Farewell is mostly a sad song.

Tonight is my last night to call California home. Tonight is also the first time that the realization has made me feel like crying. I’m not ready for the snow yet, not quite. I like feeling the hot sun of the past two days weave in with the fibers of my muscles, making me stronger – I cannot even tell you how much I love the feeling of the deep icy Pacific crash against my body when I get in its way, I love the goosebumps that prick up on my skin while it goes numb, purple and white at once. I love the knots that the salt and sand and wind tie into my hair and I love to lay on my back and really see with my eyes how huge and great the sky is. I love to watch the moon rise in bright white even with the sun still in the sky. I love to track the birds and think about why they fly. I like to dig holes into the cold, damp sand with Amanda and then carve out a tunnel under the surface until we can feel each other’s fingers meet in the middle, with Alli digging her own little hole to the side of us. Pushing sand, hunting for sticks of bleached wood, stones and rocks, finding a bone and a seed pod.
I love how the sunlight looks on all the grey and charcoal and dirty white asphalt, sidewalks, industrial buildings, warehouses. I love how it dries everything to a hot, simmering surface. This place has rugged bones that are softened by a covering of green and dry, sandy-orange umber. Looking at the mountains from above, their ridges and peaks are worn, smoothened, and their sides fall away, trenches just like the ones that appear in a mound of beach sand that sea water has been poured over. The land always looks so alive to me, almost saying, ‘come settle into me, I am rich and there is much to give.’