Hello Dream, Meet Reality

I packed up the car with a suitcase of clothes, a box of books, some snacks and two mormon boys going out to visit their mom in California. We all fit comfortably enough in the sedan until my iPod decided to turn the Shuffle setting into a playlist themed “Songs for Sinners” including hits like “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground, “Get it on Tonight” by L.L. Cool J and “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton (none of which, for the record, have played on my shuffle since 1999).  As Cee Lo Green belted “F**k you!” over the suddenly too-quiet air conditioner, it started to feel a little cramped in the car.  I was trapped in the backseat unable to reach the Skip button so I took a fake nap to avoid the awkwardness and prayed a silent prayer to Jesus/Brigham Young to forgive me for leading his flock astray. 

Once I had dropped them off in Sacramento, I was free at last to shamelessly sing along to the music which, of course by that point had lost its mojo and was only in the mood for the Juno album and Carla Bruni (which I sang along to using a combination of mumbled French words I learned from Beauty and the Beast).  Then I came around a curve and I saw it.  The Golden Gate Bridge.  I had made it.  Hello dream, meet reality. 

This was a moment fit for a proper soundtrack.  Windows down, sunglasses on (upside-down because the curvy part was hurting the bones behind my ears), “Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangster”: play.  On repeat. 

The city!  Celestial in its splendor!  White sails dotted the sparkling water below and golden buildings gleamed in the setting California sun like the shiny new toy they were to me.  The hazy sky was cloudless and rose-tinted like an Instagram photo in real life.  The palm trees and stucco houses were so classically picturesque, my vision seemed to be bordered by a vignette and I saw the world through the lens of an antique video camera. I held it all--the skyline, the bay, the sailboats--in the palm of my hand.  Mine, all mine!  My fists on my wrists, my cape flapping in the wind, my shadow cast long and wide across the entirety of my kingdom. 

Blink, head shake.  Shoot, where am I going?  Missed the exit.  No worries, I’ll just take the next exit… nope.  This is a bridge, I am confused, especially when I see a sign that says, “Exit towards Golden Gate Bridge.”  (At that point I didn’t know that I was not, in fact on the Golden Gate but on the Bay Bridge.  It did seem strange that it wasn’t red like I had always imagined…)  

My GPS told me to “Turn right and then left then take the onramp onto I-80 West” which took me off the bridge and then put me back on it going the opposite direction.  I then spent the next two hours making U-turns, paying tolls, getting stuck in the middle of intersections, nearly rear-ending four different cars and one pedestrian and feeling an Alice-in-Wonderlandish sensation of shrinking to the size of a pea while the world I had stepped over just a moment ago rose mighty and ominous around me.  I was suddenly swallowed by a labyrinth of six-lane highways, overpasses and one-way roads all conspiring to trap me inside their bowels and poop me out in a sewer underground.

I eventually made it out.  I was not in the sewer, but in East Palo Alto (which Palo Alto yuppies don’t distinguish between).  I pulled into the driveway at my new house--well, the room that is new to me in someone else’s house--and took a breath of fresh California air.  

I’ve arrived.  And by “arrived” I mean just beginning.