Thoughts on leaving Napa

I am not connected to this place in a real sense. I don't own land or grow grapes or make wine. Don't have cows or watch birds. Don't visit wineries or taste wines.

It is a place of my heart.

I was driving from Vallejo yesterday and day dreaming about things I love.

The golden brown hills that give California her name.
The patches of oak trees on the hillsides.
The black cows with the white waist bands lounging in a pasture below the farm buildings.
The way cow paths terrace around the hills from generations of cows taking the easy way home.
The wet lands as I enter the Napa area, spread over the acres with the river rising and falling with the tides.

Having just picked up my sewing machine, I was thinking how much I love it. The shop was filled surfaces, floors, walkways with machines waiting to be repaired. I told Darrell the machine guy about the 1935 machine I played with last year and how much I liked doing that. I was dreaming about being a sewing machine repair lady and how to learn that skill.

I dream of living close to but not with my daughter. Seeing my granddaughters and being available for last minute school pick ups or evenings out. Dinner together, having a beer. I want my husband to be with me, too. I'm dreaming of the day I can have all this at the same time. It's coming, it's coming.

I will be leaving Napa shortly, it seems like home. You can have two homes like you can have two loves if that's what the universe hands you. I will miss the cold wet winter and that is okay. I do dream of those LL Bean flannels and fleeces and waterproof boots. Things are changing.