Lately, my non-blog writing has focused on my current and particular sense of place. My place for the past 24 years has been wine country. Well, the other wine country actually. Sonoma County: less than 50 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge and home to vineyards, beaches, the Russian River, dairies, old hippies, farmers, horses, historic houses, young urban refugees, geodesic domes and some of the most beautiful views on the planet. Some days it seems that around every corner is a postcard view of an impressionist’s vineyard or a Currier and Ives farm scene.
But really, it’s the people who make a place. Recently I’ve been collecting impressions of the characters who populate our local scene. It’s helped me realize how at-home I feel here. I recognize people everywhere I go in this not-so-big town. Some of them I really know as great friends, some are longtime acquaintances and others are just people who regularly share the same haunts. This, I am happy to say, is the kind of place where people nod and smile as they pass just because we recognize each other, even though we’ve never met. I can’t think of how long it took to feel this way, this connected to this place, but I know it took a long while. For years I went to work, came home, found something interesting to do on the weekends, but never really felt at home anywhere. Then there were the sleep-deprived years of raising a child when some days I was lucky to remember where I was headed, let alone what I meant to do when I got there or whom I had passed along the way. Maybe it’s just age or familiarity that makes me look around now and appreciate everything and everyone around me so much more, or maybe it’s just a change in perspective. I hope it’s not a sign of early onset dementia or some crazy middle-aged potentially purple hat-wearing syndrome, but lately, I am more and more willing to greet the day with childish enthusiasm. Along with that shift has come this new appreciation and even compassion for “my people.”