Home, sweet home

Finally, some warm weather. No, scratch that. Perfect weather. I just about froze my tootsies off this morning in SF... the fog was still rolling in at 10am, and that wind! It goes right through me, right to my bones, no matter what I am wearing (and admittedly, I wasn't wearing very many layers today, and I didn't even have socks on, because I'm ready for spring!).

It's amazing how many different climates there are in the Bay Area, let alone SF. I stopped at a friend's house on the way back home this afternoon, and it was already ten degrees warmer there on the SE side of the City, not too many miles away as the crow flies. By the time I made it home, it was 70 degrees. Finally.

For those of you following Yogamama's Virtual Yogarians blog, you know that I've been writing over there this month as part of her annual April Challenge. I can really feel it in my arms today! I guess I spent a little too much time in downward dog yesterday.

Instead, the warm weather called me outside this afternoon, and I headed over to hike the Stanford Dish around 4:30pm.

OMG.

It was so beautiful. The hills are finally green from the late spring rains, and the views today? To die for. To the north, even though the fog was creeping over the hills, I could see all the way to the silhouettes of the skyscrapers in downtown SF and everything in between. To the east, I could see Mt. Diablo, all the bridges, and even, in the distance, the outline of the windmills on Altamont Pass. To the south, the buildings on top of Mt. Hamilton and Mt. Umunhum reflected in the sunlight, with no smog to speak of, and to the west, as I said, the fog extended over the tree-filled hills like little ghostly fingertips. Hard to believe that Mt. Hamilton was covered in snow not too many days ago.

I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being home. This is my home. This has always been my home.

Days like today make me so grateful to be back in northern California, in all its glory. I know, I know, I complain about sitting for hours at red lights that are out of sync, or the ridiculously inflated housing prices thanks to the inexperienced 20-something homebuyers from Facebook and Google who are cashing in on their stock options, or the fact that I do have to wear a scarf and a parka in the middle of June when the fog comes rolling in like a tsunami. But there is something magical about "hiking the Dish" (as we call it) on a day like today, when a thousand different worlds come dancing together.

You look down in all directions and see the huge Stanford campus... I feel a pride when I look at the hospital, thinking about my work as a student there... not to mention Hoover Tower, the most phallic building on the West Coast! You see the buildings of companies like VMWare, biotech firms with huge solar panels on top, the VA Hospital, NASA, etc., and in the other direction, this huge satellite dish looming over you, with Interstate 280 not too far beyond it. [Incidentally, I have no idea what the Dish does... a friend told me that they use it to search for contact from alien life forms. (I think she's pulling the old, "Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?" trick on me.)] You have the bridges and the skyscrapers, so tiny in the distance, but still so powerful. And then you have the nature... the green hills with the grazing cows, the already thigh-high prickly milk thistle and mustard growing off the path, the orange poppies and calendula dotting the hillside, those fat little squirrels scampering around, and the deer keeping their distance.

If home is where the heart is, then mine is scattered in various places across the world. Today my heart grew a thousand-fold, as I tapped into the roots that had been planted years ago, when I wasn't paying attention.

In my gratitude, I am paying attention.

*****

By the way, fellow bloggers, Wordpress isn't allowing me to link any websites to my posts. (The link button is deactivated.) Any suggestions?