Sir Francis Drake is closed due to fallen trees. This, the main road that goes to San Francisco. I learned this from the Indian man who lives in Berkley. He had to back track to Point Reyes Station and to Novato to get home. In doing so, he remembered he had left a pillow here so stopped by to pick it up.
It was a slow night, so I welcomed the idleness, his slow attempt at conversation. Looks like these storms are throwing everyone into a detour.
H called to tell us to prepare for power outages but so far only flickering lights have occurred. The guests have all been trapped inside and there have been a handful of them that have been on the road alone for sometime and have all talked my ear off. I don’t mind, we all share a common thread, we all can’t deny that the road is life.
This time I am on the flip side. I am the one not on the road but I am interacting constantly with the transient. I see myself in them, I see the girl who was on the road for nine years, I identify with their passion yet I can see how they are searching for something, or better yet, someone to ground them. It was something I did myself, travel with the hope that I would fall hopelessly in love and would stop.
I moved to California for myself, not for love. Perhaps a bit resigned to it, I spent way too many years foolishly following love. Like that one year when I went to Norway for a boy and then to China to study acupuncture and then left early to go back to Sweden for said boy in which I quickly found out, it was not going to be. Or going to France to be with a man I have loved for a long time, bailing on my trip to India with Kiara and Achim. But, he never asked me to stay and be his and we quickly fell out of touch the way we always do. No, this time, I moved for me. And I am watching all these travelers pick any connection as an omen, a reason to love and a reason to retire the backpack. All too eager. I so get it now. Because being on the other side, I see them as awesome but a little lost and when you are looking for a long lasting love, you don’t want someone who is going to fly off at the next whim, you want someone solid.
I remember Norma and Rini (my family/bffs in France) telling me, I needed to do this very same thing. Stop traveling, do what I want to do. It took me a while to get there but I am here, in California, doing exactly what I want to do and am so happy with or without love, totally blissed out, happy. I love my job. It is what I have always wanted to do, be refuge for travelers, be that temporary anchor, share dreams and stories, love of the outdoors and local foods.
The guests are so interesting too. There was the fisherman who I got to talk fishing and hunting with and his travel nurse wife who came for Thanksgiving, there was a boy who sails boats, traveled the world and is a writer, the ex-lawyer writing a cocktail book, the Frenchman who decided to follow his life long dream of coming to San Francisco, the young French boys who were from the suburbs of Paris who dreamed of hanging out with a real life cowboy on their trip to the US, the woman who makes jewelry out of abalone, the woodsy/birding couple from Mendocino, the man who went clamming for geoduck and shared it with us, and the list of wonderful people goes on and on.
With the rains, there are mushrooms. I hadn’t been out in days as I have been husky sitting. But, yesterday, the rain stopped for a small window of time and I booked it to the forest after work. It was like a magical, fantastical little world out there with newly fruited mushrooms of all colors everywhere. I felt like a hobbit, Joanna Newsom in my ear buds, wandering around under coniferous trees. Yes, I did find some porcini.
I came home in the rain. Wet and cold. I filled up the outdoor bath tub and soaked as the rain poured down, in the dark, dark night. I let the huskies stay on the deck. They came up and plopped their heads on the side on the tub, begging for love on this cold, rainy night. I sat up in the tub and rubbed their heads, burying my face into theirs. Such sweetness, I love my new friends. What a scene, I thought– in a national park, outside in a hot tub, rain pouring down and two beautiful huskies at my side giving love. And this love, the companionship of a dog, you can’t have without having some roots and I suppose this goes for romantic love as well. When you are grounded, it comes to you.