Groundhog Day

Today is my anniversary. On February 2, 1982, I arrived in California in my infamous 1973 Buick, olive green, with its tattered vinyl roof, seats strewn with trash, and a gas gauge that unfortunately always registered three-quarters full. I went first to stay with a friend in San Diego (thank you forever, Mary Ellen), promptly set forth on a series of discouraging interviews and inquiries, and finally drove a bit further north to see about a job in Orange County, despite its general reputation among the sun-bleached surf-watching stoners I met in "OB" as a life-sucking vortex of crowded freeways, business parks, and other atrocities, all of which at the time implied potential for employment. I was hired for a two-year, grant-funded improvisational position at a transportation agency in Santa Ana, where by chance there also worked a fellow named Monte who would soon become the best part of my saga. By the time the jacaranda trees along Broadway had shed their petals like lavender snow and the hills of the Irvine Ranch had grown yellow with mustard and the Santa Anas were unleashing crazy cacophonies of wind chimes and making the tall palms sway, I was a California woman.

And on this quiet morning 28 years later, I am still thankful for whatever angels were watching out for me back then. I look up at the living room of the world to which they led me, that plush red chair in the corner, the French doors opening to hills and gray sky, a plain white cup filled with bracing coffee, and all of it comes as a great surprise.

Did I wander into someone else’s life?

It's Groundhog Day. We have reached the halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and inPunxsutawney, Pennsylvania, ol' Phil has seen his shadow.

Here, there are only reflections.