I don’t remember much about the decision to move to Carmel, I just remember being on the road with the car loaded. I knew that my mother loved the Coast and longed to be near its healing scenery. The feeling in the car that day was palpable joy. We, the team of my mother and daughter, were actually doing it. We were leaving the confines of Turlock for a new adventure.

The soundtrack to this trip was none other than Staying Alive. Needless to say the year was 1984 and I was seven. It was before I had much of an opinion on where we lived and my only real care was being close to my mom. She was my tether on this earth, as my family wasn’t like that of my friends. I didn’t really grasp the fact that my father was dead, mostly because I couldn’t really grasp the fact that he had ever existed. He passed away very unexpectedly at the age of 43 - when I was just 2 years old. He left behind two children from a previous marriage that were considerably older than me, one of which wanted nothing to do with me or my mother. I suspect he was so greatly wounded by the death of our father that he lashed out in the only emotion he deemed acceptable - anger. My sister would work hard to keep a relationship with me, although I would be an adult before I could really appreciate this.

By the age of seven, I had seen my fair share of dysfunction. Shortly after my father died, my mother fell into a deep depression and a relationship with a man she would later marry…twice. He was a tormented man with many demons that would haunt him well after his life and mine were connected. In fact, he would die of a drug overdose years later, after he had fathered a little girl with another woman.

I didn’t like him, even as a child. He never physically hurt me. In fact, more often than not he would try to buy my affection with gifts.  I was aware, however, that he hurt my mother in ways too adult for me to grasp. The move to Carmel in my mind was a way of fleeing this man and any connection to the world he occupied.

Near the corner of Santa Rita and Pico was a tiny flat roofed house that would be our home for the first year we lived in the 93921 area code. Carmel proper is only 1 square mile and it was a mix of old money, new money, vacationers and those who don’t fit any profile - namely my mother and I. Every morning before school my mother and I would walk a 3 mile loop around town. We would stop in at the Monterey Bay Baking Co. and get a muffin and then head back home to get ready for the day. My mom and I shared a room in this tiny house, a detail that was lost on me until adulthood. My mother had no space from her daughter that first year. Now, as a mother myself, I cherish the fact that my children go to their rooms and go to sleep before I call it a night. I have an hour or so to myself to read, take a bath, watch television, etc. Basically I have an hour to be an individual. That entire year, my mother would give up a part of that individuality to make her dream of living in Carmel a reality.

I rode a school bus and a skate board for the first time that year. I also built a fort in a grove of trees, drove in a Porsche, walked to the beach, and looked at a Playboy. The year I turned 8 I was enrolled at Carmel River School and I had made a few friends. Most importantly, I was friends with the family across the street and their house would be my second home that year. They were an unconventional family. They were also “renters” like us and they didn’t seem to have much more than my mom and I as far as resources. The dad drove fancy foreign cars but only because he worked for a dealership in Monterey. Their other car was a VW wagon, which I would pile in nearly every weekend for trips to the beach. The mom was a total hippie, complete with long unkempt hair, Birkenstocks and no bra. I didn’t understand her at all but I thought she was fabulous anyway. Their two boys, Zach and Taylor would help transform me into a total tomboy that year, something that would be completely undone the next school year because of peer pressure.

Zach was a year older than me and he took pleasure in showing me the ropes. He would walk with me in the morning to the bus stop, teach me to ride a skateboard and be the first to try to kiss me. We built forts, hid in bushes above the street and threw water balloons at cars and generally got into childlike trouble.

Amazingly the kids at school in Carmel were pretty normal. I managed to make new friends and learn new social mores.  It wouldn’t be until junior high when I would notice the life of privilege that surrounded but didn’t include me.

That first year, I really enjoyed the adventure. Looking back I love how my life at times has flirted with the rich and famous. Clint Eastwood ran for mayor of Carmel in 1985 and won the post in 1986. One of the things he promised to do as Mayor was repeal an old law on the books forbidding the consumption of ice cream on the streets of Carmel. On those morning walks I mentioned earlier, my mother and I would campaign for Clint by wearing sweatshirts that said “Eastwood and Ice Cream, What more could you ask for?” We made the paper with those shirts and my mom got to meet Clint at a few different social functions in the year to follow.

The single square mile of Carmel By The Sea held a lot of promise and new experiences that, as an adult, I cherish. In late 1985 we would move out of Carmel proper and into a rented house in Pebble Beach. This year would bring a whole new set of challenges to be discussed at a later date.

Looking back on that first year, my mind’s eye is filled with sand and seagulls and the neighbors’ VW wagon. When I think of the memories of fog filled mornings, bran muffins and cuddling with my mom, a wave of nostalgia washes over me and I can instantly taste the salty sea air and feel the water at my feet.

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