42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

A year has gone by. A year of blogging. A year of changes. Some frustrations. Some culture shock. Lots of exploration.

I moved to Fresno, California a year ago, leaving behind my family, many friends and the region I’d grown up in. I left a job that I was irritated by, though comfortable in. But I was bored, and it was time to change.
I came with a lot of preconceived notions I didn’t recognize at the time.

I’ve learned a lot about where I live. I’ve become familiar with the city, and the area. I’ve learned that palm trees aren’t as exciting once you’ve lived around them for a while.
I’ve learned that while it doesn’t get terribly cold around here, you adapt to think it is cold. I’ve also learned what really hot was.
Fresno is a city of about 500,000 people, and that’s not counting people just outside the city or in sister city Clovis. But it still feels like a small town, with small town big ideas and civic failures, just on a larger scale.

I knew the part of California I was moving to wouldn’t be the sexy part. I’d been warned it was conservative compared to the rest of the state. But I didn’t really believe it.
Well, this is a conservative part. It’s like being home with palm trees and no snow.

People are regular people here, though. They’re not pumped full of plastic, many of them. Though on my end of town, they might be.
There’s a lot of great food around here. Lots of Mexican restaurants, though I have yet to settle on “the one.” Same with pizza. But I do have a couple of favorite Thai places, which is important. And found a fabulous Indian restaurant, when I’d been told Fresno didn’t have good Indian food.

The proliferation of shopping plazas used to drive me insane. I still don’t know what’s in all of them; probably will never know. Growth is out of control here, as developers get more greedy, buying up property and building new upscale shopping and housing. But it’s also interesting, at the same time, to see a place that is growing so much. I just hope that it doesn’t crash too hard.

I’ve seen urban poverty a lot closer than I had before. People begging on corners. Guys with shopping carts. People scavenging like animals through trash.
Families of four or five crammed into tiny apartments, while I found my own original two bedroom apartment to be inadequate for two adults.
The housing market is insane out here. I can’t afford a house, though I make good money. And buying a house has always been my goal of final adulthood.
Families can’t afford houses either. Continue to throw their money away on over-priced apartments.
I bet my own apartment was going for three hundred less just a few years ago.

Most of this sounds negative. I don’t mean it to sound negative. I’m not saying home is better. It’s not.
I’m comfortable in Fresno. I’ve weathered a year. It has been a year of growth.
I do miss home, but I can go back to visit.
I appreciate the many different cultures represented here. I’m always learning more about them.
I love the mountains, the proximity to national parks. I like being able to take off to go see the cloudy coast.
I like being able to explore a new place with eyes not so jaded by familiarity.
I never traveled so much when I lived at home. But that’s because I’d lived there my whole life. There was nothing new to see, even though I’m sure there was.

I think I made the right choice in taking a chance, and living somewhere different. It also makes me appreciate what I had back home.
I miss the smell of burning leaves. The first snow. The first breath of spring in the chilly air.
In Fresno, the seasons are really hot, bearably hot and cool and rainy. They’re not as dramatically different and beautiful as at home. I don’t have the same nostalgia for Fresno’s winter fog as I do for a quiet morning, no traffic, and fresh snow blanketing the ground.

But I am feeling a little nostalgic as I think of the Mel B. of just one year ago, and what all she had yet to experience. One year ago, I was about to make the acquaintance of the smelly shopping cart. A year ago, I realized how isolated and lonely I was, without friends. I drove to explore. I was excited about exploring. I had yet to form opinions about Fresno. I had yet to realize there were less landscaped, less pretty parts of town, though I didn’t live in a particularly nice part of town. I still didn’t understand the graffiti, and had no idea that Fresno had over 50 gangs. I didn’t realize the extent of the drug problem, though I still probably don’t have a full understanding of it. I didn’t know how many people would be shot, or how many bodies would be found in the ubiquitous orchards.
Everything was new, though. It was exciting. I had yet to lose the last little bit of my innocence. I had yet to become jaded about the unfortunately commonplace shootings.

I’m glad to have had that excitement of exploring a new place. To make me feel like life isn’t meant to be lived in one place. To make me experience difference. To get out of a safe place where I didn’t need to grow.

I was also glad when someone else joined me in fleeing the Midwest. I wasn’t so alone when Heather moved out here. I had someone who knew what I missed about back home, and knew what was so different about Fresno. I also had someone to share exploration with, and also to keep me from getting too lost because of my terrible sense of direction.

Home… Michigan always will be Home, even if I never live there again.
Fresno is the place I live, but I don’t know that it will be home with a little h. I do know that I’m fond of Fresno and its many quirks and warts.
And I’m glad for this year.

Meanwhile, I’m now yearning desperately to finally go home, to go see my family and my friends. I’ll be home the first week of December, and have already bought my tickets.
But I know home will not be the same, because I’ll only have a guest bed, and not a house there. And I’ll be at the mercy of my family for transportation unless my cheap self rents a car. And I won’t have my cats, and my stuff. But I will be home.