You know, the time when my family and I, Vamshi, Vehd and myself, we pack our bags and embark on our annual migration. It also seems to be the time of the year when I write the most on this blog, to keep in touch, to reach out to all those people, places and experiences that are dear to me.
This year, instead of heading to India like we have done the last 2 years, we are headed down to California. California? We're taking our sun-thirsting souls to southern California to a small town called Ojai that lies about 80 miles north of LA and 20 miles from the Pacific ocean nestled in a valley.
Why Ojai?
We first learned of Ojai in 2004, a few weeks before I started teaching at PSCS. My grandmother was visiting us and we had planned to climb Mt. Whitney. We figured she didn't want to climb it. You know as fit as she is, we didn't think she wanted to haul up to 14,000+ feet. Instead, we decided to go to Ojai where she wanted to meet friends associated with the Krishnamurti foundation. We flew into Santa Barbara and then drove into Ojai, staying only half a day to drop my grandmother before heading off to the mountain. We returned, again only briefly to pick her up. Even in the short time we were there, we were struck by Ojai's beauty, its quietness, the simplicity of the town and the depth of feeling it generated. At one point, we even remarked, "now, this would be a place to come and stay in for a long time."
It seems that time has come. As we contemplated our winter migration for this year, we thought it might be interesting to consider a more local option, some place state-side that would still be warm, afford us a slower pace of living, allow me to explore holistic education and be sprinkled with opportunities to be outdoors. At the time we were discussing this, my uncle was visiting us, having just been to Ojai. A few conversations later we figured going to Ojai might be the exact thing to do this year.
We plan to leave near the end of November driving down and spending time in the Bay area seeing friends we have not seen for almost 10 years. Our hope is to visit Mt. Shasta National Park and Yosemite National Park along the way before touching the coast south of San Francisco to arrive in Ojai by the beginning of December. Being on the same coast as Seattle and on the same time zone, we expect to remain in connection with our Seattle friends throughout the trip. We also hope for some of them to visit us so we can share the sunshine and slower pace with them.
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