Fans

I moved to Northern California in late April, 1984. I had just graduated from college and had been selected for a training program in the finance department of Mervyn's. The opportunity was so wonderful and I was so lucky/honored to be chosen. After the day of interviews, I 'had a feeling' I would be selected and took a newspaper on the plane with me and started looking for apartments.

I moved the last week of April - a moving van took most of my household things and I packed everything else I could fit into my Toyota Tercel and headed north. I left Southern California where I had family and zillions of friends to move to Hayward, California where I knew NO ONE. Not a soul. It was scary. And exhilarating. And one of the few times in my life when I felt I was being 'led' somewhere by a power greater than me. I just knew it was the right thing to do and had no doubts about doing it. The same could not be said for most of the people I left behind - but there wasn't much they could do. The opportunity to be one of a very few people invited to leave the 'store' environment and move into the corporate environment was too amazing to pass up.

The drive up was uneventful. I stopped when I felt like it. Didn't feel worried or unsafe. My car was loaded to the top with stuff I would need to live in a motel for a few weeks until my apartment was ready. And all my plants, my guitar, etc. It took all day to make the drive.

When I approached the I-5/580 interchange and headed west, I passed 'Fan Forest'. At the time, it was just the 'Altamont Pass' - and frankly, it creeped me out. It was hills full of whirling, twirling, twisting fans of all sorts of shapes and sizes 'capturing' the power of the wind. I thought 'wow, this place is pretty strange'. I didn't like that stretch of the drive and hurried through it as quickly as possible. It was the first time in the adventure of getting and taking and actually moving up north that I was 'nervous'. Felt a little overwhelmed at that point, 40 miles from my destination and a long way from 'home'.

I've lived in Northern California (now technically the central valley but still 'northern' to me) since and now pass the Altamont daily - I commute to and from work through it. And it is now the 'Fan Forest' - a name given to it by B. when he was little. It was one of the landmarks on the map we drew for him of the route we took to get to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Visalia - and he called it the 'Fan Forest'. I now love that stretch of the road - partly because I always think of B. when I drive through it. And because it leads to home. Our home, which is the place I most want to be. It's strangely beautiful to me now - the way the sky looks as you look through the windmills; the clouds vs. blue sky in contrast to the rotating blades; the sound of the blades whistling through the air. It's amazing to me now. I wouldn't feel that way if it weren't for B. and for my life here. It's a reminder to me how full my life is now compared to way back when.

I think God knew what He was doing when he 'led' me here. It's where I was meant to be.