The Love Song of R. Anica Dewdrop

ADVENTURING AND AVENTURINE

Michaelito and I like to steal away to random parts of Southern California as a way of living out our romance. By exploring the world, making memories, and making each other laugh, we get one step closer to having something epic.

Lately, however, things have been difficult. The only way I can describe it is to say things have been like Sex And The City, Seasons 3 and 4, except Michael’s not a furniture designer and my Mr. Big doesn’t have a winery.

It was time for a day-trip.

Usually Michaelito and I go to ghost towns or quaint locales, but on Thursday, I said: Orange County! I was born, raised, and forced to learn English in an elementary school that was minutes away from South Coast Plaza but also minutes away from where people get stabbed and die. Orange County holds a special place in my heart, and no matter how insulated, fragmented, and illusory it can be, I’ll always aspire to live there (for at least a couple of years anyway.) It stands for everything I’m not, but I can’t shake the impressions and notions I formed as a little wide-eyed girl living in my grandmother’s tiny house cramped with fifteen other relatives, including my pregnant mother, two siblings, two parrots, and a dog. Impressions about the world outside this tiny house and about the ways other people live were constantly developing my eager mind, on our way to worship at our Spanish-speaking church or heading to the parks with the good playgrounds or the grocery stores with the Mexican cheeses. I loved leaving that house, and I loved memorizing the streets and freeway numbers, and I loved the well-paved roads and the cheap neo-hacienda architecture and every shiny restaurant that looked like it would’ve cost my father an entire week’s pay, the kinds that served food I wouldn’t afford to taste until after I turned eighteen.

This house was just one of the several living situations my immigrant family found themselves in, but it’s the only one I remember well, before my father packed his growing family into his third-hand Dodge and moved to Riverside. I remember the front-yard tree with the tire strung from it, the backyard with the fold-up table where my grandmother made her banana-leaf tamales. We moved when I was seven, and after that I would only think of Orange County when it came time to go anywhere or do anything. It was the place I would head to when I snuck out of my parents house late at night, the only other place I applied to study film, had the only beaches, the only concerts. I liked that I could find elote-vendors at any given moment and then rich-people-watch in gorgeous beach towns the next. Because everything is so well-kept, it was hard to imagine anything bad happening there, even though I knew first-hand it was facade.

I took Michael to see that tiny house on Thursday. The tree is cut down, and we marvel at how half of my grandmother’s entire family could manage to actually physically be in the house at the same time. It was important to me, to show him who I am and why, and for him to care to know.

In fact the entire day was amazing. Before I walked him down my memory lane, we visited Mission San Juan Capistrano, which was like discovering chocolate ice cream or discovering chocolate ice cream grows in your backyard. We sat on an ancient bench in the shade, and watched the bees hover over gorgeous gardens and fountains. We walked around the ruins of the cathedral, then around downtown San Juan Capistrano, and we fell in love with the cottage-businesses and quaint houses of Los Rios district, which is where I took the above picture. I bought pieces of aventurine and blue lace agate for my jewelry. Later heading back north, slowly making our way home, we explored the galleries and businesses of the Santa Ana Arts District (a place I know like the back of my mano) and we discussed, over wine and artichoke & mac & cheese, how we can’t wait to buy art together someday. 

When it was time to go back up the 405, I rested my head on his shoulder, and I thought about what I value and what I want. I’ve known my Mr. Big for a tumultuous six years. Discernible success and charming, confident masculinity make a delicious combination, but days like these remind me why I left him for Michaelito. On top of that, it’s hard to be friends with an ex sometimes, especially in this case, when so much time has been invested and there is still a force pulling us to drive each other crazy in a bad-good and bad-bad way. 

But on Thursday, everything felt a lot clearer. I grew up humbly, so I don’t need to ride around in a Bentley or Rover, or live in a five million dollar home for two people, to feel romanced. All I need is a kind man.

With a sweet, funny man, one could romance every, and all, day.