Optimism and resilience seem to be hard-wired in my personality.
I imagine most of us had those times during Covid when we thought about what we wanted our lives to look like when we could live them more fully again. I had lived in San Diego almost my entire life, having moved there as a teenager in 1964, and except for time away at university, had never left. My entire career was there, I raised my family there, I had a deep base of friends, and I rarely needed GPS to hurtle down freeways headed anywhere in in town. I knew where to find the cheapest gas, the best tacos, the secret places to park.
The problem for me was that I couldn’t picture how I was going to continue to grow. I was retired by then, and though I knew I would get back to cruising eventually, every new activity I considered for the times I would be home bored me to think about. There wasn’t any book I wanted to write, no hobby or sport I wanted to take up, no organization I wanted to volunteer with. My post-Covid life was going to be the same old same old, and it was eating at me. I always need to be on the move. I need stimulation. I want to take my last breath thinking “wow, this is an interesting development!”
And so I decided to throw myself into my future and head north. I will always be grateful for the opportunity Covid gave me to be solitary, to explore the beauty of my new home on my own, but also for the way it kept me focused on the few friends in my bubble. Without Covid, I would probably have made more acquaintances, but the caring community I now enjoy has its roots in that time of interdependence.
Several times over the years, I pondered the question of what I would do if I became seriously ill or disabled. I have almost no family, so I can’t start there in my thinking. I had a deeply rooted community in San Diego I knew I could rely upon to help, and for a while I thought I would probably move back. Then, as more time passed and my friendships grew more solid in Victoria, I realized there’s a lot of love here, and I indeed do have a community I could count on. Now it is clear to me that I would stay right here.
That’s huge. Nearly sixty years in one place and six in another, and they are increasingly equally dear. But they will always be different. Earlier this month, when I was in San Diego to promote Aloha Wanderwell Takes the Wheel, it was so gratifying to see dozens of people I care about, many of whom I haven’t seen for years. I saw people I have known since high school, and others from my first job teaching at San Diego State. I saw people I have known since I was at UCSD in my thirties, and from San Diego City College, where I spend the majority of my career. There were writer friends, tennis friends, old neighbors, and so many others.
Here, I have only a fraction of that number, of course. But the truth is I don’t think most people can really pay adequate attention to more than a few friends anyway. I have a core of people who matter a lot to me, and I to them. When I had a private launch party for Aloha a few weeks back, almost everyone I invited—about 35—showed up. I have friends beating the bushes for me to get the word about my new book out in the community. When I am going or coming from a trip I always have more than one person volunteer to take me to or from the airport, and since it’s forty minutes away, that’s special!
For me, friends are family. I was reminded of that in San Diego, and I came home to Victoria to a welcome that said that I indeed have another family here. When it comes to what I value, I lost nothing by hopping in my car and coming north. I had no idea what abundance awaited me for taking that chance.
With Megan and Eva and Tom, who refuse to let me refer to them as landlords, so I now call them the people who live upstairs in MY house