Where will the wind blow?

This weekend began with my first night out with my newest dearest friend Rey. We drank Martinis in an über OC bar called Javiers that reminds of a prison during the Spanish Inquisition. Rey asked me one question, honestly, directly: why didn’t you ever leave Orange County? After all, my values and most of the 3 million with whom I share air and traffic with are at complete odds. Family I answered. For now, family.. And still.. the wind blows..On the way home I called my girls. They were waiting for Which One’s Pink to play at the Yost, a historic theater built for the booming Vaudeville movement in 1912, recently renovated. I joined them, suited perfectly in my bell bottom jeans that have enough material from the knee down to qualify as a broom skirt – for each leg. The music was slow, sultry and stony. The light show and smoke from the dry ice and the audience added to the ambiance. The lunatic was in … Just another brick in the wall.. We sang along in unison, moving deliberate, leisurely..Today I walked with my mother, who took her last chemo cocktail last week, and 30 of our peeps at the Race for the Cure. We stuck the Catfish logo that Rey had created for my mama on banners, pennants and stickers. We wore pink cat glasses and matching “Team Catfish” t-shirts. For three miles, you saw images of those who had fought and won and lost their battle with cancer: “Alma,” “Mommy,” “My Amazing Wife.” Nearing the finish line of pink balloons, Aunt Elo told my mom, who was limping slightly, “You got this!” We crossed the line, arms up, laughing, crying, dancing…Tonight as my respite, I munched on dark chocolate covered pretzels, sipped a nice cab and watched Chocolat. It wasn’t Johnny Depp who intrigued me most  – though he is hot. It wasn’t the chocolat.. surprisingly, and then not so surprising, it was the lure of the wind…and the intrigue of unfamiliar places people and experiences that only the backside of the wind can bring you.True, I roll around in the mud and live juicy even in the middle of suburbia – with a crazy mother like mine, this little apple didn’t have a far stretch to reach free-spirited. But sometimes the craving to get to the backroads where Adventure shakes up your paradigm of reality calls to me so sweetly, so powerfully, so relentlessly..In three weeks time I will have earned two days paid vacation. The question on my half capricious, half practical mind is where do I fly now and how can I get the most juice for my dollar? Camping in Big Sur? WWOOFing in Humboldt? Bike riding in Santa Fe?  I guess I will know when the wind tells me so.