California Scheming

Sea hag convention

“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.” - Edward Abbey

I have lived in California all my life, except for a year that I lived in Portland, Oregon. It seems that everyone has an opinion about life in California and the people who live here and that’s okay, but it’s also not interesting to me anymore. These days I am more interested in listening to my own voice. California is for me.

I lived in Santa Cruz until I was nineteen and then moved to San Diego to attend SDSU. I have lived in the Bay Area, the East Bay, Sacramento, the suburbs of Sacramento and now Loomis. I heard an artist once say that all of California was her home and I thought that sounded right.

A little secret about us dreamer types: we are also schemers. I am always searching my mind for ways to get back on the road and have a new experience usually by a beach. Next up on my agenda is Santa Barbara, Cayucos and Cambria, California. I have titled this trip “Sea Hag Convention” on my calendar. I hope to spend a whole day lying by the water with a book and take many salty air walks where I troll the sand for shells. I have bookmarked places that serve oysters.

In researching mermaids a while back I somehow landed on sea hag lore and quickly became besotted with them. Sea hags are old, gruesome (often covered in seaweed) and powerful. They delight in tormenting sailors, can control storms and eat small children. Hags like living alone often in caves or underwater, but occasionally form covens of three with other hags. A hag is unbothered by chaos.

I thought, yes, when I am old I shall be a sea hag draped in ocean debris living on a beach in California. I will adorn myself with shell jewelry and allow my weathered skin to deeply wrinkle. I will be the tormented sailor traveling up and down the California coastline—having claimed all of the state my home—seeking salty adventures.

I will write the stories of California that are still small seeds planted in my mind and remain unbothered by the violence and chaos of the mortal world.