There’s an interesting discussion about San Diego (and other places) in the comments section for this post this morning at Balloon Juice.
The author, John Cole (from West Virginia), is now visiting San Diego for the first time and wants to move there, heh. I decided to add my two cents worth in the comments but felt I should make it a blog post, so here you go (old stuff for anyone who knows me, but what the hell):
The “where to live” thing is always a wonderment. For most of my 63 years, it’s been a huge & constant preoccupation of mine. Having grown up as an Air Force brat and moving more than 40 times before I graduated from high school, I’ve seen a lot of territory.
There are so many excellent cities in this country. My preference, however, has always been for places closer to unspoiled Nature. For all the great things to do in Austin, for example (another of my old home towns), the empty spaces of West Texas and Big Bend always had more “pull.” I lived for 25 years on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is absolutely damn near perfect except for the Calcutta-like summers. In 1999 we moved to Taos, New Mexico and blew our lives up. (That’s what Taos does to you, takes all your money and turns you inside out.) Somehow we’re still here, living on the edge in a rented adobe hovel with a great view of 13,000 ft. mountains just a few miles away.
No malls, no Interstates. Everything is broken, nothing works. But in 10 minutes I can be walking along a trail I could follow for days and days and never see another soul. In this world, what can possibly be more rare? I came here because I wanted to live where Nature dominates man, and not the other way around. Well, I sure got that knocked. And Jesus, there are Indians!
After nearly 10 years in the West, I don’t think I could ever go back East. Besides the humidity, which I doubt I could tolerate now, there’s an expansiveness and tolerance in people’s outlook here that just doesn’t exist in the Mid-Atlantic states. More FREEDOM, especially in Taos. Hell, half the people here would be arrested on sight back in Chestertown. I like that. My wife still isn’t sure, but then she’s from Iowa, what can ya do. True, there are many times I miss the green deciduous jungle of the Eastern states. And frankly, it’s often too damn cold in the Terrible High Desert. But the danger and the vastness are such a thrill, and the air is utterly wonderful. Most of you probably have no idea what truly clean air tastes like. It would simply blow your mind.
If I could live on the water, however, I’d probably go anywhere. Aside from missing old friends, giving up boating was probably the biggest sacrifice I made in coming West. I expect we never would have left Maryland if we’d owned waterfront in a rural area, though even that was becoming sadly overcrowded and polluted. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Wherever we go, there we are, with everything that’s rattling around inside our heads. But on the other hand, why not move? Life is much too short!
Follow the excitement, I say. All other considerations are peripheral.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I adore San Diego, but it’s getting much too crowded. I’m ready for someplace less, well, occupied.
San Diego, eh? I wondered where you were writing from. Guess I could have traced your IP address, but I’ve never tried that.
If I had it to do over again, I don’t know that I would upend our lives the way we did in ’99 to come out here. On the other hand, I DON’T get a do-over, the past is gone, and I never could have done it any other way, being who I am. All of which is preface to saying, “Be careful! You might just get what you wish for!”
How does one leave a place one adores? I semi-adored Maryland and our house in the country. Definitely not too “occupied,” although all that was just across the Bay. But as I told a good friend before we left, “I love Maryland, but New Mexico makes me cry…” In a good way, of course. She knew what I meant.
So I think one has to be pulled by something. I sure was.