Once upon a time I lived here. “Utopia” we called it. It wasn’t, but the weather would make many think otherwise. The kind of town where the climate and the ease of getting around almost made you forget the utterly dreadful inequity of a community of working class who will never, ever be able to afford to buy a home in an area littered with millionaires complaining about their overpriced lattes and pretending to care about the planet while living in 20,000 square foot mansions.
But I still think of those years in Santa Boo-Boo with a certain affection, from rolling down De La Vina on my bike down to the path that winds along the harbor and up into Montecito, where at one particular point, if your luck is right, you’ll spy the top of a giraffe’s head peeking out from the local zoo. The town where I saw more monarch butterflies in a day than in a lifetime elsewhere, where I grew roses year-round, where jacaranda trees rained purple on my street corner and where I adopted my first dog, one who helped me get my own groove back at a time when I needed it the most…and that where I find my gratitude.
Everywhere on the planet we travel, every luminous place we lay eyes on, every sunset we breathe in? It’s what we must do whatever it takes to preserve, to protect.