Over
the course of sixty-three years, I've lived in a lot of places. I've loved something
about each of them. The canyon where I
grew up had lots of trees, a creek, and was close to the beach. Coarsegold, where I lived for twenty years,
had magnificent views of the high Sierras, the San Joaquin Valley and the
Coastal Range.
In
the fall of 2010, when I had to say goodbye to the beautiful house my husband John
and I built ten years before, I knew nothing would ever replace it. We'd chosen
the design, the site, how to situate it to take in the best views, yet not
compromise the mountain.
I
had several months to take "goodbye walks" through my manzanita
grove. I still think about those beautiful smooth-barked trees. In the spring
they are covered in clusters of pale-pink, bell-shaped flowers that turn into sweet,
apple-flavored berries in the fall. Raccoons,
coyotes, my dog and I loved to eat those "little apples" which is what
manzanita means.
Because
we were moving to a town, I knew I would miss the rabbits that came out at dusk
and the coveys of quail that skittered across the road. I had been living a
rural life for twenty years. Our mailbox was two miles from our house. The
closest market was seven miles away. I drove between fifteen and thirty-five
miles to teach in after-school programs.
I knew there would be benefits to living in town, but I wasn't sure how
I'd adjust to "civilization" after having complete privacy for so
many years.
Then,
one day it dawned on me. "I want to live where there are sidewalks,"
I told John.
I
didn't mean the noisy strips of concrete that line Wilshire Boulevard in Santa
Monica. (Although, when I lived in my condo in the late '80s, I did most of my
shopping on foot, coughing when a bus spewed disgusting fumes.) I meant a
quaint, old-fashioned sort of town, with a town square, and shops in buildings that
had been around for more than a hundred years.
Last
Saturday night, after dinner at the Branding Iron at the Y.O. Ranch resort – a
restaurant reminiscent of the 1960s with a high-ceilinged, muffled dining room,
white tablecloths, and heavy silverware – I asked John if we could drive by the
courthouse. Earlier in the evening there had been a parade that culminated with
a holiday lighting ceremony. I wasn't
sure what to expect.
He
found a place to park a block away and told me he was going to use the restroom
at Azul, where he goes to listen to music at least once a week. I said I'd meet
him back at the car and set off toward the courthouse.
I
could see a small crowd and hear an announcer talking on a stage lighted red
and green. I hurried as he called out, "Are we ready to see some
lights?" And began to countdown,
"Ten . . . nine. . . eight. . ."
Just
as I stepped onto the grass, lights came on: red, green and white strands wrapped
around trees, Frosty the Snowman, Santa
and his reindeer, candy canes, wreaths and over on one corner, a wooden manger
scene. The crowd "oohed" and
clapped.
"Let's
go see Santa!" a teenage girl called to her friend and the two of them,
dressed in shorts, darted past me.
I
meandered through a multiracial crowd: young parents with toddlers, elderly
couples with canes, middle-aged men and women, boys and girls clutching red-and-green
light sticks. On stage, a female County-Western
singer, accompanied by a guy strumming a guitar, began to sing.
I headed back toward the car but walked past
it, looking in shop windows. I passed
the historic Schreiner house, now a museum. In Azul, I found John talking to
the bartender.
"This
is Doug," John said, and Doug and I shook hands.
As
we left the bar, walking up the basement steps to the sidewalk, I felt a huge
affection for my new hometown.
Kerrville
is the perfect place for me. It may not
have spectacular views of mountains or the ocean. I don't run into movie stars
in the supermarket, like I do when I'm back in Pacific Palisades. (But I have had breakfast with Kinky
Friedman.) It's simply a friendly, unpretentious place to live, with parks and
a river, wide-street neighborhoods where herds of whitetail deer greet me each
morning. We have shopping malls, tons of churches, theaters, and cafes. And
yes, well-maintained sidewalks in the charming, revitalized, historic section
of town.
