This song has been stuck in my head. For some reason I don't focus on any one person when I hear it, but there is a period of time that keeps filling my mind. It's a brief period. Maybe a few months, and by no means "the happiest days of my life."
What fills my mind is Sundays when d23 and I would go to Il Ghiotto (now Spadra) for pancakes, then over to The Hub (now something lame and horrible) and play chess. Southern California sunshine on a lazy weekend. The Old Spaghetti Factory and the birthdays and dinners there with long time friends. Anaheim streets, that turn into Fullerton streets, that run into Brea and Yorba Linda streets, and all the people and places that I saw on all those streets. Late nights and early mornings under those chromatic skies and burning sunlight in a period of time that was completely meaningless; completely empty. Completely easy.
Not the happiest days of my life, no. In the past that was 1993-1995. I call them the Kontrol Faktory days, and if you were there, I don't need to explain it. If you weren't, well, it's a story best told in person over a beer, or a cup of coffee. I'm old enough now to enjoy telling a tale in person, but still young and impatient enough to not feel like typing it all out.
I may be coming back to Southern California for a little while. Merely extended visits, and not a move. See I still have a girlfriend, and she still lives in Orange County. So to combat the strain of living 1000 miles apart from the person I most want to spend time with, I'm going to try spending a week or two at a time down there. Part of me is looking forward to it. Not just the part of waking up with a beautiful woman who loves me every day, but the part of me that remembers the palm trees fondly. The part that doesn't shudder at the thought of smog, but kind of misses it. The part that smiled under that burning sun.
I'll see you again soon, California.
toothpickmoe:
And she will welcome you back with open arms.