I turned my back on this blog many months ago. I didn’t feel like spilling my guts on to the proverbial page and leaving an indelible digital footprint, only to be discovered or stumbled upon by some poor schlub at some later date. Life was is in flux. My thoughts were are driven by emotion. I needed to give my head a break. And yet here I am, typing out my thoughts. Why, you ask? No good reason, really. It’s just time to start writing again.
Maybe I’m doing it to flex the writing muscles that have atrophied over the last several months; to remind myself that I am still capable of stringing together coherent sentences. Maybe it’s simply an outlet for my personal thoughts and ideas, and as I’ve been known to say (especially to my children), “better out than in!”
The truth is I was having a rough day the other day. It happened to be Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The holiest of holy days in the Jewish year, occurring ten days after the New Year. I have a rather superficial relationship with my deity. It’s more of a means to an end, the end being Shabbat dinners on Friday nights, family gatherings at certain holidays. Food, food and more food. You get the picture. But this year things are different. We are in California without the extended family to have a meal with or sit with in synagogue and count the number of pages left in the prayer book before the service is over. I’ve struggled a lot with our move to the west coast, primarily because I miss our family and friends. When the holidays roll around those feelings are exacerbated.
People think, “California! That’s amazing! Great weather, mountains, ocean and Silicon Valley!” Those things are all true, and I have enjoyed those things. However, moving away from home is hard, regardless of the location you are moving to.
Writing about my experiences was my husband’s idea. While not in synagogue, we had a heavy conversation reflecting on the move, what it’s meant for our relationship and our family. What it’s meant for both of our careers–his moving forward, mine on hold. We also talked about our fears, which are very real. We don’t agree on everything, and in the past that has really shaken my confidence in our relationship. But during that heavy conversation we agreed that we were in this together. All for one and one for all. And that has bolstered my confidence.
I also think my identity is bound up in my country and my career. Absent those two things I am struggling to discover who I am and what I enjoy doing. So this hasn’t only been a literal journey, but a figurative one too.
I’ve decided to write down some early observations about our home away from home that have made me feel homesick. I now realize how much I romanticize the home I have left behind, and as a good friend said, I haven’t been able to “commit” to making a home here. I’m sure there was plenty to complain about back home, but I have a selective memory and have consciously and subconsciously chosen to only remember the good stuff. So I’m going to try hard to remember the good and the bad:
1. I am a slave to my car
Other than the pathetic little plaza out by the main street in my neighbourhood with a pharmacy, a mediocre pizza joint, a dentist, a suspicious looking gym, and an overpriced market, I have a 10-minute 8-kilometre drive up the expressway to the nearest collection of big box stores and decent shops a la Trader Joe’s. I wish my neighbourhood was more walkable from a retail shopping and public gathering place perspective. The upshot is we live close to many trails in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, which means I can easily go for nature hikes without much effort. So there’s definitely lots of SPACE in the area.
The hockey rink where my kids practice and play is a 20-minute 16-kilometre drive from home. The drive is mind-numbing, but it could be worse. There are people who drive upwards of 50 kilometres in EACH DIRECTION to get their kids to practice three times a week! I also remember those drives to north Etobicoke and down to the bottom of the lakeshore to get the kids to games on weekends, or practices downtown at 5 in the afternoon on a weekday. That was no picnic. So any way you slice it, driving kids to hockey sucks. I am a glorified Uber driver, except I don’t get paid one red cent.
Some advice for the City of Sprawl San Jose and its planning department: it’s time to invest in mass rapid transit. The suburbs need trains. Big time. HOV lanes for Uber and Lyft drivers, electric vehicles and carpools during rush hour don’t cut it. If this city and State made it easier, cheaper and more enjoyable for people to commute to work by taking public transit, they might just solve their gridlock problem and improve the quality of life out here. Hey wait: am I talking about San Jose or Toronto????
Oh yeah–and fix those on and off ramps on your highways–they’re backwards!!!
2. The sky is blue. All. The. Time.
I wake up, the sky is blue. I go to bed, the sky is blue. Well, it’s black when I go to bed, but it was blue. All. Day. Long. There is rarely a wisp of cloud in the sky. It is dry. It is a desert. It is dusty. My house is dusty. The hills are like a crispy, brown tinderbox with a few green trees scattered about. It’s been like this since April. I know there are worse problems to have in this world, but the constant threat of drought and forest fires proves that climate change is real. When it rains here I rejoice. I heave a sigh of relief that the parched earth can take a deep drink and replenish its fluids. I am astonished that homeowners are allowed to water their perfectly manicured, deep-green lawns. Why do they have grass??? I feel like a hypocrite because our rental home has a lush, green front lawn with a sprinkler system that waters it every night.
I miss the seasons. I miss a rip-roaring thunderstorm. I miss the Monet-like shades of Autumn in the trees. I miss the smell of the leaves rotting in raked piles on the lawn. I miss that bite of cold air when summer has departed and Fall has arrived. I miss the first snowfall and seeing a puff of my breath in the air. I miss the glare of the sun off the blanket of pure white snow. A snow storm! I miss the thaw and the promise of something new shooting up through the ground. I miss a rainy day–and the smell of rain–curled up under a blanket with a book and mug of tea. I miss the humidity of summer and the refreshing dunk in the lake to cool off. I miss warm nights. I’ll say it again: I miss the seasons.
