wooden shoes and windmills

Sitting outside Starbucks in Huntington Beach this evening, with the coming-of-night air pushing away the heat of the day, I was annoyed with my community - my country. I can't really recall another homecoming (to Southern California) where I felt so very opposed to this place. And I've had my share of homecomings. I can't quite pin-point the annoyance and the elusivity of the feeling only adds to my frustration.

Sure, I've longed for other places before. The green trees and mountains of British Columbia - my university home - or of Seattle - my first home - and I have a special sort of love affair - very unlike the way I love California. Ask me almost any time of the year and I'd say, resolutely, that the Pacific North West is, without contest, God's country! Still, I don't usually feel strong urges to flee from the flat, crowded beach communities that make up my southern home.

The only other time in my life I can remember fiercely disliking this place was when I was relocated here, from Seattle, as a 15-year-old. But that was a unique, strange, immature season in my life when any place other then Washington State - all that I had ever known - felt foreign to me. Back then it took a long time for California to grow on me, but, gradually I accepted it as my home. Still, it has never really been the place I feel I belong.

Right now I miss Europe. I miss the small church village called Zeelst near my town in the Netherlands. I miss the tall, thick forests of Belgium and flat, green, Dutch farmland dotted by the occasional windmill. Surprisingly, similarities abound between my Dutch home and my American home, except that in the US I'm no longer a foriegner. I'm common. I miss the house in Veldhoven where - to all of our Dutch neighbors - we were the mysterious and crazy Americans at the end of the street. They would walk past during evening strolls and stare openly into our windows for some glimpse inside our private world. Needless to say, I'm having a hard time adjusting to "home" this time.

This evening, sitting outside Starbucks, only the deep pinks, oranges, purples and blues of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean remind me that, despite the manufactured landscape, this, too, is God's country. I just need to find contentment within it.