San Diego is beautiful and hot. Suddenly my Port Townsend August (mostly 60 desgrees and rainy) has disappeared from memory – my head is swimming with blooming jasmine and curious trumpet vines along the road, the orange blooms of a pomegranate tree and the continuous trill of hummingbirds. We didn’t make it to the zoo or many of the tourist things since we were mostly checking out neighborhoods and rental places but we did go to the Quail Botanical Garden and the beaches at Torrey Pines State Park and La Jolla’s “Children’s Pool,” a quiet cove amid large waves and rocks where the seals line up with their babies and loll in the sun. I ate duck tacos (yes, they’re good!) for the first time and had a lot of California salads piled with things like nectarines and local goat cheeses and lettuces. Also, here the Mexican food has mahi mahi in it, right alongside the carnitas on the menus. Plus, everything has avocados.
I am scared of moving to California. It is expensive. They have high taxes. (Seattle’s income tax = 0% versus California’s = 9%) But moving here seems right, solid in my head as a new home-place. (As a kind of sign, my tonsillitis seemed to magically get better once I got here. Plus, I’m pretty sure the baby seals were waving to me with their flippers and smiling!) Holding my breath and taking the southward plunge next month. We look tomorrow on an apartment (right around the corner from 1. a huge library and 2. a huge post office) and I’ll try to sign up for a PO Box before we fly out tomorrow. Having an address makes it possible for me to start submitting poetry again!
Ready for the Fall?