A Californian

Only the Leftest shall pass.

If you’ve not had the pleasure of watching it, “Mad Men” was beautifully set in the grey, monotonous, corporate world of New York City. This certainly gave a seriousness to series, but it’s also what made for such a brilliant moment in the final season’s opening scene when Megan arrives to pick up Don Draper at Los Angeles International Airport.

There’s this living breath of air and freedom as Megan comes roaring into the arrivals zone, top down on an Austin Healey 3000, the sunset shimmering behind her. She slow-motion walks from the car to a Don that is as equally bedazzled as the viewer.

The light, the convertible, and this drapey, flower child-esque dress she wears encapsulate “a California” better than any other moment I’ve ever seen on the screen. It’s the California that I believe most of the world over knows: endless coast, sun, an easy life, and these days, politics that are left of left.

Sóc californià. Soy californiano. Je suis californien. Ja sam kalifornijac.

I’m the proud owner of being able to say, “I’m Californian” in four different languages that are each spoken with varying levels of ability once past this introductory line.

It was a necessary change given that I’d stopped saying that I was American in 2016 once the demonym took on a nasty, red-hatted tinge—above and beyond how a certain kind of English people always curl their lips when saying it.

It also helps that being “a Californian” is something I feel that one can generally be proud of. Admittedly, I didn’t get much of a choice in the matter as the immigration in my family had happened two generations previously, not that I would have done anything differently.

For those not born there, it is a destination, this golden land.

The “golden” bit wasn’t just hyperbole of course as in the mid-19th century hundreds of thousands flocked there in search of actual gold. This mass movement was an act that would be repeated in the Dust Bowl in the early-20th century, actors for the birth of the film industry in the mid-20th century, and now in the 21st century, with so many trying to make a fortune in whatever technology is the darling of the moment (I think it might still be AI, but I can’t keep up anymore.)

I won’t lie, as a Californian, you grow up with an over-inflated sense of your home state’s worth.

You believe it to be the absolute center of the world. It’s hard not to buy into this when you’re hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains, watching the sun set over Steinbeck’s blue hills near Paso Robles, splashing about the beaches between San Diego and Santa Barbara, sipping on wines in one of the countless valleys that easily sport rolling vineyards, hobnobbing with celebrities in Los Angeles, the “city of dreams”, or thinking yourself having made it by managing to exist amongst both riches and extreme poverty in “The City” aka San Francisco.

It’s curious however, as after years of mistaking night sweats for a sense of perfect contentment, one day the fever breaks and you are cured of California.

This happens differently for everyone and at various points in their lives. Sometimes, it never happens, but it definitely did for me once I started to travel, especially outside the US.

I could fly two hours north to Seattle, an hour south to San Diego, five hours west to Hawaii, or five hours east to NYC, and I was still in the same damned country. It takes a lot of effort if one is to leave the United States; an irony given the amount of people who still move to it.

To everyone in other countries who chides me for never having visited my capital of Washington DC, it’s as far away from San Francisco as Lisbon is from Moscow. And let’s face, if a Californian willingly travels great distance within the US, they’re going to go to NYC for their troubles.

It’s sobering when you realize that by the time you wake up in The Bear Republic’s morning, the world has essentially happened. California actually isn’t at the center of the world, it’s at the end of it. When you travel, the further away you get from the state, the more you realize how little the rest of the world actually cares about what happens in California despite growing up thinking to the contrary. They also don’t understand that with these eye-watering salaries they hear about comes eye-watering expenses such as: exorbitant rent, needing to own a car, tipping everywhere and paying for private healthcare, if you can get it.

And that’s what led to the shock of 2003. I had to watch my father wither away until he was too weak to crawl up the front steps to his own house because he had a manageable illness he couldn’t afford the treatment for. This, in the richest country in the world that is so poor when it comes to humanity.

I don’t think I’ll ever not be “a Californian” but now I’m also an immigrant to Spain which is a direction in life I never could have foreseen. I live in the Catalan countryside, going up to Barcelona whenever time permits and bopping around Southern Europe whenever work permits, especially when I’m off to write about wine, which you may know me better for.

“Water of Light” is a collection of these stories and occasional misadventures, hopefully told in a humorous manner that makes their absurdity easier to swallow. On that note, they’re also often embellished to make them far more interesting and saucy than they actually were, unless I’m talking about bread, in which case it’s a very serious affair.

Please buckle your seat belts, put your tray tables up, and open your window blinds as we’ve now begun our descent.