Back to Cali

East Coast born and bred, I am always surprised by the friendliness of southern Californians. I react suspiciously, and then, ashamed of myself, I let my guard down probably too far.

The ringlet-headed Adonis who brings my bags to my motel room, the suntanned senior citizen who delivers my rental car: why are they smiling? Why are they happy? Why do they seem to be genuinely interested in what brings me to San Diego or La Jolla or Riverside?

Are they hustling for tips? I’d tip them anyway, just out of my overriding Eastern fear of doing something wrong—and I believe that they can smell this. Nor is there anything particular about me that would attract attention or stimulate sudden affection: I’m not a pretty girl, or a recognizable face. Why are they being so nice?

It seems to be just the norm out here, and probably I should know this—It’s no doubt a mark of my lack of sophistication that I don’t have a good handle on this thing called Western manners or California openness or whatever people call it—but still I wonder, where does it come from? What is the cause of it? When did it begin? Is it entirely a function of climate? Of geography? (Are people in Fresno and Indio as friendly as their counterparts in Laguna and Newport Beach?) Did it arrive with the gold rush? Is there some other cultural component at work?

Sometimes I think that these are the most American of Americans, suffused with optimism and tolerance, sun-kissed and feeling fortunate, living in paradise, suspended, not wanting the dream to ever end. Who can blame them? Open the motel-room door to go get breakfast and you’re blinded; you stand there blinking like an owl. As your eyes adjust, your spirit soars: Can the sky really be that blue? Can the breeze be that caressing? Is that sparkling swimming pool for me to use? How could this day not be sensational?

The stories were told of easterners (writers especially) being ruined out here, losing their bearings and their intensity among the Lotus Eaters. It’s easy to imagine. It’s easy to feel when you’re out here on assignment or vacation, and the sun warms your forearms, and you catch a whiff of eucalyptus as you cross the fresh-paved parking lot to an open-air cappucino bar where a blond-haired barista, suntanned and immaculate in her fifties, beams you a dazzling smile.

But at night in your room with the TV blaring, or sitting cramped on the plane ride back home, as you reflect on the traffic and the smog and the astronomical cost of living, don’t you wonder how people can relax out here at all?

How can they afford to be so mellow? Is the culture of the Sun so overwhelming?