MWD: Hope

My Month of Written Devotion is for the Spirit of the Santa Clara Valley

Hope

I hope I never have to leave Her.

I mean, She’s fine with me being elsewhere in the SF or Monterey Bay Areas, and I travel  from time to time. That’s gotten harder to handle the closer to my Lady I have gotten over the years, actually. Being gone for more than two weeks is really not an option, and transport methods that pull me up away from the land when I go are much harder to acclimate to than land-based travel, so far. Homecoming is always pretty intense.

But actually moving away, living somewhere else, for months on end, or even years? Eeeeeeeeeeep! Forever?!?! Unimaginable!

Except it’s not literally unimaginable. All my life I’ve been hearing about how this place won’t be a place we can stay forever.  Earthquakes may make this area fall into the ocean (unlikely – that’s not how the San Andreas fault actually works. Making parts of the coast into islands, maybe, but sink them? Nope.) The US government may become horrible enough that we should all move to some part of the Commonwealth to get away. There may be plague or too much climate change, or a financial disaster that makes it impossible to stay. Or it will just steadily get too damned expensive – as if it isn’t already!

I listen to friends and extended family alike contemplate greener pastures. “Technically, I’m also a citizen of the UK…” “Seattle is the new Bay Area!” “I could have a huge ranch for this price if I lived in the Midwest.” “New York has way more culture than San Jose.” “I wonder if Sweden would take me in?”

All I can think is Leave here? Leave the redwoods?? Live away from the Pacific Ocean? (I’ve visited other oceans. They’re not the same.) LEAVE MY VALLEY?! If that’s what we have to do, then just kill me, please? I just… I can’t.

Will that ever happen? Will I actually want to die rather than leave? Will I waste away pining for my Heart’s Delight if I do? Who knows. I really hope I never have to find out.

–Ember–

P.S. Read Lon’s “Hope”! 😀