Our First Day in Paradise

When our station wagon rolled into San Diego, I stared out at the freeways looping and criss-crossing and at skinny palm trees shooting up above elevated roadways. I imagined reporting back to acquaintances at the small school in New York where we'd been enrolled for a year and half before we moved to Pennsylvania. They'd been my imaginary audience for chunks of this road trip, probably places like Utah, where our small and lonely vehicle wended its way around magnificent edifices of red rock. By evening, we were still driving, wondering at the spotlights searching out the sides of the cliffs. Was some unfortunate soul lost out here?

And somewhere near the border of Colorado, likely Oklahoma, the sky had clouded over and taken on an odd yellow tinge. My mom said that could be a sign of tornado weather. When we checked into the campground, a couple siblings and I started bouncing on some playground toys and talking about the sky, noticing the changes. Camping was suddenly off, and then we were back in the car to find a hotel room for the six of us. The tub filled up around our feet as we showered, and accommodations were basic, but the room was cozy as the rain fell. We watched TV and ordered hot pizza, seeing coverage of a tornado over Denver (was it this one?). For me, vacating the campground had felt like a near miss. We could have been out in that downpour.

Now that we'd reached our destination on the west coast, I was not impressed. For starters, where were the trees? Random clusters of giant palms didn't count. It felt barren, with shabby homes and their chain-link fences jostling for space, the dusty businesses in square, flat-roofed buildings fading in the dry heat. Over the decades, I've come to appreciate San Diego's unique beauty, come to almost prefer the constant blue skies and the generous green landscaping along stretches of freeway.* It would take me time to find out about the beaches and the pockets of immaculate neighborhoods, the energy of a million happy people, the casual wealth and the new, clean, hopeful construction projects, the multitude of international restaurants and the friends from all over the world--not to mention the ubiquitous Mexican food places, where you can walk up and order savory carne asada tacos with guacamole.

Guacamole. Our first afternoon in our new home city, we were hungry and opted for Mexican food. We wanted tacos, we decided. Something familiar and satisfying. We kids were puzzled and disappointed at what was set before us. Instead of the folded tortillas holding identifiable comfort repasts of ground meat and cheese, our order came as tightly rolled things stacked like a pyramid, a little hard to bite into and, most confusing of all, heaped with a garish green paste of some kind. Surely they had gotten our order wrong. When my mom explained that the green stuff was avocado, I felt somewhat reassured and tried to eat it, but just didn't find its creamy texture and bland taste appealing. We picked over it as best we could, but would have loved some real tacos. These days, I order a side of guacamole if it doesn't come with the dish, and I'll eat it straight out of the bowl if no one stops me.

Our next stop was at the house where we would be staying until we could get a rental of our own. It was in a neighborhood called the Barrio, an older place, quiet and carpeted inside, and the residence of the energetic pastor who had invited my parents to work with the Lao congregation. I remember light-colored carpets, dark wood furnishings and walls, and a mantlepiece. There was a long dining room table where the pastor and his wife would share dinners with not only us, but with the others they hosted in their home. It seemed like there was a man or a couple from China, two older ladies living out back, our family of six . . . how did they fit that many guests on a patch of urban property? And what did the pastor's wife think of having all those people trooping through her space? Would we find anything to do over the weeks of summer in someone else's backyard? It was going to be an unusual summer.

*To give my thirteen-year-old self credit, it seems as if San Diego has improved its city landscaping over the years. It's a greener place than it used to be.