California Girl
My recent trip back to Minnesota gave me a chance to reflect on life in my new home. Here is what I wrote as I sat in a cabin at the shore of a little lake in central Minnesota with my best old buddy, Jane, and her family:
I’m back home for a visit, two months after moving to California from my native Minnesota. As my plane approaches the airport at dawn, I look down on the familiar green landscape. It’s unassuming, low and flat, but festooned with silver paillettes: lakes ringed with the pompom crowns of elms and cottonwoods. Away from the water, county roads form a grid around furrowed fields. Like morning stars, occasional yard lights still twinkle on remote farmsteads.
It’s bizarre to be coming here as a visitor, to this place that has been home for half a century. Walking into the concourse, I hear the Minnesota accent with its singsong-y cadence and its nasal, flattened “a”s and protracted “o”s. I had strained to understand the Hispanic gate attendant as we left San Francisco, but the speech here hits me full in the face. I don’t miss a word.
I wait at the curb for my son to pick me up, get into the car I used to own, and ride to a friend’s house where I will be a guest for the next several days. My hometown is familiar, and yet it’s no longer my home. It’s hard to wrap my brain around this idea, but I repeat it and repeat it, as if to convince myself of its truth.
It’s weird to be carrying a California driver’s license, to answer “Menlo Park” when someone asks where I live, and, when I see Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Governator, on TV, to know that he is MY Governator.
These days, I haven’t been feeling the pain of leaving Minnesota. Is the hurt really gone, or just lying beneath surface, hidden by the new experiences constantly washing over me? I live a bit tentatively, wondering if it will creep back when the novelty wears off.
I try to write my feelings, but it comes out sounding like a travelogue. Am I retreating to the comfort of restaurant reviews and shopping tips in order to escape the truth of my situation? Or did I actually land on my feet, ready for the next adventure?
In California, my husband and I are renting a cottage along a narrow, winding street in a little enclave called Menlo Oaks. The huge live oaks that give the area its name are protected by law, and those that impinge on city streets are left there, their trunks painted white for visibility. It is up to vehicles to slow down and drive around them. The cottage, rented from a friend of mine, sits at the back of a large lot, part of a compound that has been in her family for generations. She would not be able to buy her own house if it went on the market today. Houses down the street have sold for 4 million dollars.
I’ve lived abroad, and have learned a few tricks about adapting to new places. Hang back, observe, imitate—although this approach will have its limits. I’ve landed in a very wealthy place. There is no way I will be able to keep up with my neighbors. It will take some creativity to fit in when I simply cannot afford to. I will need humor and a healthy dose of self-esteem to avoid getting sucked into the vortex of conspicuous consumption that is a way of life for many of my neighbors.
We live adjacent to the community of Atherton, one of the area’s wealthiest suburbs. Many of Atherton’s homes sit on large lots behind walls with wrought-iron gates that swing open by remote control. Legend has it that the town is so wealthy, its citizens wanted the salaries of groundskeepers and nannies figured into the municipal average so it would qualify for state road money.
Tooling down El Camino Real—one of a handful of roads that actually cross Atherton—in my aging Mercury Villager, I glance at the traffic around me. I see three BMWs, all late-models, top of the line; a couple of Lexuses; a couple of Mercedes. None are more than two or three years old, all are sparkling clean, and the drivers that I can see are tan and well-dressed. My minivan has 180,000 miles on it, a dent in the door, and is missing a hubcap. Atherton’s “poor” drive Acuras. The immigrants who clean houses and manicure the lawns here drive better cars than mine.
Most roads into Atherton bear signs stating “No Through Traffic,” not because you can’t get through, but because they’d rather you didn’t drive through. For spite, I’ve taken to driving my shabby van through the community at every available opportunity. If I have a passenger, I joke that I am classing up the neighborhood.
To my delight, Atherton’s oinky smugness ends in a barrio exactly at the Redwood City line. The locked gates give way to fruit markets and carnicerias, beauty salons and body shops, their façades painted bright blue, orange, pink, or yellow. Store windows display chicharrones, cell phones, rhinestone jewelry, tuxedos and frilly dresses for quinceañeras, girls’ 15th birthday celebrations. Mexican music and heavenly aromas from scores of taquerias waft by as you make your way through the neighborhood.
