I’m not the adventurous type. I like consistency, familiarity. When my husband’s job required a move–the second in three years–I surprised him, and myself, with an uncharacteristic sense of daring. I was feeling a little reckless.
The first move, from Colorado to California, broke my heart. I had put down roots in Colorado with no reserves, planning to live there forever. After three years in a little town east of Sacramento, I wasn’t so attached. His new job was in the Bay Area, and I suggested we look for houses in Berkeley, the home of our alma mater, UC Berkeley. We had both graduated from Cal in the ’80’s, and when we moved away in 1986, I don’t think we expected to return. It didn’t seem like somewhere we would actually live–it was almost bigger than life.
When you have lived most of your life in the safe, predictable suburbs, Berkeley looks reckless and daring. We’d spent the previous 20 years looking for a safe place to raise a family, with low crime rates and high test scores. I had a growing desire, though, to make our world bigger instead of smaller, more inclusive instead of more exclusive. Berkeley was calling.
The bustling downtown, the crowded restaurants, the narrow streets busy with bikes and cars and pedestrians were exiting. The old, noble houses within walking distance of libraries and coffee shops sparked my imagination. It felt edgy. Berkeley felt alive.
There’s a sense here of being in the center of the world, and it’s contagious. It feels connected; there is an awareness and concern for the world that was new to me. For the first months, I was nearly drowned in the outpouring of opinions and passions I was trying to process–and that was just the bumper stickers.
We put our kids in the public schools, elementary through high school. We wanted them to experience diversity, to learn to appreciate and feel comfortable with different cultures, to love people different from themselves. In this town, the problems of the world are real, and our kids’ ideas of who they are and how they fit into the would be challenged.
I had no idea how much it would change me.
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