What does it mean to be Californian?
California Musings
As I live outside of California for the first time in my life, I feel compelled to write my unsolicited and probably unwanted Californian experience. I’m positive that people from the rest of the country and world are sick of Californians being so goddamn Californian: egotistical, narcissistic, and “chill” in our own pretentious way, but here we go anyway, because I’m Californian.
Californians are cocky. I am cocky. People ask me where I’m from and I say the Bay Area, California, with a casual, nonchalant tone of pride that I’m sure makes people want to slap me. I hear people say they’re from Ohio and Kansas and Texas and I feel a twinge of guilt, as if they could never understand what it’s like to be from the most beautiful state in the world. We have desert, mountains, beaches, forests and Yosemite, and we like you to know it.
California to Californians is a separate enigma that feels different and holier than the rest of the country. Our “vibe” is different, our landscape is different, our way of being is different. We are different and therefore altogether better. The west, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Montana, is rugged and tougher and more spacious than we are, the Pacific Northwest is quieter, greener, and calmer than we are. The Midwest is colder, more communal, and friendlier than we are. Since we are assholes, as I’ve established. The south is altogether foreign, a place we have no business going to and a place we refuse to understand. And the east, to us, are money-hungry snobs, but we see ourselves in them, despite the difference of culture: they are the yin to our yang.
All of this, of course, are lazy stereotypes. The entire country is filled with landscapes of awe and wonder and interesting people, but since I’m from California, I am ignorant to most of it. And the reality is, California, like Texans like to point out to us, is over-populated, too expensive, and has one of the highest wealth gaps in the world. All of this is true, but people keep coming.
In California, you grow accustomed not to the color of red, yellow, and orange leaves in fall, but to the fog that creeps its way from the Pacific Ocean, over dry, golden hills and evergreen oak trees, arriving at your doorstep with the newspaper.
You look forward to yellow mustard growing like weeds in January over the hills beside the freeway, and for the super bloom of orange poppies in the specific two week stretch in early April. You walk desert-dry dirt paths through the hills in June, avoiding rattle snakes and cow pies while admiring the deer. Though palm trees are foreign, they seem native now.
The seasons of New York constantly amaze me. The colors and temperatures and weather and moisture are alien to my concept of “season.” I never understood why, in the movies or on TV, they made rain come down like it was bursting out of a faucet. Kissing in the rain scenes always made me roll my eyes not because they could just take cover in the building they’re standing outside of, but because it doesn’t actually rain like that, I’d think. I didn’t realize that it actually does rain like that until I was 26 years old and caught under an overhang in New York City with 6 other, absolutely drenched people. It took me moving across the country to learn that weather, in fact, does exist.
Californians know fire and earthquakes that usually lead to fire. They know erosion and closed roads by the sea due to fallen rocks or a fallen road. They know wine country. Whether its Napa, Lodi, Paso Robles, Los Olivos, or San Diego, they’ve seen the twisted, gnarled vines bursting with grapes and desolate from having just been picked. They’ve tasted wine straight from a barrel, and if they haven’t, they should.
In the 1840s, people in covered wagons crossed the country seeking silver and gold. My ancestors were among the hopeless romantics panning for treasure — a trait passed down to me as I now live in New York City trying to be a ~writer~. But my roots are planted on golden hills: I am a sixth generation Californian, and, of course, I want you to know it.
In the 1930s, a mass exodus of people from the middle of the country fled dry desolation and death and went West to California: the land of plenty, the land of water, and green. They sought jobs and food and became refugees of their own country. Almost a hundred years later, and we’re mostly out of water, jobs, and greenery — will the next generation of Californians be refugees in Oklahoma? Lord knows we won’t be received with open arms if the tables turn. But I get it, who would want thousands of self-important, vibey, food snobs infiltrating their peaceful town by adding avocado to everything?
A New Yorker recently summed up Californians relationship to food with the perfect question: “Are you really gluten intolerant and allergic to dairy or are you just from California?” I would like to amend that by adding southern before California. Luckily, I’m from the north.
