a question...

Which is better--stability or daring?

on the reservation...

Today was a good day. Joey and Clare Brigli-oh-oh got the married tonight in a ceremony that i must say was really quite lovely and quite a lot of good old-fashioned fun. They were simply beautiful and it was really a great honour and a pleasure to get to kick it with them and theirs in the bosom of their beloved Ojai stomping grounds.

And before that got to have brunch with Dave and Jess down by the beach after which we went succulent browsing and then Jess lent me her nail tools for a little pre-game man-icure. I guess that is what married life holds, huh Dave? And I have to say it was all pretty cool.

But here's the thing. At the reception I was sitting between a rather lovely young lady and this one cat who are both good friends of Joey's. The conversation was nice enough but when this cat hears that I am living out East he kind of throws out the standard comments about how SoCal is essentially the Garden. Now don't get me wrong. I think the old SB is just about one of the most beautiful places I have been in the States and am pretty stoked to yonder back this direction for a while. Could even see putting down some roots in the Coastlands. But I have to admit that I have a reservation or two.

One of the reservations just has to do with the fact that have encountered such overwhelming beauty here and there around the country that it is hard to accept gavel-pounding. I cannot imagine never again looking down on the confluence of the Mississippi and the Wisconsin from the bluffs at Pike's Peak. Or feeling the charge in the air as the sky turns green and yellow in the middle of a grand Midwest thunderstorm. Or rolling through the hills of Northeastern PA in the middle of the splendour of the crisp mid-October changing of the leaves. Just have a hard time getting the sights and smells out of my head when all of that is shuffled away with 'I couldn't live anywhere else'. But I must say that there is definitely something about looking down at the Coastlands from the ridge on a warm winter day or watching the stars dance on the surf at night with a nice pipe full SB tobacco. It is just all so good.

But the real reservation can be illustrated from two very different sources:

Herodotus in his history tells how after the battle of Platea where the Hellenes had rolled through the Persians like a Panzer through Paris the Spartan general Pausanius was looking at what was left of the Persian camp. Now the Persians had invaded Greece the last bastion of independence from the Great King's empire. And at every turn it seems their massive international army had suffered setbacks and defeats. Even in their victories they were bested by these crazy rugged folk from the mountainous Western hinterlands. Pausanius was going through the tent of Mardonius the Persian commander and marveling at opulence of the silver and gold ornaments and table settings and the pimped out Persian gear that Mardonius had left when he went French and turned tail. So Pausanius commands the Persian cooks and bakers to lay out a normal daily meal that Mardonius would have enjoyed. And when they were finished he was amazed at the banquet they had laid out. So he told his Spartan cooks to prepare a normal Laconian meal beside the Persian one. And he paraded all of the Greek generals in past the table laughing and saying "Men of Greece, the reason I have summoned you together is because I want to show you the stupidity of the leader of the Medes. He had daily meals like this, and came upon us to take from us the miserable fare we have here."

Herodotus ends his history with an account of a conversation between Artembares and Cyrus the Great after Cyrus conquered the Medes and formed his kingdom. Artembares suggested that since the Persians had conquered all of Asia they could move from their rough and rocky little homeland in Iran to one of the other lands they had taken where they might be more comfortable and be admired for more things. Cyrus replied that if they did so they should prepare no longer to rule but to be ruled, for "From soft countries come soft men. It is not possible that from the same land stems a growth of wondrous fruit and men who are good soldiers." They chose to "rule, living in a wretched land, rather than to sow the level plains and be slaves to others."

The other source is a song from several years ago called 'Wear Sunscreen' by Baz Luhrman. It is in the form of a commencement speech to the class of '97 and it states:
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in ... California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

So here is the thing... the Coastlands are beautiful and they are certainly calling. But I need a little help getting off the reservation.