Sometimes you get what you want

I'd thought I might go for a drive to see some orange trees; being new to California and rather fond of getting in the car on the slightest excuse, it seemed fun. The East Bay ended up seeming a little too far away from the kind of sweeping orchard I was imagining. California’s actual size, and the distances between things, remains mysterious to me—in spite of past visits and my current residency.

San Francisco is kind of the same. It exists in my head as a little place: just a handful of pop culture references—Jefferson Airplane, the Full House house, "nuclear wessels”—connected by hilly streets occupied by Joan Didion's hippies. It’s always a surprise when I end up on a freeway with a kajillion lanes that goes on and on for about eight of my mental San Franciscos.

I did that cross-city drive today: took the bridge from Oakland (it turns out there’s more than just that famous one here) and headed south. Not in search of orange groves—just driving to pick up another piece of marginally useful not particularly practical totally perfect vintage furniture.

My destination was down in Redwood City; I was able to get off the freeway and take quieter roads along the hilly spine of the peninsula. The wind was crinkling the surface of the reservoirs. The grass on the hillsides looked toasted; the trees seemed to be clinging to their green in the heat.

My furniture acquisition complete, my mind turned to that most American of drives: rush hour. But then—just as I turned the corner to loop back to the freeway, a flash of colour in a tree caught my eye. Orange!

Actual orange trees just hanging out in someone’s front yard! They were in a kind of mediterranean-styled yard with a short plaster wall topped by a large decorative urn at each corner. The three trees looked lush and sturdy—straight trunks topped by a fluffy green ball of foliage, just like a child’s drawing. And the trees were full of sunshiny orbs. It all looked so perfect it almost seems fake.

There's a metaphor somewhere here—a quippy little self-help positivity parable—but for the moment it is simply a new memory, fresh as fruit straight off the tree.