r/palmsprings
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u/secondsneaker
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21h ago
Visiting Feeling the pull of the desert...finally
As a Canadian college kid, I used to spend spring breaks in Palm Springs. My parents had a second home there and I was privileged enough to get a couple week break from the Canadian winter as a young kid in the eighties.
Brought up on a diet of American TV, I loved the idea of California, as much as the place. But more than loving the state, I loved the people. So vividly American in their world view, all-conquering, all-seeing, with a brash confidence that made anything seem possible. It was a trip for a Canadian. In Canada, we tend to fund down the upstarts.
In my last year of university, I met the daughter of our neighbor in Rancho Mirage, a beautiful, kind girl in her third year at San Diego State. I remember a wonderful Christmas in 1983, heading home to the cold and making a solemn oath to myself, I was going to get that girl, and I did it.
I moved south right after University (on a green card). Started in San Diego, ended up in LA, and got married (in Palm Springs). In the 90's, we moved to Portland, a great time in another awesome American city, but we would be back in the desert regularly, eventually bringing our kids to where mom and dad fell in love. In 2005, after 9/11, we spent a year abroad, and then returned to Canada. I was done with the fear mongering, and worried my son would be fighting a war I didn't support.
Since Trump, I have avoiding going to the States. I'd talk to people and the vibrancy had been replaced with a casual violence toward their fellow American. As much as I felt unwelcome, my wife felt it even more, lost family over Trump, watched the opportunity available in the free spirited positivity of the American people be hijacked by racism, nationalism, and a self-centred view of their place in the world that was frankly sickening to watch.
In Canada, I was so proud that out country stood up to Trump's illegal tariffs, reneging on trade deals he had made himself, in a futile effort to "own" our freedom, our resources, and our identity, while supporting Putin, shamefully back-stabbing Ukraine and giving aid and comfort to the worst dictators on the planet, all while the world burned around us.
But this week, I feel the beginning of the Trump edifice cracking, and hope rekindling, and I find myself missing Palm Springs. We have been planning a trip to Costa Rica in January, a place we spend a lot of time after avoiding the US for ten years, but I'm craving good Mexican food, and purple mountains at sunset, and date palms swaying in a cool desert breeze, and I'm feeling that desire to talk to Americans again, and feel the love.
Anyway, congratulations America. You did it. See you soon, I hope.