I am currently sitting at a table in terminal one at LAX, waiting for it to be time to board my second flight back home after a week in the Bay Area visiting my sibling and their family. The last time I saw my sibling was two and a half years ago when they were on the east coast for a family wedding. We spent almost a week with them and their partner and seven year old daughter who I had never met before. (A is such a delightful, amazing kiddo and I am so very glad that I will get to know her in the following years as they grow up.) The distance between the east coast and the Bay Area feels impossibly large at times and I feared up as the first of my flights pulled away from the jet way. I know I’ll be back, but I wish visiting were simpler.

We spent a night in San Francisco visiting a good friend who moved a few months before the pandemic started. Again with the distance being cruel. Her apartment overlooks the financial district with a view of the bay bridge which is quite a view at night when the city is lit up. We spent a morning exploring three floors of exhibits at the museum of modern art and she made one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten.

If California weren’t so expensive, and if it wasn’t on fire every fall, I feel like I could learn to love it enough to live here. But then I think about my cozy little home four blocks from the Atlantic harbor and the little community of friends that I have made in the past few months and suddenly that feeling vanishes. I love my home, I just miss my family, both blood born and chosen, when they aren’t nearby.

I leave you here with a picture of the night sky from downtown San Francisco, looking out over the city with the bay bridge in the background. I’m grateful travel exists, even if visits are infrequent.