Locationaphilia

As I flew into SFO yesterday, I looked out the windows and saw the hills of the Bay Area and had a wave of love pass over me. I love this place, and I felt it in a way I rarely do while returning to this soil. I read a lot about people's connection to their land, and I've never really experienced that. I've often said in the past that I could live anywhere. I don't believe that anymore.

I still think I could do well in New York, and I have great affection for Chicago. London, Dublin, Bologna... most of the European cities I've been in, I could live in happily. But Los Angeles and Miami... I just couldn't do it. Things got better in Florida, and I saw some parts of it that I quite liked. But I couldn't live there. I would be insanely unhappy, even in the parts that I found beautiful. I would be like an organ that the body rejects.

As I flew in, however, and saw the hills... I knew I was home in a way that was almost religious. This is my place, and it goes beyond mere community, beyond the people I know here. These hills, these valleys, these beaches (despite my so not being a beach person), woods and bays... they have become part of my connection to the earth.

Of course, awareness that at any point the "big one" could happen and turn the whole area to rubble makes me think that I've fallen in love with a violent abuser, but she hasn't hit me yet.