Once we leave, I suppose we are always writing these love letters to home. Well, this love letter to San Francisco starts with what on earth I should wear for her!

Playing tourist last year before Ryan moved to Chile. Now we both really are…

This past weekend, I packed. I was too excited not to–practically a full week early–test the dimensions of the suitcases, put a few things back, and then start all over. I’m a little doubtful because I forget just what December is like in San Francisco and the respective Bay Area hometowns where Ryan and I were raised and where our mothers still live. Just what does 49 degrees fahrenheit feel like when it’s at least 30 degrees celsius here? What kind of jacket does that require? Will I get there and have packed all wrong for the cherished city I lived in for the last seven years? For the foreign city my great-grandparents moved to directly from Italy. For the childhood city my mother grew up in and played in the fog in when she was a little girl? Can six months erase that kind of knowledge I so recently considered innate? Surely, the answer is “no.” At the end of the day, it doesn’t much matter what I pack, as I’m heading home, at least in the way I think about it when I close my eyes and picture “California.”

Every time I cross the Golden Gate, I’m captivated by this skyline.

On Twitter, I recently joked with some expats that I had no idea how to find San Francisco hotel deals since I’d never needed one. This will be the trip that changes that. Thanks to our updated status as tourists, instead of our apartment at Ocean Beach, we booked a hotel in the heart of the city. Instead of staying in and cooking, we plan to ice skate on the Embarcadero or let our friends recommend a great new spot we haven’t heard anything about. We’ll go Christmas shopping in Union Square and gaze at the epic tree centered there because we’re not subjecting one to the 90-degree temps in Chile, only to have to abandon it pre-maturely.

Looking up…

I’m not all that new to this foreign-ization of home. Heck, it was at the heart of nearly every grad school discussion at Mills, as we read the work of various writers who searched for, found, lost, re-remembered, or mis-remembered “home.” I’ve also spent various 6-month chunks of the calendar outside of California before. There were three years in Boston, one year in London, and nearly three more years in New York, during all of which trips home often came around with the holidays, just as they are now. We wanderers are everywhere, constantly moving from, between, and amongst the pockets of the world we’ve hung our hats in. These feeling are as universal as they are isolating. My California by way of Chile friend, Emily, recently blogged about a similar sensation when she visits her native England, though she is also a Santiago local on account of her many years in country. Right now, it’s hard for me to imagine I’ll ever feel like a local here. But will I still when I go home? I suppose that’s my question.

Looking out…

Then there’s my husband, who has been living abroad for a year and a half now. During the nearly exact year I lived in California and Ryan lived in Chile, he came home just once–for our wedding. We timed it with Christmas, so we knew he could get the time off (and could, you know, make it to the wedding). It was also the time of year our families would all be within reach.

www.jackhutch.com

Even in California, a Northern Hemisphere December is a Northern Hemisphere December: it poured the night before, and a dozen or so friends and family were stranded in New York on account of that massive holiday blizzard I’d still rather not talk about.

But on the Big Day, the sun came out, travel-weary cousins surfaced at the hotel breakfast table, and Ryan and I got to jump up and down under a pristine Golden Gate Bridge for our wedding photographer. It was, as you often say when you get to look back on it, perfect.

Back on the San Francisco side.

We’ll be home for Christmas this year, with our families and friends once again within reach. I thought Christmas 2011 would be calmer because there wasn’t the last-minute frenzy of wedding details to finalize and storm trackers to obsess over, and in those senses, it is. But the holidays always have the potential to be hectic, right? Especially when they fall in line with international travel, what might be our only trip home in 365 days, two full families to celebrate with, a wedding anniversary to welcome and honor, new babies to visit, friends to talk with for hours, a beloved city to explore with the eyes of someone who no longer has an apartment at the end of the N/Judah line, and all the blessings that such a packed itinerary implies.

The old neighborhood from the distance…

I’m notorious for over-booking. In an effort to see everyone, I sacrifice sleep and solitude and perhaps sanity. I’m sure most of us do. But I’m going to still need at least one quite hour to walk Ocean Beach like I used to most mornings, take in the sea sounds, taste the fog, and fall back in line with the pace of the waves. But knowing me, I’ll invite as many of you to join me as possible. Heck, let’s throw a party. Bonfire on the beach, anyone?! Oh, wait, it’s December. Well, no matter where we congregate, I sure can’t wait to see you!

…and we’re about to see it again–up close.