There are things I love about my new life in California. Menlo Park has clean, spacious municipal pool about a mile and a half from my house. I bike there three or four times a week. Major roads are striped with bicycle lanes, and motorists stay off them. When I’m done with my swim, I stop by the grocery store or the bank. Gauss bikes to the commuter train, and if he catches the right one, it takes him only half an hour to get to work. We sometimes go weeks without having to gas up the car.
And fruit! My God! Gauss and I call summertime in California The Fruit Orgy. We are certain that they sell different types of produce here than they do in Minnesota, varieties that aren’t sturdy enough to survive a five-day journey across the country in a boxcar: Strawberries that do not taste like straw. Nectarines that go juicy before going mealy.
We love the cosmopolitan character of the Bay Area. My ears feast on the mélange of languages as I walk down a street or through a store, and we are delighted with the endless array of dining options. Even in little Menlo Park, we can choose from authentic French, Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and Thai cuisines.
My part of the Bay Area, at least, feels like a colony, where the Big Pink People hold most of the power and money, and do not perform manual labor. Virtually all the service jobs are held by the Little Brown People—immigrants. These are jobs that, in Minnesota, are held by teenagers and housewives.
The fallout from this came into sharp focus one day when Gauss and I went to the Home Depot to pick up some paintbrushes and shelf brackets. As the unflappable disembodied voice prompted us through the self-checkout, I eavesdropped on the activities at the Service Counter. The clerk, a Hispanic woman, was trying to sort out a return issue with two Indian men. Unable to handle the problem on her own, she called for assistance from the sales floor, and was joined by a Chinese guy with a thick accent. Listening to the four of them struggling to understand and be understood, it occurred to me what a challenge it is to problem-solve when all the parties involved are using a language they had learned only recently.
~~~
The trapeze has swung me back. I’m in Minnesota for a visit, enjoying a weekend at a cabin in Brainerd with my best old friend Jane, who pronounces milk “melk,” and says, “We’re taking a walk, wanna come with?” Her entire extended family is here, and we eat spaghetti dinner together, play cribbage, and drink Grain Belt Beer. I have known Jane since grade school, and we still insult her little sister Betsy by calling her “Buttsy.”
If I think about it too much, it will break my heart when I leave again in a week. But there’s a little corner of me that is looking forward to the foggy morning, the festival of nations, the sunlit swim.
I’m back home for a visit, two months after moving to California from my native Minnesota. As my plane approaches the airport at dawn, I look down on the familiar green landscape. It’s unassuming, low and flat, but festooned with silver paillettes: lakes ringed with the pompom crowns of elms and cottonwoods. Away from the water, county roads form a grid around furrowed fields. Like morning stars, occasional yard lights still twinkle on remote farmsteads.
It’s bizarre to be coming here as a visitor, to this place that has been home for half a century. Walking into the concourse, I hear the Minnesota accent with its singsong-y cadence and its nasal, flattened “a”s and protracted “o”s. I had strained to understand the Hispanic gate attendant as we left San Francisco, but the speech here hits me full in the face. I don’t miss a word.
I wait at the curb for my son to pick me up, get into the car I used to own, and ride to a friend’s house where I will be a guest for the next several days. My hometown is familiar, and yet it’s no longer my home. It’s hard to wrap my brain around this idea, but I repeat it and repeat it, as if to convince myself of its truth.
It’s weird to be carrying a California driver’s license, to answer “Menlo Park” when someone asks where I live, and, when I see Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Governator, on TV, to know that he is MY Governator.
These days, I haven’t been feeling the pain of leaving Minnesota. Is the hurt really gone, or just lying beneath surface, hidden by the new experiences constantly washing over me? I live a bit tentatively, wondering if it will creep back when the novelty wears off.
I try to write my feelings, but it comes out sounding like a travelogue. Am I retreating to the comfort of restaurant reviews and shopping tips in order to escape the truth of my situation? Or did I actually land on my feet, ready for the next adventure?
In California, my husband and I are renting a cottage along a narrow, winding street in a little enclave called Menlo Oaks. The huge live oaks that give the area its name are protected by law, and those that impinge on city streets are left there, their trunks painted white for visibility. It is up to vehicles to slow down and drive around them. The cottage, rented from a friend of mine, sits at the back of a large lot, part of a compound that has been in her family for generations. She would not be able to buy her own house if it went on the market today. Houses down the street have sold for 4 million dollars.
