Next "About Me" Question... What is Something I miss?

​© T.B. Cooper

​Fog. I miss FOG.

I am from Northern California. Right smack in between
​San Francisco and Sacramento.

I NOW live in the Hot & Dry Southern Nevada Desert.

HUGE difference in the weather. Obviously.

1 thing I don't miss about FOG, however, is Driving in it. I HATE driving in it, as should any sane person...

But on an early Fall day, looking out across what should be the gently creeping vineyards of Napa & Sonoma, or the marshes and sloughs of the Central Valley, or Alcatraz in the middle of the Bay, and seeing instead, an endless wall of clouds rolling silently on the ground, is a slice of Heaven to me.

Whenever I go back there to visit, it is something I always look forward to.

Fog on our farm January 12, 2015

The clean smell of the air (Unless we're talking near the refineries of Benicia-Martinez, or the numerous dairies... then, obviously the smell isn't that great), the dampness that gathers on my skin as I walk through it, tasting it. It's magical to me.

And even Stephen King's book/movie The Mist, couldn't sway me from this enduring affection I hold for these grounded clouds.

The mystery of what is just beyond the veil, is too tempting for me. It draws me in like a slow syringe.

We've had Fog on our farm, twice, I think. I didn't realize until I saw it the second time (when it actually stuck around for more than ten minutes), just how much I'd missed it. It made me recall countless happy childhood memories. The kind you unfortunately forget as you age, because life has a funny way of making the painful experiences carry more weight, than the lighter, happier ones..

When I see the FOG, I remember visiting my Grandmother in San Francisco, before she forgot who I was and I then despised her, since I was too young to understand what the effects of Alzheimer's could do to a once vibrant and loving woman. 

Thinking of the visits to her, brings even more happy thoughts as I recall going to Golden Gate Park with my dad and feeding the ducks... Going to Steinhart Aquarium and seeing for the first time a life-size model of a Dinosaur... Going to the Russian Orthodox Church and Bookstore on Geary... F.A.O. Schwartz... Cinderella Bakery... A Dentist's office in Palo Alto... Speingers in Berkeley... The Zoo... The smell of basil growing in the cemetery in Colma, where so many of my family members lay resting... My Aunt and my Uncle's houses in San Carlos that were built into the hills, and as a child, seemed to contain all the secrets of the last 200 years inside them, hidden on their many floors and behind their many doors... 

When I see FOG, I recall my Aunt's place in Petaluma, where I first met my cousins for the first time, where we had family gatherings. I remember driving past the vineyards and farms, and small town architecture to get there. Then I think of St. Peter & Paul's Russian Orthodox Church in Santa Rosa, where my cousins got married, and my children were christened. I think of my Uncle's farm in Sonoma. The place that convinced me I was born to be a farmer. I think of the goat he let me name, Boulka, and my cousin's cat, D.O.G. I think of the baby showers we had there, when my sister and all of my cousins started moving on with their lives, growing up; all of them much older than me, as I was by far the youngest. 

Then I get sad. I ache for the times passed when I was adored and fawned over. When my Babushka would call me her Tanichka and give me wooden spoons to 'play the drums' on a wooden stool, while she made me Bacon & Eggs like no one else ever could. I miss smelling the Brandy and cigarettes on my Uncles. I miss hearing them play the accordions while Mom and my aunts sang with their brothers and husbands old Russian folk songs, partying well into the night. I miss these things I'll never get to experience, emotions I'll no longer feel, and places I can never revisit again, because some don't even exist anymore. The loss of a family member sometimes doesn't hurt that bad, until you're suddenly nostalgic and realize that some places or events, just wouldn't be the same without the person you visited it with, shared it with...

And still some places will never be the same, because my age and height have since changed my perspective...

So yeah, I miss FOG.

Fog makes me nostalgic. Fog lets me reach back through time and briefly hold the hands of loved ones gone, and feel the warmth of memories since forgotten, despite the cool wetness hiding my tears...

What's something you miss? What makes you nostalgic?