Moving on

I returned today to Carpinteria. God how I loved living there: a beautiful, small, simple town with all of three traffic lights. I loved the long sandy crescent beach where we'd search for heart-shaped rocks, and ladybugs that had lost their way ... the bleachers where we'd wriggle uncomfortably watching never-ending softball and basketball games ... lively hours spent at the farm with the goats, sheep, chickens and steers ... the green foothills fuzzy with mustard flowers and footed with lupine ... pelicans, seals, dolphins and whales splashing in the channel ... the flowers ... the dive-bombing hummingbirds ... mobs of kids skateboarding and riding bikes to the beach, with a surfboard tucked under one arm ...


It was past noon by the time I got in the pool, where Tamara and her three other water aerobic students were already jouncing around, and eager to hear about my journeys. I've experienced so much, it's hard to digest and summarize (in a time frame palatable to most modern day humanoids). "The world is beautiful. People are nice," I told them, in a nutshell.

Then I walked to the grocery store, joked with the produce guy about football teams (he is a big Raiders fan), got a salad, and stood in the longer of the two checkout lines to say hey to Lupe. I took my lunch and headed to the beach - my beach, at the end of Holly Ave (passing our old home - the sidewalks thickly lined with blooming jasmine) and thought hard.

'This is a healing place.' I remembered Lyndi telling me how the native people considered this little patch of shore and salt marsh cradled at the foot of an amphitheater of mountains, a place of restoration. And I had come here to heal. When I first arrived my goal was to be able to walk to Jelly Bowl (a rocky area at the far end of the beach, about a mile away). Then, with that mastered, it was my goal to walk to Jelly Bowl in an hour.

And now ... now I've sailed tens of thousands of miles (some in mind-blowing conditions); I've trekked for miles (lugging weighty groceries or other 'stuff' at times); I've scaled ladders made of saplings, ropes or tires; plunged off rocks and boats into rivers and seas and hauled myself back up a line off the back of a boat; climbed, crawled, zip-lined; rappelled, shimmied, slid, leaped, hiked, been vomited out of an alligator water slide; been shot out of a natural waterfall slide; endured a 100F-degree variation in temps, blasting heat, sapping humidity, frigid cold, rain, snow, hail and wind-wind-wind ... I would say it has healed me well.

As I sat on the end-of-season remains of the sand berm, thinking, staring out at the ocean and islands, I felt a tug.

'I think it's time to move on.' I've left and come back before, but this time I didn't feel the stickiness. Carpinteria has provided a wonderful home for the girls (Coco, Lani, and all sorts of other kids. I collect children like other people collect Hummels) and fabulous childhood memories. It was conducive to mending my broken body. It opened us to learning and exploring things we would otherwise have not. I love this place, I appreciate our time here ... but now it's time to move on.

I went to the softball game for about a half hour, saw more friends, watched Coco coach, then drove to Santa Barbara for beercan races with Helene. It was a cool misty night on the channel and the breeze that was gusting at pre-start died down to a whisper by the finish. It was a lovely, fun, only-in-Santa Barbara kind of evening and we deliberated my decision to move south. Helene tempted me to stay, with the potential to 'boat sit' on an awesome yacht.

I'm not sure if the pull of wanderlust will win out over the comfort and security of roots. We'll have to see.