Golden State: Land of Dreams, Pt. 1
It is a place, a story, a stage, a state of mind, a myth, a dream. California. My home. My Native State. I have been riding and driving in cars on her highways, or walking, through her mountains and hills and plains and deserts and along her beaches since as long as I can remember. It has always felt vast and empty, and at the same time crowded with people and their spirits, so many stories on the wind, giving me a sense of being possessed by her, but not belonging to her... There is something aggressive in her grandeur; a certain violence in the beauty of uplifted and broken ranges that march jaggedly into the see, or the long limitless pine forests, or the over-grazed windswept barren hills that speak of Spanish conquests and missions. In the flux of the last year, making trips between Los Angeles for doctors appointments, Northern California to see people who mattered a great deal to me, and just running to-and-fro trying to keep myself afloat, I meditated deeply on the