I’m from California.
I was born and raised in California. The word California often conjures up images of palm trees, the Beach Boys, convertibles with the top down. It’s Hollywood or San Francisco, celebrities or liberals, beaches or vineyards.
It’s not often that people think of the farms, the cookie-cutter suburban sprawl–but that’s what I mean when I say I was born and raised in California. I grew up in a suburb just south of the state capital, one of those neighborhoods where the houses all look the same and all sport a three-car garage, where the schools are good and the parks are sprawling. You have to drive to the strip mall for your groceries, and you can drive through the bank and the post office.
The best part of Sacramento, I always tell people, is that it’s two hours from the snow, two hours from the beach, two hours from San Francisco. “But nothing to do there,” the punch line always comes. Except, of course, that there is. Now that I’m across the country from my hometown, I find myself missing the tree-lined streets, the affordable prices, the bars where literally everyone knows your name.
I didn’t grow up with Midwestern values or East Coast sophistication, Southern manners or a Texan sense of independence. I grew up with tomatoes: picking them warm off the vine as an afternoon snack, carrying paper bags full of them to give away at soccer practice or Girl Scout meetings (only to be met with every other girl trying to do the same). I grew up with field trips to the State Capitol, studying the California missions and building them out of foam board, dressing like a pioneer and panning for gold. I grew up with pool parties and wakeboarding trips in the summer, mud sliding through soccer practice and spending weekends at friends’ cabins in the winter.
Going home now is a breath of fresh air, the wide expanse of open skies a welcome sight after a view saturated with skyscrapers. It’s driving through pastures full of cows and orchards full of cherry trees, winding through the hills of the East Bay and across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. It’s backyards and driveways, blasting the radio during morning traffic and remembering quarters for the meters. It’s 2 a.m. closing time, snowboarding in T-shirts and sunglasses.
Nor Cal is home to Sacramento, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Humboldt County. We grow the majority of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, as well as produce its marijuana and meth supply. We’ve got an often-deadlocked legislature, we voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger. We’ve got an economy to rival some of the countries of Western Europe. We have everything a tourist could ever want: big city sophistication and celebrity spottings, small town charm, mountains, deserts and beaches.
When I say I’m Californian, what I’m trying to do is conjure up all of those traits that I love most about home. I want to say that I’m picky about fruits and vegetables because I grew up with the best of them (literally) in my backyard; I’m picky about ethnic food because I grew up in the most diverse city in America with enormous Mexican, Vietnamese and Liberian populations, and the authentic restaurants to go with them. I want to say that I got my driver’s license far before I ever rode a subway, and I spent enough of my life in traffic that the grime and crowds of the subway will always be a novelty.Nor Cal likes to promote itself as more laid-back, less image-conscious than the hoity-toity beach towns and sprawling celebrity culture of Southern California–we’re chill, we’re fun, we like our wines home-grown and our women tan.
I might not be living in California now, I might not be calling Sacramento home–but I’ll always be Californian.