I’ve lived abroad, and have learned a few tricks about adapting to new places. Hang back, observe, imitate—although this approach will have its limits. I’ve landed in a very wealthy place. There is no way I will be able to keep up with my neighbors. It will take some creativity to fit in when I simply cannot afford to. I will need humor and a healthy dose of self-esteem to avoid getting sucked into the vortex of conspicuous consumption that is a way of life for many of my neighbors.
We live adjacent to the community of Atherton, one of the area’s wealthiest suburbs. Many of Atherton’s homes sit on large lots behind walls with wrought-iron gates that swing open by remote control. Legend has it that the town is so wealthy, its citizens wanted the salaries of groundskeepers and nannies figured into the municipal average so it would qualify for state road money.
Tooling down El Camino Real—one of a handful of roads that actually cross Atherton—in my aging Mercury Villager, I glance at the traffic around me. I see three BMWs, all late-models, top of the line; a couple of Lexuses; a couple of Mercedes. None are more than two or three years old, all are sparkling clean, and the drivers that I can see are tan and well-dressed. My minivan has 180,000 miles on it, a dent in the door, and is missing a hubcap. Atherton’s “poor” drive Acuras. The immigrants who clean houses and manicure the lawns here drive better cars than mine.
Most roads into Atherton bear signs stating “No Through Traffic,” not because you can’t get through, but because they’d rather you didn’t drive through. For spite, I’ve taken to driving my shabby van through the community at every available opportunity. If I have a passenger, I joke that I am classing up the neighborhood.
To my delight, Atherton’s oinky smugness ends in a barrio exactly at the Redwood City line. The locked gates give way to fruit markets and carnicerias, beauty salons and body shops, their façades painted bright blue, orange, pink, or yellow. Store windows display chicharrones, cell phones, rhinestone jewelry, tuxedos and frilly dresses for quinceañeras, girls’ 15th birthday celebrations. Mexican music and heavenly aromas from scores of taquerias waft by as you make your way through the neighborhood.
There are things I love about my new life in California. Menlo Park has clean, spacious municipal pool about a mile and a half from my house. I bike there three or four times a week. Major roads are striped with bicycle lanes, and motorists stay off them. When I’m done with my swim, I stop by the grocery store or the bank. Gauss bikes to the commuter train, and if he catches the right one, it takes him only half an hour to get to work. We sometimes go weeks without having to gas up the car.
And fruit! My God! Gauss and I call summertime in California The Fruit Orgy. We are certain that they sell different types of produce here than they do in Minnesota, varieties that aren’t sturdy enough to survive a five-day journey across the country in a boxcar: Strawberries that do not taste like straw. Nectarines that go juicy before going mealy.
We love the cosmopolitan character of the Bay Area. My ears feast on the mélange of languages as I walk down a street or through a store, and we are delighted with the endless array of dining options. Even in little Menlo Park, we can choose from authentic French, Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, and Thai cuisines.
My part of the Bay Area, at least, feels like a colony, where the Big Pink People hold most of the power and money, and do not perform manual labor. Virtually all the service jobs are held by the Little Brown People—immigrants. These are jobs that, in Minnesota, are held by teenagers and housewives.
The fallout from this came into sharp focus one day when Gauss and I went to the Home Depot to pick up some paintbrushes and shelf brackets. As the unflappable disembodied voice prompted us through the self-checkout, I eavesdropped on the activities at the Service Counter. The clerk, a Hispanic woman, was trying to sort out a return issue with two Indian men. Unable to handle the problem on her own, she called for assistance from the sales floor, and was joined by a Chinese guy with a thick accent. Listening to the four of them struggling to understand and be understood, it occurred to me what a challenge it is to problem-solve when all the parties involved are using a language they had learned only recently.
~~~
The trapeze has swung me back. I’m in Minnesota for a visit, enjoying a weekend at a cabin in Brainerd with my best old friend Jane, who pronounces milk “melk,” and says, “We’re taking a walk, wanna come with?” Her entire extended family is here, and we eat spaghetti dinner together, play cribbage, and drink Grain Belt Beer. I have known Jane since grade school, and we still insult her little sister Betsy by calling her “Buttsy.”
If I think about it too much, it will break my heart when I leave again in a week. But there’s a little corner of me that is looking forward to the foggy morning, the festival of nations, the sunlit swim.
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