On my lunch break at my job in New York I used to walk down an always bustling and heaving Sixth Avenue to nearby Bryant Park. I’d navigate through the tourists, who were amazed by the yellow taxicabs and tall buildings, and the business people who just wanted to get their sandwich and get back to work. I’d stop by a falafel stand that was wedged down 47th Street and get my usual healthy lunch: a falafel sandwich with Israeli salad and a can of Coke.
Bryant Park sits behind the magnificent New York Public Library between 40th and 42nd streets. On warm days, the park was always crowded. A place of respite for pigeons and office workers alike, the tiny park often resembled a refugee camp. There were never chairs, so I would have to wait for five to 10 minutes out of my very precious lunch hour for a place to sit. Eventually, I would eye a chair in the distance and that’s when my New York instinct had to kick in. I had to move quickly to snag that chair from an equally weary investment banker. Finally sitting down, I could enjoy my falafel surrounded by what felt like a thousand other office people, squeezed together in a small gravel square on throbbing and noisy Sixth Avenue. This was as close to nature as I got when I lived in New York.
Then a couple of years ago, I felt a call to California. I had never been to the Golden State but something was drawing me to it. I had just finished reading Jack Kerouac’s odyssey “On the Road.” In the novel, California was a place of self-discovery for a wayward New Yorker. I wanted to see the San Francisco that Kerouac described: “The fabulous white city on her 11 mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.”
My fiancÈ Noah, now my husband, and I were saving for our wedding and at first thought we couldn’t afford the grand road trip through California that I had planned. Noah suggested a less expensive vacation to Vermont. But my psyche did not connect to Vermont. I had not read any grand novels of self-discovery set in Vermont. I wanted to be standing at the edge of the world, looking out onto the Pacific Ocean.
From the minute we landed in San Jose, I loved everything about California. I loved eating lunch outside on a cheerful patio in Carmel. I loved driving down the breath-taking Pacific Coast Highway and being entertained and amazed the whole ride down. I loved swimming with dolphins on Butterfly Beach in Santa Barbara, drinking a little too much wine in Napa Valley, and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time. I remember exclaiming to Noah, “I can’t believe people actually get to live here!” To me, California was a place where you could live life to the fullest.
So when we actually got the opportunity to live here, we were both ecstatic. We said “sayonara” to New York and were excited to make our way west to the land of our dreams. The San Ramon Valley was our destination. We knew it was east of San Francisco but very little else.
I vividly remember the first time I ever laid eyes on Danville. We drove down Hartz Avenue on a summer evening, not knowing what to expect. The sun was setting behind the hills, giving the charming restaurants and stores on Hartz a dreamy glow. As soon as I saw Hartz, I knew we were going to have a good life here. I immediately started looking for a job and eight months later – yes, eight months later! – I had the great fortune of becoming the staff reporter at the just opening Danville Weekly.
It is with a very heavy heart that I leave California and the Danville Weekly. I have loved every moment of living here and I have loved every moment covering this area for the Danville Weekly. My work at the newspaper only confirmed for me what a special place this is. Noah and I are off to our next adventure in Texas. Texas is most definitely not Northern California, but hopefully we can have as happy a life down there as we did here.
I will miss riding my bike on the Iron Horse Trail on Saturday to the Danville Farmers Market and then riding a little further to Alamo to get a cup of coffee at Cherubini Coffee House. I will also miss all the great people I have met through the Danville Weekly.
So if you’re ever having a bad day, just look around you, and remind yourself how lucky you are. Repeat like a mantra, “I actually get to live here!”