But let’s not kid ourselves; five months of winterish weather is not fun. You wake up and it’s grey outside. You go to bed and it’s grey outside. Correction: it’s pitch black at 4:30 in the afternoon after we change the clocks in November. I don’t miss gripping my toes inside my boots and bracing myself as I gingerly walk down the icy sidewalk for fear I will wipe out and break something in my body. I don’t miss feeling the hairs in my nose freeze as I inhale or tensing my shoulders, which lock up around my ears as I steel myself against the windchill. That gets old quickly. I recall piling on layers of clothing and the same boots, jackets, hats, gloves and scarves every single day for weeks and months on end. And that’s just winter! Summer humidity is killer. Without question you need air conditioning to survive. It’s just too damn hot and there is no relief.And the bugs! Don’t get me started on those noxious creatures. I don’t want to complain too much about summer in Ontario, because it’s so short-lived. Oh yeah, that’s the other drawback: it’s so short-lived.
3. What is with the food?!
Food is a tough one because it can provide comfort and make you feel at home if you’ve got access to the food you are used to eating. So visiting grocery stores here is a bit like being an explorer going on an expedition.
Food is also a bit of a double-edged sword because the area of California we live in is so abundant in some of the most amazing produce–on any given day you can source fruit, vegetables, meat, and any kind of dairy from within about a 100 kilometre radius. In that regard I feel spoiled. But I have to say, it ain’t cheap. Good food costs money here. On the other hand, bad food is easy to come by cheaply. Just visit any grocery store here. The cookies, crackers, chips and “soda” drinks are abundant. I have not indulged in such convenience foods, but they too, are overly abundant. I wouldn’t even call some of it food–maybe consumables, because you wouldn’t die (at least not immediately) if you ate it. Your body would just be full of sugar and salt.
The grocery stores carry enough variety that I can usually find what I want–I say “stores” because I have to go to three on average to find all the things I need. I definitely miss certain brands and products, like President’s Choice, Nestle nut-free chocolates, Shreddies and Vector cereal, and Ace bakery breads to name a few. I’ve tried to replicate some of them through other products on the store shelves here without much success.
And what is up with the absence of veal? I have looked high and low for veal cutlets but apparently eating baby cow is gauche here. I was jones-ing for an Italian veal sandwich several months back and every time I asked a butcher if they carried veal, they looked at me like I was a murderer. My quest continues, although I fear I may fail. (update: Whole Foods said they carry veal, but they are currently out of stock) I also haven’t been able to find Montmorency sour cherries (best for making sour cherry pie) or Cortland apples (for making sauce), but I am bound and determined to find them.
As for restaurants, I don’t bother eating out much here. The bar is pretty low when it comes to fine dining. It’s either fast food (I’ll take a hard pass, thanks), or mediocre chain restaurants. The best restos are up in San Francisco.I can’t even find a decent Chinese food joint in the area. There are lots of good Vietnamese places that serve Bahn Mi and Pho. Oh! And if you like Mexican food–burritos, tacos, etc.–you can find a decent taqueria on every other corner. Unfortunately Mexican is not my favourite. So I’m expanding my home cooking repetoire. I’ve got a board in the kitchen where I write down meal ideas and the list is growing. Let’s just hope the kids appreciate my culinary adventures.
I can’t really complain about the food back home. It’s good. (what I’d give for an Ace Bakery baguette right now!) But like I said, the fresh produce only lasts from late May to October. Then we are back to importing berries from Watsonville, which is an hour away from where I live now! And who am I kidding? We rarely got out to a good restaurant (although, when we did it was Amazeballs!), because kids, you know?
4. Americans are paranoid
Obvi! That’s why they carry guns! And have home alarm systems! And cameras to spy on their neighbours! And apps called Nextdoor where people can post about suspicious cars and people driving and walking through the neighbourhood! Maybe it’s only endemic to this particular corner of the universe, but my observations have led me to conclude that people are afraid of other people and it has bred a strange sort of alertness and vigilante-ism. And this is California–one of thee most liberal States!!!! The majority of kids don’t walk or bike to school–parents drive them to school (although, to be fair, many of those parents head off to work after school drop-off). Neighbours will post messages if they see someone they don’t recognize lurking about. That never happened back home. Oh wait! I’m wrong–there is now a neighbourhood watch and several people in the neighbourhood who wish to keep it clean and pristine (apparently there is a sex doll shop on the outskirts of the neighbourhood they are trying to get rid of) and free of any nefarious elements. So if I stop and really think about it, there are outspoken actors willing to step up and step in in both of our neighbourhoods.
Maybe I’m too trusting, maybe I’m oblivious or maybe I just don’t care. This one really stumps me and I have decided to study this cultural difference further as the weeks and months go on. I find it both fascinating and disturbing at the same time.
So those are my early observations. I’m sure others will develop over time. I plan on taking notes and posting about this again (I think I could write an entire post about the horrendous traffic in this region–and I’m not talking about gridlock this time, I’m talking about the horrible drivers). It shouldn’t take long for me to amass more topics (my head is FULL of them). I look forward to sharing with you in the future.
In the meantime my search for comfort food continues as does my dream for a rainy pyjama day.
