Ok, more like two.
In the way of travel fast and slow, I’m seeing what it looks like when spring awakens in this new place in which I find myself. We have blossoming trees here too, though they’ve been de-petaled somewhat with the buffeting rain of early and mid-March. I’m watching spring, and I can’t help but think of Seattle, where I spent my last eleven springs.
I was relieved when I realized I was falling in love with something about the Bay Area – anything about the Bay Area. We never do think we can love again, do we? Not until we do. How many loves do I get? I feel myself unfolding in Oakland and think enough. We get enough, if we’re lucky, and I seem to be.
These pictures are from my final quarter at UW, as I wrapped up my UCD certificate, counting down my last few weeks on campus. I knew I was coming to the edge of something, but I didn’t know what. I wouldn’t for another year.
I’m glad to be where I am. Seattle and I didn’t have an acrimonious end; instead, it was the boredom of one person overstaying. But I see people’s pictures of the UW quad on Facebook, the trees exploding in pink flowers once again, right on schedule, and I see my old world moving forward without me. And I move forward here.
I finally got my California driver’s license. My old Washington license has a picture of me at 21. As I sat at the DMV and waited to prove myself, I looked at the old picture and found that I don’t look remarkably different – more round-faced then, I suppose. I was wearing my magic green shirt, the uber-flattering v-neck that featured in some of my senior pictures. A beaded necklace I made myself. My hair at some in-betweeny length. (It’s usually at some in-betweeny length; that hasn’t changed.) I tried to see myself in me, and I asked myself what my 32-year-old self would say to 21-year-old me given the chance. Would I avoid this guy or go to Paris sooner or adjust certain expectations? Would I have pursued programming sooner? What would be useful advice that I could have acted on then?
In the end, I decided that I’d tell young me two things.
- There’s a really great therapist downtown, and it might be good to get started sooner than later.
- Do not trust your dad. Even if everyone else does.
The rest? It all happened more or less as it needed to.
Eleven springs, a million blossoms, a fresh start, and nearly no regrets. Not bad.
I took this picture a couple weekends ago; some things don’t change. I probably have a hundred-plus pictures of blossoming trees on my computer at this point. You might see five percent of those, if I catch up with my travel writing backlog.
In the meantime, I keep on as I have been. Even on a ranch filled with antelope and goats and zee-donkeys, there I am, camera in hand, looking for the right way to show you a flowering tree.
Wherever I go, there I am.
